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I wonder about tournament movies as well as movies based on tournament games. Mortal Kombat has cracked the "secret" to a good tournament B-movie way back in 1995 - rip off "Enter the Dragon" (which has served as the inspiration to tournament games). Opening narration, fight scene, character development, backstory, fight scene, character development, comic relief, fight scene, continue until climax. I'm not the only one who thinks that is the case:
See the Jabootu review of Mortal Kombat for more details
Fast pace, likeable (or not completely annoying) characters, decent fight scene choreography... in theory, it's hard to mess up. Unless, of course, your characters are retarded, you have no idea how to stage a fight scene, and your plot is an overstuffed mixture of 6 different games and your own stupid ideas.
Which brings us to Tekken. A bad movie for all of the above reasons, it really earns my ire for the treatment of the two bad girls. Now, Anna and Nina are rival siblings, one good, one bad (or one mercenary while the other psychotically sadistic, whatever) who's beauty and fighting skills have been using to great effect in the games, and
to a greater effect in the anime and... to a far lesser extent here.
Let us review. (I'm skipping a scene where the two, dressed as ninjas, attack the protagonist, since the flickering lighting and atrocious choreography of the scene combine to give me a seizure and a rage apoplexy at once)
The two are the lovers and enforcers of the films secondary villain (grandson of the main villain on whose machinations too much time is spent). No trace of their traditional Caine/Abel rivalry remains
And they have a threesome with him. Even that, the movie can't get right. If it shows us anything beyond vague lingerie glimpses, it would forfeit the age-rating that would get the most butts in the seats, so it merely teases in the most frustrating and pointless way.
For much of the rest of the movie, they just stand around, glowering.
Skipping the ninja attack scene for the above-mentioned reasons...
The most action either sees if a fight with the heroine for Nina
As I mentioned above, the movie really can't do fight choreography, so their contest is neither visually interesting, villainously vicious or exploitationally sexy.
As for Anna? She just disappears from the film, having fulfilled her lack of purpose. No tournament fights, no attacks on the hero.
Tekken was disappointing for a lot of reasons, and you can add poor utilization of excellent evil babe material to the list.