Video game fans whenever people mention video game movies they usually mean the ones that get a theatrical release and are live action. Well I want to talk about a video game movie that was straight to DVD and is animated because believe it or not those exist as well and they should be talked about in the same way that people talk the live adaptations and so here is my review of the 2011 film "Tekken: Blood Vengeance" enjoy.
The plot of the film is high school student Ling Xiaoyu is recruited by Anna Williams of G Corporation to transfer to Kyoto University and gather information on a student named Shin Kamiya. In all honesty I found the story to be rather forgettable which is never a good thing even more so when like this film it can be pretty interesting and so I have to wonder why in the hell the story can be both forgettable when it wants to be and interesting when it wants to be when it should be one or the other.
Now as you can see in the name of this post i'm doing this review based of the dubbed version of the film just because that's the copy of the film that I have on DVD and so it's easier then tracking down and downloading the subtitled version. As such starring in this film is Carrie Keranen as Ling Xiaoyu , Cristina Vee as Alisa Bosconovitch , David Vincent as Shin Kamiya , Taylor Henry as Heihachi Mishima , Kyle Hebert as Kazuya Mishima , Darren Daniels as Jin Kazama , Charlotte Bell as Nina Williams and Mokujin and Tara Platt as Anna Williams.
Now I do have some issues with the dub not the quality of the dub or the acting both of which I think are really good but it's the fact that have the time the character,lips don't match what there saying which is something i'm going to be bringing up again because it's a big issue. As for what I thought about the actual acting in the film given the amount of good anime voice actors in this film it shouldn't surprise you to learn that I thought that the acting was actually really good with all of the dub voice actors putting in solid performances.
The animation for this film was handled by Digital Frontier who of course did the animation for the first two Resident Evil CGI films Resident Evil: Degeneration and Resident Evil: Damnation. In all honesty the animation in the film is the best thing about the film because it's so stunning to look at with all of the characters having good CGI models and the fact that the film doesn't use that zany fast paced animation style really works in the films favour.
I will admit there was one thing that I didn't like about the animation but it's very freaking minor and that's the fact that in some shots Nina's clothes look like there from a Playstation 3 game. I say that because there's a huge dip in the quality of the animation in those shots but there are so few and far between and they don't distract from the overall film but it is still a little issue that I thought was worth bringing up since it did annoy me a little bit.
Now I said that i'd be talking about the lip movements again because I do feel that it's a big issue because it's very distracting. Since a character will start talking and a few seconds later the lips will catch up to what there saying and I don't know what caused this issue but it's one that in my opinion needed to be fixed because it can take you out of the film since if your like me you'll be wondering why the lips aren't matching up quite right.
I believe that this film is a prequel to Tekken 6 and since i've not played any of the games for years I can't say if this film works as a prequel to that game. I can say tho that you don't have to played that game or any of the games in order to understand what's going on or who the characters are since the film acts as a standalone adventure and it does a good job of telling all you need you need to know about the characters.
For me the key thing in this film is the friendship between Ling Xiaoyu as played by Carrie Keranen and Alisa Bosconovitch who is played by Cristina Vee. I say because alot of the film revolves around there friendship which is actually a smart thing since it grounds the film is some sort of reality and it makes the characters feel more real and it helps that both the characters are honestly extremely likeable in my opinion.
This film is around ninety minuets which actually does feel about right since there isn't that much of a story to fill out anything longer. However with that being said there are large portions of the film where it's just the characters talking and there not that interesting and are honestly pretty boring to watch in my opinion and it's those scenes that make the film drag since alot of the time there not talking about anything related to the plot or advancing the plot in any way.
Now then since this is an action film and so that means that I have to talk about the action that's in the film itself. Which I feel is honestly pretty standerd which i;m not quite sure if that's a good thing or not since alot of the action is honestly really freaking cool but at the same time it's also stuff that we've seen done better in other action film and so I honestly have no idea what to think about the action in this film which is a first for me.
Overall this film is clearly trying to be good and there is clear effort thrown into making the film actually good. The issue is tho alot of the film is just boring to watch which is never a good thing and because it's boring the film can feel like a chore to sit through and so I wouldn't blame anyone if they turned this film because honestly I felt like doing the same myself as such this film gets a 5 out of 10 from me.
All images used in this review were gathered from the official Tekken fandom wiki page and once again I didn't get the images from any other website. I will admit I thought that alot of the images on the official Tekken fandom wiki page would be high definition and sadly not that many of them are as such I really can't recommend that website for high definition images of this film since there really isn't that many but if you want to use that website for HD images from this film then be my guest.