After most wanted and expected The Tekken Movie, which didn’t follow through, we have got another Live-action feature based on the fighting game named The King of Fighters with Maggie Q, Will Yun Lee, Sean Faris, Ray Park and David Leitch. Nicely done fighting choreography and good jokes of King of Fighters Movie in the beginning grabbed my attention, but released it 15 minutes later.
Ex-Snake Eyes and Ex-Darth Maul Ray Park playes a chief villain Rugal Bernstein who wants to be the King of Fighters since he stolen the Kusanagi sword and tweaked the system so his rules apply in the virtual world. The King of Fighters is a tournament where combatants rise in the ranks through each victory, though with the compromise now by Rugal, death in the dimension also means death in the real world. Not sure, did producers want to show how weak his fighting skills are or not, but Ray did it perfectly, he is only bragging and talkactive geek.
This film stands alone of others because there is a lot of talk on the usual genre themes like responsibility and destiny. After all this only one phrase came to my mind “Be water my friend” (LOL). Of cause it is not another deep thinking and “learn-to-something” movie like Best of The Best or Karate Kid Movie.
Casting is not so bad, but I enjoyed only hot Françoise Yip as Chizuru and Maggy Q who is trying to do something on the screen. Others were boring all the way and definetely didn’t believe in what they are doing on the sets.
King of Fighters Movie directed by Gordon Chan who presented us Fist of Legend with Jet Li and Thunderbolt with Jackie Chan, but he is definetely better as a writer and producer (Dragons Forever, Hard Boiled, Hitman). His next project is Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, and he is only writer there.
Fight choreography has been done by Jonathan Eusebio and Jon Valera, these guys used to work on blockbusters, but seems to me they had have a good rest on the sets of this movie.
King of Fighters looks more like a TV version with bad script, actors and special effects, so watch it only for a tick.