ultimitsu Reviews

Tekken: Blood Vengeance (2011)

Really wanted to love this movie...

[5/10 · 12 January 2012]

After 13 years of playing the game, after seeing how namco stated they would do a proper movie to redeem themselves for letting that disappointing live-action movie to be made, I had high hopes for this animated movie. It is every tekken fan's dream for there to be a true masterpiece of a movie.

Unfortunately, it did not happen. this movie turned out to be yet another mediocre attempt. Better than the live action for sure, but still fall way short of what was expected of it.

First problem is the general directing and "acting", too much pretentious "I am cool" crap, mostly from Anna, Nina, Jin and Shin, yuck! if tekken was aimed at 15 years olds then I would understand, but most long time tekken fans are now in their mid twenties to mid thirties. these high school wannabe facial and body expressions simply come off superfacial and repulsive.

Second problem is voice acting. I watched the English version, after the 3rd line of the whole movie, where Nina and Anna exchange greetings, I was like "oh boy..". The voice acting is closer to a cheap DVD localised release of anime series than a mainstream feature animated film. it was as if voice actors had no proper direction or had not understood their characters, several characters come off as cheese and pretentious. since it's just like their acting, maybe it was intended after all.

third and the biggest disappointment of this movie is the way the final battle had taken powers so out of proportion, almost as if we have moved from Tekken universe into Dragon Ball Z universe. this sort of elevation is not a problem if the movie did not have tekken in its roots. the whole point of tekken is balanced fighting power between its characters that makes a fight possible. Turning it into a plasma canon feast completely destroys the fundamental dynamic between the characters. and in the end one super Saiyan characters seemingly seriously but obviously jokingly tells a teenage girl, "some day you will defeat me" .

Having said all this, Blood Vengeance is not without merits. I really enjoyed its animination in general, Ling has a difference face in every tekken game she appeared but she looked the best in this one, yet still maintains a very oriental look. some perverted shots from below hers and Allisa's short skirt were amusing. Music and sound effects are top quality. Lee's comical presences was great, it was a pity that they did not handle Anna and Nina in a similar less-serious more-fun approach.

All in all, Tekken fans will see it regardless what people say, non fans will find plot somewhat puzzling and over movie lacklustre, but semi- decent entertainment nevertheless.

Blue Valentine (2010)

a terrible movie of a rare kind

[3/10 · 4 January 2012]

There are many movies that you would think was great as you watch it, but afterwards on reflection felt something about it was weak. Then there are few movies that afterwards you would realise it totally sucked. This is one of these movies.

Let me begin by praising Gosling and William's performance, they were great, though I don't share the same view as some other viewers that they were exceptional. they both have done better work work elsewhere.

The first noticeable major flaw of this movie is its cinematography, it down right sucks. In this day and age where a lot of indie film makes can use SLRs to make clips great quality, there is no excuse for this sort of appalling filming. the whole film looked grainy, unpleasant and very often of focus, it was a waste of money to see it on Blu-ray. the colour and tone was never pleasant through out the film, even in the happy scenes where it could not have been intended artistic direction to make everything look dull and unattractive.

But the biggest problem is its plot, it is simply broken. The movie is basically two supposedly related stories unfold together and somewhere somehow they suppose to interrelate and make sense of everything. But that didn't happen. We see the young, naive if not retard Dean woo the equally naive if not selfish Cindy with his innocent charm and begin the happily-ever-after, we at the same time see the older, still gentle and loving but frustrated Dean try to keep their marriage work, with that same Cindy, what happened in between, where and how exactly did Cindy "lose her feelings" over the course of their marriage (as she was predicting at the beginning of the film)? Fatally, this was never explained.

Some viewers may insist that you could to draw inference from the fact that she was so smart and he was so dumb and lazy so they would draft apart. That is plausible but in the fashion that it is unexplained, it is a major hole in the story. Audiences can always make up their own mind as to what the story could be but that would defeat the whole purpose of story telling.

If we are to understand the story the way it is told, the only conclusion we can possible draw is that Cindy is a terrible person. She was a loose woman in her youth, 25 sexual partners since she was 13 to before entering med-school, got pregnant, has sex with a guy she just met, then tells him that the baby was his, he marries her for who she was but she constantly tries to change him into something he doesn't want to be, and psychologically abuses him with her passive aggressive treatments, in the end despite his unconditional love to her and her daughter, she divorces him over one day worth of fighting. If this is what the story really is about, then it has got the tone all wrong and it is not a enjoyable story, if the story is suppose to be about "manage love is hard", then it failed to do so, it tells us something else completely.

the only thing truly heart breaking is that after 9 years of hard work of rewrites and financing, all they ended up with is this pile of "doesnt make sense", somewhat ironically parallels the main theme of the movie itself.

The Human Contract (2008)

this movie gets a solid 2 for having Pez Vega

[2/10 · 29 May 2011]

It is true, this is a terrible movie. it is not the sort of movie that leaves you feeling you have wasted your time as such, but rather, a waste of emotion. After you finish with it you wonder, what was the point?

there were several threads through out the movie that never developed into anything, for example the negotiation meeting, the brother in-law, the horny Italian girl friend, the blonde girlfriend, the photo shoots...

the main character Julian is about unattractive as they come. he has no humour or charm or sex appeal of any kind, not even half good looking, on the other hand he is violent, moody and above all, unhappy. it made it unconvincing how someone as gorgeous and lovably as Pex Vega's character would be at all attracted to this guy, let alone fall in love.

there were some sex in it, none felt satisfying or necessary, if anything, their lack of elegance somewhat reduced my enjoyment of the movie.

Tekken (2010)

non-fans will trash this movie, fans will hate this movie

[1/10 · 22 August 2010]

As an avid game player I rarely watch game made movies, but of the ones I had watched, Tekken is easily worst. Even Doom was a better game movie than this junk, and at the least DOA had some nice sceneries.

When you make a movie based on a game, there must be some element about the game that is worth using, in Tekken the game there are many, moves, story, locations, etc. yet Tekken the movie had none of them.

Tekken is loved by many for its bone breaking move animations, various fighting styles, and its signature game mechanism - juggling and 10 hit string. you would expect the movie to at the least incorporate some of that. but instead we got nothing, the only character with moves somewhat resemble its original is bryan fury and eddie gordo, what happened to Jin's Kazama Karate? Kazuya's Mishima Karate? Steve's boxing? and Law's bruce lee style kung fu? there was no juggle nor 10 hit strings, most of the fighting were extremely generic and somewhat sub-par by 2010's standard, especially when you consider this is suppose to be a fighting game.

Tekken the game is also rich in storyline, especially during first 3 installments, each character had an interesting back story and good motive to enter the tournament, feud between them is often quite entertaining. Yet the movie chooses to abandon just about all of it, reinventing the wheel, which by all accounts is boring and generic, not even close to the level of the original. I especially hated the part where Kazuya admits raping Jun with no remorse, in the game it was never confirmed it was rape, it was more implied to be a one nightstand, i.e. Kazuya had a wake of conscious and showed his human side, and attracted Jun, but retracted to his demonic side after which caused them to separate. This kind of story had much more potential to be explored into something warm and bitter (or cliché).

Character roster choice is also bad, rivalry between Jin and Hwoarang, Jin and Xiao or Asuka's potential love interest, would all have fitted in much better than Christine and Miguel's story, Yoshimitsu is hard to do right so IMO should not have been brought out since they couldn't do his right. And the turned the most menacing Tekken character, Heihachi Mishima, into a muscle-less fat fart.

All in all very disappointing, apart from character costumes, this movie in noway resembles Tekken and all these things it sets out to outdo the game had failed badly.

Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (2003)

Worst out of the three TV adaption

[1/10 · 7 February 2008]

As usual, CCTV production always has the top quality scenery, make up and costume, but this production fails at its useless cast, terrible direction, laughable dialogs and unbearable special effect and fighting scenes.

Hu Jun as Xiao Feng has got the right body size, but not the right brain size, he has no understanding of Xiao Feng, does not have any qualities the character suppose to have - honorable and intelligent, all his got is bitterness and unconvincing anger.

Lin Zhi Ying's Duan Yu also has little resemblance of the character, this guy can not distinguish the difference between naive to stupid, being humorous to being a clown. Xiu Qing as Mu Rong Fu looks 10 years too old, apart from that, you don't get much of a impression from him. Hao Chen way over-acted as A-Zi, this character suppose to be cruel and cold, but attractive and smart, Chen is just plain annoying. Liu Yi Fei and Liu Tao are the only two main cast worth watching.

In regards to dialogs, I don't understand why cant they just use the original from the book, they are after all very easy to understand, and since all Chinese TV shows always comes with subtitle, no audience will ever have trouble understand, so why ruin it by change them all to silly modernised stuff and repeat the same thing several times in each scene!?

Martial arts and Qi Gong are completely unwatchable, endless spinning-on-a-wire and everyone-can-fly with explosions-on-demand, you'd wonder haven't these choreographers watched any 80s classics?

All in all, I am very disappointed, my advice is don't bother with this one, watch either the 1983 version or the 1997 version, both vastly superior in different ways.

Or read Huang Yu Lang's comic book, by far the most entertaining adaption.