Introduction: I’ll try to write this review from points of view of both, Tekken fans and people that barely heard of it. There isn’t much of a story summary on MyAnimeList right now, so I’ll write something short. For people that know Tekken, they need only to know that the infamous grandfather, father, son trio is at it once again. For others, keep reading.
Summary: The main character is Ling Xiaoyu (side character in games) who is given a mission from G-Corp to spy on a certain guy called Shin Kamiya. They first meet when he tries to jump of a building and is saved by her. Soon after, she meets a strange girl, Alisa, who claims to have a crush on Shin. It all seemed like an easygoing, slice-of-life I’d never watch at this point but I can assure you, it’s anything but that.
Story: 6/10
First of all, you don’t need to have huge previous knowledge of Tekken in order to truly enjoy the story. The most important things are either stated outright or hinted at so obviously that you’d have to be drunk and play a video game while watching it not to get it. The only thing you need to know is that Kazuya and Jin don’t like each other. But that’s rather obvious, I guess. Plot was really interesting, something like a mix between a mystery and a slice-of-life at first, turned into an action packed piece very fast. Fortunately, it wasn’t fast enough to get lost in it. The main focus is on G-Corp (read: Kazuya Mishima) and Mishima Zaibatsu (read: Jin Kazama) fighting for… well… even they forgot what they were fighting for at the end, what mattered to them was that they were fighting.
However, nothing is perfect and also this story suffers at the quality level. Although I liked it, the plot holes destroyed the atmosphere for me. There are too many important things left unexplained and many other forgotten (The whole thing with Shin.) that should have at least left the characters wondering what happened. Instead, it felt that the scriptwriter didn’t bother finishing it and gave all characters loss of short-term memory.
Characters: 8/10
One of the most appealing things for me was that the story focused on Xiaoyu and Alisa (originally side characters). Despite the huge majority (read: all but one) of characters being from Tekken games, it also brought something new into the Tekken world a completely original character Shin Kamiya. He is the one everything and everyone is focused on (although they forget about him very fast when they get a chance) and plays that role very good. This seemingly emo boy with a dark past and a bad habit of jumping from buildings proved to be something more very soon and got deeply involved in a certain family quarrel. I really enjoyed the brand new character as it gave the film a mysterious feeling.
The two main characters, Alisa and Xiaoyu, turned out to be good leading characters even though they had very little (if any) interactions in the games. The dynamics between the at first clueless cute pink haired girl and the panda owner (no kidding) that had to hide her purpose at the school was very interesting form the start to the end partly because their relationship changed over time as they both found out the deepest secret of the other. The changes were very fluent despite going from rivals in love to enemies to close friends within a few minutes.
All other characters are perfectly portrayed in the film compared to the games and talking about them too much would just spoil it for non-Tekken fans and be a bore for Tekken fans. I can assure you that you’ll be able to tell importance and nature of nearly everyone after one scene with them.
The only problem I had with the characters was that they were quite easy to predict if you knew them and many of them had a few cliché scenes.
Sound: 8/10
I, personally, really enjoyed the sound because it fit perfectly to the scene, whether it was a fight or a gloomy moment. It went along with what was going on adding to the atmosphere very nicely. However, I don’t consider the score to be anything spectacular on its own.
Animation: 9/10
Animation was amazing and as fluent as it could be. Fancy effects were nearly everywhere so that even a water drop felt like art. Battle scenes were a true highlight of the animation because nearly everything (besides the usual Tekken exaggerations) felt real. There was something that felt overdone here and there (Xiaoyu’s sinister glare that was supposed to be a teasing grin) but that could be just me.
Enjoyment: 6/10
Battles were amazing just as the Alisa and Xiaoyu duo, however the story destroyed it or me. It really felt as if the scriptwriters gave up at the end, being unable to fit everything into the hour and a half and decided to forget about it in favor of cool and flashy battles (fortunately they were cool and flashy).
Overall: 7/10
This film isn’t bad. It’s actually quite good but I don’t advise you to watch it unless there’s a certain hook for you there, ideally being a fan of Tekken as knowledge of what’s going on only helps. Actually, knowing at least a little about Tekken and enjoying it is enough. Watch this if you like action and epic fighting scenes but don’t expect a complicated plotline where eventually everything gets explained. If possible, forget about the whole story when all characters do and pretend it never happened, the film is truly amazing and nearly flawless when you do that.
