Triple Feature

Super 3-for-1 review for 

Mortal Kombat, Fist of the North Star, and the Legend of Chun LI 

SUPER ATOMIC FIGHTING EDITION

So after looking at some of my reviews I've noticed that most of them are for movies that arn't even worth reviewing. Like War, INC. Its one of the most forgettable movies, and I think I just reviewed it to review something.
What a shitty first review...

After thinking about the caliber of movies I review, I've decided to do a super duper MASS-REVIEW type thing instead of doing three reviews for these movies that don't deserve to get their own review. Just like I never got my own bedroom as a kid and had to share with my younger brother.

The truth is that I left my netflix unattended for a while and somehow got these three movies all on the same day and thought the similarities in them was worth reviewing more then the actual movies.

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First up is Mortal Kombat- 5 out of 10
Based off the popular fighting game that sucks and is nowhere as good as street fighter, this movie tells the story of mortals locked in combat, but spelled with a K, as they fight each other and shit.

I personally never liked the Mortal Kombat games that much because they're clunky and boring, and everyone I knew as a kid had the fatalities memorized, so it didn't matter how many times I actually won, because that one time I lose, I'd get my head knocked off and that sucks. bullshit. I don't have time to memorize crap like that. Not for Mortal Fucking Kombat!

The story is like every fighting game story there is where people fight to save the world and prove how bad they are by winning a competition. It takes place in a weird dimension, which is really just an island. I guess some dimensions are bigger then others.

Mortal Kombat: not as cool as Castlevania
 

The story doesn't matter because the movie is all about fighting. Except the fighting isn't very good either, and the movie really becomes about the awesome theme song that plays before the fucking movie even starts. The theme song that summarizes all the hokey, in your face attitude of the game. The theme song that allowed the Mortal Kombat sound track to go fucking platinum like before the movie even came out. The theme song I would hear blasted at roller rinks for years, while old people would boogie down to it, and then later blasted in every single Counter Strike server I've ever been in. I'm pretty sure the only reason they even made the movie was to have something for people to look at while listening to the theme song.

"I suck"
 

There are some good things, like the fact that the movie has the Highlander in it cracking subtle jokes left and right, and some bad things, like the fact that scorpions character is totally lame in it (his fucking stinger whip thing is useless, and he's the only character I ever actually liked) but for the most part DUDE THE THEME SONG IS FUCKING AWESOME! TEST YOUR MIGHT!!!!! FOR REAL, FUCK YOU!

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Second is Fist of the North Star- 4 out of 10
I love Hokuto no Ken. I love the comics. I love the show. I love the 86 animated movie. I love the video games. I love Kenshiro. I love Souther. I swear I'm going to name my second-born son Souther, after I name my first son Violence Jack. I love the story. I love the characters. I love touching guys with mohawks and making their heads explode.
I love this movie? not so much...

I'm pretty sure my motivation for putting this movie in my queue was because the novelty of a Fist of the North Star Live action movie was too hard to not watch. That had to be why. I've known that the movie was bad for as long as I've known of its existence, because they're no way a live action Fist of the North Star would ever be anything but terrible. So when I first started watching this movie, I was actually excited at first. Seeing the characters, the post-apocalyptic environment, all of it was exciting for like 5 minutes. then I forced myself to finish it so I could write this. There's not much else to say.

Souther isn't in it... fuck this movie.
 

Some pluses are that Malcolm McDowell plays Ryuken, Kenshiro's father, who spends the whole movie levitating in flashbacks screaming "KENSHIROOOOOOOOO!" And Rufio from Hook plays Bat, who dies the same way in it as he does in Hook. At least he sticks to what he's good at.

Bangarang :(

The bad is that Chris Penn, an actor I personally can't stand, plays a character called Jackal, who is supposed to be Jagi I guess, but not really... the character is pointless and makes this terrible movie even worst.

I'm glad he's dead...

I want to say that the movie could have been good, but I knew it was going to be bad. I mean, everyone knew it was going to be bad, even the filmmakers. They were probably like "Haha, someone has to make Fist of the North Star into a live action movie. Wait, we have too? Oh well..."

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Third movie is the Street Fighter Chun Li movie, or whatever its called. 2- 10

This movie looks terrible, and it ended up being terrible. How bout that..
Hey, lets take one of the most popular video game franchises there is and make a movie without anything from the games that makes it popular. Like having Chun Li be the main character, making Vega and Balrog useless, having Bison be a Irish business man from Thailand, and filling the rest of the movie with dumb characters from Street Fighter Alpha that no one cares about like Rose, or that are completely different from their videogame counterparts, like Charlie Nash. and Gen. Why is Gen in this? Why is Vega in it either? He's there all of 40 seconds before Chun Li beats him up, makes fun of how ugly he is, which is the opposite of how Vega is in the video games, and then moves on to the next scene. At least the animated movie had Chun Li and Vega actually fight each other, but then again, we also got to see Chun Li taking a shower.

Though we know him in the west as M. Bison, it isn't his original name.
In Japan he's known as That Happy Guy.

The story has something to do with Chun Li and her search for her father, who disappeared for whatever reason. And then Shadowloo is involved because come on, its Street Fighter. After that its just a bunch of cliches you find in other American made martial arts movies. She trains under Gen, who was a character from the first Street Fighter game that they put in the Alpha games as well. He's not an old man anymore though. He looks more like Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat with a mustache...

All these Asian guys look the same to me...

None of the actors seem to fit their parts, with Chris Klein doing just about the worst job he could have at being an actor, hamming up every single scene he's in, and everyone else not being too far behind him. For real though, I hate it when actors think that a movie being based off a video game or a comic book means turning on the cheese. Great job Klein. You don't have to be super serious, but you can at least be watchable.

What a dick head

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The similarities in these movies are kinda weird. like how they're all bad movies. Its also the reason I thought I would review them.

Although I'd say Mortal Kombat is a notch better then the rest, its most likely because of that god damn theme song.  There's also the fact that I saw Kombat as a kid. Though I could even tell it sucked as a kid, there's a little bit of nostalgia still that. Street Fighter, on the other hand is probably the most forgettable movie to come out since War, INC. and manages to be even worst then the original Street Fighter movie, which was at least entertaining to watch.

There's also the fact that the best acting seems to come from the badguys in all three movies. This is something I noticed about most B grade action movies. The main character is played by someone lame and forgettable that's stuck playing the serious role, as the bad guy gets to be... ah, bad. It obviously more fun to be the badguy in these movies, so you tend to like them a bit more. In Mortal Kombat we get to see Cary Tagawa, who is an awesome actor, play Shang Tsung, a crazy Asian wizard guy that loves fighting, and probably drinking. He changes from being sneaky and evil to being over the top and cowardly. He's good. In Fist you get Costas "Crazy Name" Mandylor does  a decent job playing Shin. And in the Street Fighter movie you have Neal "Hi there" McDonough as M. Bison, who's watchable despite the fact that he's playing a Irish businessman from Thailand, that's Irish, from Thailand, and not an evil dictator. I mean, he didn't write the part, so I don't think it's his fault, and I always liked his character in Band of Brothers, so whatever.

ACTING!

The original Mortal Kombat game was made as competitor to Street Fighter II, and first conceived as a vehicle for Jean Claude Van Damme to endorse. JCVD already had his own fighting game coming out, which never happened, and couldn't do it, so his character was changed to Johnny Cage, who is also a famous Martial arts actor, and they decided to have the characters all be played by real actors anyways. Van Damme later stars in the Street Fighter movie, based of the game, which happens to be heavily influenced by the Fist of the North Star (The comic, not this movie) bringing everything full circle. So you have Fist of the North inspiring Street Fighter and Street Fighter influencing Mortal Kombat (sorta) tied together neatly with what I call the Van Damme connection.

11 out of 30 >:o