Tekken Too

 

 (the movie database)

 

TEKKEN 2-KAZUYA'S REVENGE-2014-This is a sequel (actually a prequel) to the original (which I haven't seen) which is based on a video game. 

A martial artist Kazuya (Kane Kosugi) with amnesia is forcibly recruited to work as an assassin for a whispering, conceited rebel leader called The Minister (Rade Serbedzija). He puts an explosive device in Kazuya's chest for co-operation. When Kazuya falls in love with Laura (Paige Lindquist), he wants out. While trying to discover his real identity, he meets and fights his new target, Brian Fury (Gary Daniels; FIST OF THE NORTH STAR (1994)) who warns Kazuya to “walk away” after he beats him. Later, Kazuya teams up with the obnoxious Rhonda (Kelly Wenham) who kills the minister when Laura is kidnapped by The Gentek corporation. 

At the corporation Kazuya meets Mishima (Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa) “his father”, the man who “created” him, who says “Your body is a weapon your mind can't control”. It turns out Laura is an android too. After he kills Fury, Kazuya leaves to find Mishima who runs Tekken City and is waiting for Kazuya, setting up another sequel. 

Despite some high spots, this isn't very good but what can you expect from director Wych Kaos, the guy responsible for the insufferable BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER (2002)? 

No direct sequel was ever made.

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Plan 47

47 RONIN-2013-Universal Pictures tries to emulate the Tom Cruise hit THE LAST SAMURAI with this fictional fantasized version of the Japanese story of the 47 Ronin (known as "Chushingura" ) as a band of masterless samurai seek vengeance for the death of their master. It would have been great if Hollywood hadn't decided to make it a vehicle for Keanu Reeves. He's Kai, a half-English/half-Japanese "changeling" taken in by Lord Asano (Min Tanaka). Of course no one likes him especially Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada; also in THE LAST SAMURAI). Only Asano's daughter Mika (Ko Shibasaki) accepts him and they fall in love. The film does afford Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa a good role and the photography and scenery are excellent but Reeves character brings the whole thing down.

The director Carl Rinsch had previously made shorts and commercials.

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Video Game

TEKKEN-2010-Corporations run the world in this futuristic martial arts science fiction Japan/US co-production based on the popular video game series. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (in cartoon make up) is Mishima, head of the Tekken corporation, the most powerful, cruelest, crummiest, not nice corporation of them all. Jon Foo is Jun, a smart ass who's mother (Tamlyn Tomita) is killed by Tekken so he vows revenge. Inside a steel cage death match the skinny boy somehow beats champion Marshall Law (real life MMA fighter Cung Le) so he can compete in Tekken's Iron Fist tournament although his mom told him never to do it. 

TEKKEN mostly plays like the video game it's based on but I'm sure gamers don't like it as it is just fight after fight like any other of it's kind. 

Ian Antony Dale is Mishima's real and arrogant son, Luke Goss is Jun's trainer, Kelly Overton is a female fighter and direct to video martial arts veteran Gary Daniels is a fighter named Bryan Fury. The director Dwight Little was doing mainly TV at the time he made this but in the past made HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MEYERS, a version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA with Robert Englund, MARKED FOR DEATH with Steven Seagal and RAPID FIRE with Brandon Lee.

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Not So Super Hero

ELEKTRA-2005-This isn’t a sequel to DAREDEVIL as much as a spin-off but really it’s not much of a movie. Elektra (pouty puss Jennifer Garner) is brought back to life to battle “The Hand”, a mystic Japanese ninja thing. Terence Stamp is Stick, her blind “sensei”. The ridiculous clichéd storyline also has the ressurrected heroine protecting a man and his daughter after she decides not to kill them. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is also in it. Director Rob Bowman made REIGN OF FIRE and a lot of TV.

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Tiger, Tiger, Burning Multi-Colored.....

Oh yeah, WHITE TIGER was a 1995 production featuring former kick boxing champ and direct to video martial arts specialist Gary Daniels (from FIST OF THE NORTH STAR) battling Japanese American gangster Victor Chow (the always excellent Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa) and his designer drug gang after his brother (Matt Craven) is killed. Chow likes to brand people and kind of acts like Dennis Hopper in BLUE VELVET toward the end!

Eventually, Daniels gets help from the Japanese Yakuza! Julie Nickson plays an assassin who provides a topless sex scene. There's the usual explosions, car chases and hand to hand combat but the direction is well done and Tagawa makes a great villain and should be in better movies!

Director Richard Martin is the son of comedian Dick Martin and directed episodes of TV's HIGHLANDER as well as the big screen movie AIR BUD. It seems like it takes place on the West Coast but it was filmed in Vancouver, BC. B movie vet Lisa Longois has a small role.



And then there's BLUE TIGER from 1994. A single mother named Gina (Virginia Madsen) gets caught in the middle of a shootout between The Mob and The Yakuza. Her young son gets killed accidently by a Japanese assassin (Toru Nakamura). She goes nuts and is put away but eventually comes back to seek revenge. She gets a tattoo (from Harry Dean Stanton), a gun and learns Japanese. Through a strange series of events she and the assassin become lovers! She points a gun at him a lot but never has the nerve to shoot him. This is not a half bad action film featuring John Woo inspired shootouts and a surprise ending. The director, Norberto Barba later did a lot of TV programs.

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