This is a strange movie – 20 mins in and we’re still following around the life of a guy who doesn’t remember anything about his past. He’s played by Kane Kosugi, who wasn’t in the previous Tekken movie (he’s most recognisable as Scott Adkins’ adversary from Ninja II) but based on the name of this movie one might guess he’s the replacement actor for Kazuya Mishima – Heihachi Mishima’s son and Jin Kazama’s father. Not only has he completely forgotten where he is and who he is etc, but he seems to have a bomb implanted inside his chest and if he wants to live he needs to follow the orders of a strange man who calls himself The Minister (played by Rade Šerbedžija) who runs a cult of assassins all bound by the same threat.
It’s not until 25 minutes in that we see the familiar face of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa who played Heihachi Mishima in the last movie, that the plot appears to be beginning to very slowly unravel. And when I say very slowly, I’m not exaggerating, since another 25 mins later we’re still none-the-wiser as to who this guy is and how he came to be in his current situation.
It’s not until near the end of the first hour that we finally learn, beyond doubt, that the lead character who we’ve been following around for nearly an hour, who’s lost his memory, is indeed Kazuya Mishima, when he remembers the location of his old apartment suite – he asks the receptionist what name he checked in under, and heard he used the initials K M. That still leaves a lot of unanswered questions, but at least we’re making progress since it’s already two thirds of the way through the movie. The big reveal doesn’t actually happen until 10 minutes before the end of the movie, and even then it’s not a big reveal – it’s bare minimum to keep the air of mystery going even beyond the end of the movie.
One thing’s clear though – this movie has a very different genre to the original Tekken movie, which had a much faster tempo and practically none of this slowly unravelling mystery vibe. It works quite well here though – it stays quite intriguing from start to finish, if you’ve not seen it before or at least can’t remember how it goes. The general standard of production, the quality of the action scenes, and the power of the mystery factor are all quite effective here. The acting isn’t terrible either.
It’s quite good from an educational standpoint too, for those who can read the subtle undertones and can already see the synergy with the kinds of methods used by shady agencies to control people in the real world. When I say quite good, I mean it offers a basic level of something to think about, minus the usual warp factors, which is refreshing.
Having said that, there’s still such little going on here, that I can’t fairly rate it on a par with the original. Especially when it comes to rewatching this movie – if you have any memory of what’s going on, that already leaves practically no substance left to enjoy upon rewatching it. For this reason I have to rate it Below Average but only just. There are a lot of respectable movies in & around this kind of rating, so I wouldn’t call it a failure per se – it’s just not something to be recommending too much.
The lead female in this movie – a fellow assassin called Rhona Anders played by Kelly Wenham – has the constant facial expression of a tantrum-throwing teenager, and the voice of a middle to upper class Brit trying to talk like a commoner, so typical of domestic British TV dramas. She’s also built with a stronger frame than the lead male – very butch, no finesse, just like her voice – as if she comes from WWE, and the other females in this movie are no different – this theme hasn’t changed since the first movie. The other main woman in this movie is the landlord of a cheap hotel, called Laura, played by Paige Lindquist, who has a quiet and alluring demeanour but is still physically butch enough to overpower the lead male.
