"This time it's no game!"
"A.D.Vision are TEKKEN on all-comers this Christmas with the release of the most explosive, action packed animated movie of the year."
"The movie tears directly into the complex plot behind the best-selling Playstation games trilogy, providing an explosive insight into the driving forces behind the game's popular characters."
"Since the release of the original Tekken game in 1995, which propelled Sony's Playstation console to the top of its genre, the brand has become a household name. The characters' enduring appeal was proven in 1996 with the release of Tekken 2 which topped software charts for several months, and again in September this year when Sony published the third in the series of games which took computer combat to a new level and has set new sales records."
"Chronicling the growth of a bitter faimly feud between Heihachi Mishima, his abandoned son, Kasuya and adopted heir, Lee Chaolan, Tekken The Motion Picture boasts some of the most stunning animated action and combat sequences to date."
"The most important anime release of 1998. Cross promotion marketing with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Major, all encompassing lifestyle, sci-fi, film, computer games and martial arts press and television PR campaign."
Director: Hunihisa Sugishima Screenplay: Ryota Yamaguchi Copyright: Namco Ltd./ASCII Corporation/Sony Music Entertaiment (Japan) Inc. Language Format: English Language Running time: 60 mins Certificate: 15 Catalogue no: VHSTK/001U Label: ADV Films Price: £12.99 Release Date: 7th December 1998 Also available on DVD: Language Format: Bilingual Japanese/English, optional English subtitles Running time: 60 mins Certificate: 15 Catalogue no: DVDTK/001 Label: ADV Films Price: £19.99 Release Date: March 2000
Based on the hugely successful (in fact aren't they THE most successful?) series of Playstation games, comes this action title from A.D.Vision. I have to lay my cards on the table and say at the outset that the 'port' of a beat-'em-up is not my favourite anime genre, and thus I've seen few examples to compare this one with. The plot is pretty minimalist, placing the protagonists on an island to participate in a martial arts tournament. This island also happens to be the secret headquarters of the main bad guy, which the good guy has to infiltrate... Well, no prizes for originality there.
Although it advertises itself as "Tekken the Motion Picture" the animation is only average OAV quality, and the artwork also lacks the sort of detail I'd expect to see in a theatrical release. Still, the character designs are nice - recognisable as the game characters but with added detail.
The dub I found a pleasant surprise with opening voice over particularly good. In fact most of the performances were superior most of the time, although there was still the odd "Huh?" in there. I would say that it's well up to the quality of most of the dubs coming out of America these days. This is no mean achievement by the actors involved, considering that the script tends to the "spell it out for them, then spell it out again in case they missed it the first time" approach.
The video quality on the review tape was better than a some PAL tapes I've seen from A.D.Vision but still sadly a long way short of the beautiful tapes they release in the States. Audio was nice and clear, and I liked the mix of dialogue and music which avoided either swamping the other.
It seems somehow moot to criticise such a title on the basis of poor plotting or character development. Most potential buyers will probably more interested in how good the action sequences are. And oddly I found this the most disappointing aspect. The fight sequences although reasonably well animated lack any real sense of excitement or involvement. Sure, some of the moves were recognisable from the game, but the style concentrated too much on realistic movement and not enough on choice of dramatic viewpoints. On the whole I've seen far better fight sequences in... ooh, Saint Seiya... or Yuu Yuu Hakusho... or Dragonball... or Shurato... or... well, I think you start to get the picture.
There can be little doubt that with the Tekken name attached, this'll set by the bucket load. On the whole, I don't think buyers will be too disappointed. The story stands up to repeated watching... just about, and the dub is good. The fight scenes I found uninspiring but fans of the game will probably be content to see some references back the game moves, and some (albeit sketchy) background given to the characters. [Neil Morris]
Victar: "Tekken" suffers from the quintessential dilemma that plagues all movies based on fighting video games: how on earth do you cram anywhere from 10 to 25 different characters into a one-hour story, and still have room for any kind of plot? Answer: you can't. Not really. If you don't have the time to properly flesh out a large number of characters, then you have to either focus on developing just a few heroes and villains, or relegate yourself to two-dimensional portrayals. And so the "Tekken" anime storyline primarily concentrates on Lei Wulong, Jun Kazama, Lee Chaolan, Kazuya Mishima, and maybe Jack-2. Everyone else - even head bad guy Heihachi Mishima - has a few lines and fight scene(s) at best, or just hangs out in the background. And even the main characters' stories are rushed, especially after you deduct all the side minutes spent in setup scenes, or thirty-second background pieces on lesser characters. The music in the soundtrack is jazzy, but otherwise unremarkable. It hurts to admit this, but ADV's two promotional mini-techno-videos for "Tekken: the Movie" (one which is on the "Tekken" tape, the other of which can be seen in the leader-ads on "Dirty Pair Flash: Act 3" videos) are actually better done than the anime itself. Lisa K.: I think that it was probably the worst anime I've ever seen. I mean, the animation was dreadful and the story was just plain silly (although, that was kind of expected since it WAS based on a game!). The fights, which should have been it's strongest element were a joke. I won't even go on about the dubbing... Mr Panda: I'm an absolute nut for Tekken 2, so when I saw this I snapped it up. Having seen prevoius attempts to turn beat em ups into anime, I didn't have high expectations, but even then I was dissapointed. Some people will have bought this because they are a fan of a particular character and as some of the more popular characters appeared on the screen for less than 30 seconds, I'll bet they were a tad cheesed off. It wouldn't have been so bad if the characters moves had been reproduced, but the only one I saw was Kazuya's downward kick. At least the Streetfighter anime featured the characters moves (as far as I could tell...). I think the logic behind the making of this was that diehard Tekken fans would buy it anyway, so they didn't need to put a lot of effort into it. It worked on me, I daren't look a streetfighter fan in the eye anymore...