Over a decade later, Bandai Namco probably figured that to leave "Tekken" as the sole anime representation of the franchise is akin to leaving a shit stain smeared across the company logo, so they decided clean things up by green lighting "Tekken: Blood Vengeance". This time, you know they mean business, cos it involves people who actually worked on the Tekken games: the studio that produced some of the cut scene animation, and even the head honcho of the Tekken games himself, Katsuhiro Harada.
I'll be honest: "Tekken: Blood Vengeance" is not a great movie; it's not even a good one. However, it scratched enough of my Tekken itch to leave me oddly satisfied. As a hardcore fan of the games, I think the movie captured the essence of Tekken, and I'm happy to have it represent the franchise in anime.
The thing about "Tekken: Blood Vengeance" is that it gets the important stuff right.
Characters are recognisably from Tekken? Check.
This might strike you as setting the bar rather low, but if you've seen the other Tekken anime, you've probably uttered the words "who the fuck is that meant to be" and you'll know not to take this for granted. Given Tekken's 3D roots, the decision to have the whole movie in CG is a canny one. The whole thing looks like polished up cut scenes from the latest games. And as far as I'm concerned, that's perfect.
Great fights? Check.
Again, this may seem like setting the bar low, but an astonishing number of fighting game adaptations fails to clear this hurdle. "Tekken: Blood Vengeance" hits multiple home runs when it comes to the fights. The action is riveting, with characters striking one another with bone crunching blows. A friend of mine who also likes Tekken said he didn't rate the action very highly because it felt like they were punching through brick walls. I agree with that description, but didn't understand why he used it in a negative context. Every fighting game has its own "feel" to the combat, and to me, Tekken definitely feels like "punching through bricks walls", which means "Tekken: Blood Vengeance" managed to successfully capture the feeling of the games. In my book, that's another plus.
Special moves incorporated? Check.
This is a must for any fighting game adaptation looking to obtain accreditation as fan wank material, and again, "Tekken: Blood Vengeance" doesn't disappoint. In fact, the movie integrated the special moves better than any other adaptations I can think of. If you haven't really played Tekken, you can probably watch the whole thing without realising they incorporated a lot of special moves from the game because of the fluidity of the combat. Look carefully though, and those familiar with the games will recognise many of the attacks used during the fights can be performed by the same characters in game.
Epic battle between the William sisters? Check.
Powered by one of the most long running rivalries of the franchise, this battle was messed up in the other Tekken anime, but "Tekken: Blood Vengeance" set the world to rights, treating us to a wonderfully choreographed fight between the Williams sisters.
Adding all the above point together, and what do we get?
Bona fide fan wank material? Check.
By this point you might wonder why I rate "Tekken: Blood Vengeance" so low. The reason is that beyond being a fan wank flick of laudable quality, the movie doesn't have anything else to offer. Head Honcho Harada stated he wants to make a movie everyone - not just Tekken fans - can enjoy, but he failed on that mission.
The failure is a strange one, especially in the writing department given the involvement of Dai Satou, whose project CV extrudes gems such as "Eureka Seven", "Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex" and "Cowboy Bebop". Despite Dai Satou allegedly having quite a bit of creative freedom, the story ended up bland and unmemorable. It's one of those movies where you wish there was less plot, less talk and that people would just get on with punching each other. One of the first and main mis-step comes from having the movie revolve around Shin, which automatically alienated a portion of the fandom as he doesn't even exist in any of the games. In addition, Shin is the "silent and moody" type, also known as the blank-slate personality type. As though to compensate for Shin's lack of words, the anime surrounds him with Xiaoyu and Alisa, whose annoying voices gets fed far too many lines. I don't think I realised just how annoying those two characters are until I watched this movie.
Xiaoyu and Alisa getting so much screen time really drags the movie down, and the only bright side is that they kick the shit out of each other at one point. As satisfying and as awesome the fight was though, it doesn't quite make up for the pair's prominence in the movie. To be fair, the characters don't come off as inaccurately portrayed, I just think the makers could have picked better characters to front the movie, especially given Tekken's huge roster.
The only other complaint I have is the final fight. The anime tried too hard to make a fitting climactic fight. While it kicked off great, it ended up too long and too ridiculous (even by Tekken standards). I see it as probably the weakest fight in the movie, and also the longest.
So there you have it. "Tekken: Blood Vengeance" - bad movie; good fan wank material.
Personal rating: -1.0 (bad)
