Tekken Blood Vengeance Review

                                                                                                                   Inspired by the popular video game series, Tekken Blood Vengeance is a 3D animated film supervised by Youchi Mori (Appleseed) and with the screenplay written by Dai Sato (Cowboy Bebop). Tekken Blood Vengeance was released in Japan on September 3 and in North America on November 22, 2011 on DVD or on a Blu-Ray disk. The Blu-Ray edition of Tekken Blood Vengeance is only available in the Tekken Hybrid Playstation 3 bundle, and it includes a remastered edition of Tekken Tag Tournament and a playable demo of Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

Tekken Blood Vengeance as another chapter in the growing popularity of 3D animated video game movies, a growing trend popularized by Square Enix's movie sequel to Final Fantasy VII in 2005s Final fantasy VII Advent Children, and Capcom's Resident Evil: Regeneration. Tekken Blood Vengeance is cannon to the Tekken story line in that it follows the events between the fifth and sixth games in the series. Some have theorized that Tekken Blood Vengeance was made to further distance the franchise from the 2010 live action Tekken Movie, though project leader Katsuhiro Harada has publicly stated that the computer animated film is for fans asking for a 3D animated treatment to their beloved fighting game series.

However, after watching this film twice, it is this reviewers opinion that, like Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, Tekken Blood Vengeance is a beautiful but flawed attempt to capitalize on an existing fan base.

Nina Williams

After the events of Tekken 5, the owner of the G Corporation and Tekken antagonist Heihachi Mishima is presumed dead and is succeeded by his son Kazuya Mishima, the protagonist of the original Tekken game later turned antagonist in its many sequels. Working for Kazuya and G Corp is Anna Williams, a seductive assassin, who recruits the Chinese student and martial artist Ling Xiaoyu to search for a student named Shin Kamiya, a character not affiliated with any previous Tekken cannon. Meanwhile the Mishima Zaibatsu, a rival corporation led by the son of Kazuya, Jin Kazama, is also investigating the mysterious Shin Kamiya with help from Anna Williams's sister, Nina Williams.

Anna Williams

As the two rival corporations search for Shin Kamiya, Ling Xiaoyu happens across a mysterious girl of kind demeanor with rose hair and a blue rose on her dress. Anybody who knows anime will instantly realize that blue roses are often a symbol for the artificial or super natural because they themselves don't exist in nature. Xiaoyu befriends the girl, Alisa Bosconovitch, who is also following Shin out of a girlish infatuation. Unfortunately, their friendship is put to the test when Ling Xiaoyu learns that not only is Alisa tied with the rival corporation, the Mishima Zaibatsu, but that her new friend isn't human.

Alisa Bosconovitch

I am satisfied by the fact that, while the movie does feature some very brief character cameos from the Tekken video games, Tekken Blood Vengeance refrains from integrating as many characters as possible. This is a classic mistake that many movie makers tend to make when adapting an existing work into a movie and the larger the possible character roster the more obscene it becomes. I am reminded of Street Fighter II The Animated Movie and the short and unnecessary cameos involving Dee Jay, T Hawk, Zangief and Blanka, all of whom were inconsequential to the plot but appeared for the sole sake of not offending the fans of those particular characters. Final Fantasy VII Advent Children is just as guilty but to a lesser extent considering that the pool from which to draw extra characters was a much more shallow one. Regardless, characters such as Cid, Yuffie and Cait Sith appearing only in the last third of the film felt to me as an aftersight because until that point they had no reason to exist in the story of Advent Children. Tekken Blood Vengeance, in contrast, picks a select few characters from the dozens of Tekken fighters and focuses specifically on them and their relations towards other characters. Nina and Anna Williams, Alisa and Xiaoyu, and Jin, Kayuza and Heihachi; the focus of these three character relations is very rarely diverted with the introduction of non-essential characters.
But there are two exceptions.

Shin Kamiya

Shin Kamiya is the plot device for Tekken Blood Vengeance, but is not a character in any existing Tekken game. Shin Kamiya is sought out by Ling Xiaoyu and Alisa Bosconovitch on behalf of the two rival corporations because he was an experimental test subject who was granted immortality because of a genetic defect. Both corporations want Shin Kamiya for his immortal powers, so he becomes the subject of Ling Xiaoyu's spying and inadvertently becomes Alisa Bosconovitch's love interest.
Spoiler: Shin Kamiya awaits in a temple haunted by an earth goddess, and it was his plan all along to bring Jin and Kazuya together in order to expose Heihachi, the villain who made him a test subject, and destroy him with his power and his immortal body. Heihachi then kills this great immortal in under the span of a minute, and Shin Kamiya nor his powers are mentioned since.
For a plot device and a character in general, Shin Kamiya is a weak substitute for both.

Lee Chaolan providing the most terrible moment of plot exposition I can remember ever seeing.

The second useless character is Lee Chaolan, the flamboyantly wealthy adopted son of Heihachi Mishima, and Kazuya Mishima's foster brother. It is my own opinion that of all of the characters Lee Chaolan's presence is the result of lazy writing because he is the personification of deus ex machina. Lee Chaolan is a character who does nothing short of delivering blatant plot exposition and appearing out of no where to aide Xiaoyu, Alisa, and Panda in escaping the G Corporation soldiers by providing them sanctuary in his lavish mansion. I mention terrible plot exposition because it is simply that: Lee Chaolan doesn't mince words when he foreshadows the final aberrant climax that Tekken Blood Vengeance escalates towards with neither rhyme nor reason outside of the excuse to push the boundaries of their visual effects department.
And this brings me to my chief complaint. Tekken Blood Vengeance is a contrived hash of too many stylistic choices for me to find it enjoyable. The movie is an inexcusable hodgepodge of many diverse styles that may work for a video game but can and will demote a motion picture. Tekken Blood Vengeance opens with an action scene in which Nina Williams drives her motorcycle into a semi truck piloted by her sister, Anna, resulting in a great fireball of an explosion, of which Nina inexplicably survives the crash during a jump cut and proceeds to fight her sister as she crawls from the wreckage. After which, Anna is provided backup by the G Corporation soldiers and Nina leaps from an overpass in unabashed Ghost in the Shell fashion and escapes. It is certainly an exciting scene in the impossibly stylish Hong Kong wire fighting way, and a viable contender against Final Fantasy VII Advent Children for the most ridiculous computer animated motorcycle action sequence ever made.
We can then fast forward ourselves to Xiaoyu's subplot where she races to class in her Japanese school.
On Panda.

Say what you will about Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, it is at the very least consistent with its theme from its very inception. For Tekken Blood Vengeance to go from a westernized action scene into a very easternized high school comedy is nothing short of disconcerting, even compared to anime such as Full Metal Panic! It's my own experience that many of my fellow otaku or "weeaboos" are off put by the use of school settings in anime because often times the humor simply does not translate. I myself am a fan of some school themed anime like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya but because of cultural differences I highly doubt that the fine people at Cheshire Cat Studios will be enthralled about the light hearted and whimsical school centered scenes in Tekken Blood Vengeance. And most who were hoping for a film strictly about fighters fighting may be even more disheartened by the chronic shifts between the exciting fights and the early whimsical story of friendship between Ling Xiaoyu and Alisa.
Tekken Blood Vengeance may cross between exciting action sequences and light hearted Japanese comedy too regularly but even with its culmination of martial arts, technology, and animals, it also includes another staple of the Tekken games, the super natural. The existence of demons (the Devil Gene) and powerful monsters is not excluded by any means but the rapid escalation of the demon powers possessed between Kazuya and his son Jin is that of an episode of the notorious Dragonball Z. Kazuya and Jin, who both possess the Devil Gene, transform into evil creatures to do battle and when Jin proves too weak for his father, he turns into a higher form of demon. Tekken Blood Vengeance changes its style once again, but certainly not for the last time as the film reaches is incomprehensible final climax, which again was hinted at only once in the story by Lee.

Ling Xiaoyu and Alisa riding Panda as the monochrome beast runs on water.

The computer animation in Tekken Blood Vengeance was produced by Digital Frontier, who also produced the FMV sequences for Tekken 5 and Tekken 6. The computer animation, regardless of its many styles and themes, is nothing short of impressive. The backgrounds are pristine and the character models and textures are stunning, but its greatest feat is really the use of lighting and reflections. The first scene with Nina Williams clad in a shiny leather cat suit and riding her spotless well waxed motorcycle was the graphical feat that plays heavily in my mind. I was enthralled by the glossed surface as lights of the passing cars and street lamps bent and shimmered around every supple curve and crevice. And even the motorcycle looked almost as good as Nina.
The character designs do not stray far from their video game origins nor should they considering the intended fan base. of Tekken Blood Vengeance. But despite their familiarity the detail given to each character is impressive. I always enjoy it when in 3D animation clothes look and behave like clothes, meaning that they reflect a natural amount of light, they move in the wind and against the body, and they even get torn on occasion. Where the character designers get to shine is in the look of Devil Jin and Devil Kazuya whose looks have deviated from their game origins in favor of a modern Japanese style evidenced in most modern role playing games.

Jin

Devil Jin

The Devils may look good but in this reviewer's opinion they are all filler for the hand to hand combat. On the topic of fights, there is too little realism in Tekken Blood Vengeance. The Tekken games may occasionally have inhuman characters present in the tournaments but many of the fighting styles are based on real fighting techniques. Contrary towards the realistic approach of the games' fighting Tekken Blood Vengeance treads in the footsteps of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. Human characters are all guilty of possessing super human strength, speed and agility. People are thrown through walls and down pits, some throw massive temple columns at one another as the opponent runs atop it, and still others can pick up their opponents and throw0 them like dolls. Buyer beware, you are purchasing a Japanese 3D animated movie based on a video game based on people fighting robots, panda bears, and devils. If you expected the realistic fighting styles of the games then you must look elsewhere.

Kazuya Mishima versus Heihachi Mishima

The cast of voice actors is worth noting. Tekken Blood Vengeance was dubbed in both English and Japanese, and subtitles were provided for other languages. The producers also did their best to reunite as many of the voice actors of the Tekken games for Blood Vengeance. The English voice actors include popular figures as

• Patrick Seitz (Hellsing, Naruto, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, BlazBlue, Mortal Kombat 2011, Transformers: War for Cybertron) as Jin
• Kyle Herbert (Dragonball Z, Gurren Lagann, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, World of Warcraft, Devil May Cry 4) as Kazuya Mishima
• Jamieson Price (Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, Akira, Clive Barker's Jericho, World of Warcraft) as Heihachi Mishima
• Carrie Keranen (Ah! My Goddess) as Ling Xiaoyu
• Christina Valenzuela (K-On!, BlazBlue) as Alisa Bosconovitch

The Japanese cast is more impressive with famous voice actors such as

• Mamoru Miyano (Death Note's Light Yagami, Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Kingdom Hearts) as Shin Kazama
• Yuki Matsuoka (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Elfen Lied, Trinity Blood) as Alisa Bosconovitch
• Maaya Sakamoto (Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children) as Ling Xiaoyu

With many accomplished voice actors participating in Tekken Blood Vengeance it's not surprising that all of the characters sound excellent from beginning to end. I've had very little problem with voice actors sounding either wooden or unemotional, and truthfully all problems that I have with the dialogue is with the script itself.
Tekken Blood Vengeance is a beautiful film, but the experience is ultimately unfulfilling. Where Final Fantasy VII Advent Children expanded on the story after the first game, Tekken Blood Vengeance offers little else to Tekken cannon than to introduce Alisa Bosconovitch and reveal that Tekken villain Heihachi Mishima did not perish after the events of Tekken 5. Although that is also made apparent in Tekken 6, so the return of Heihachi in Tekken Blood Vengeance fails to hold any significance. The contrasting styles between story lines is jarring for gamers uninitiated in Japanese anime who were expecting a film heavy in action and fighting, the cornerstones of the Tekken franchise. And finally the story is disjointed. The events of the later half of the movie are inexplicable and only foreshadowed by terribly brief scenes of blatant exposition that give the impression that the final scenes were afterthoughts in post production. It is a shame that this was the best that Dai Sato of the thrilling and deep anime series Cowboy Bebop could come up with.
If you are an avid fan of Tekken games or 3D computer animated movies you may wish to watch Tekken Blood Vengeance for the decent fighting scenes and some amazing computer animation. For everyone else I suggest that you go play the video games for a more fulfilling experience.