TEKKEN (2010)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*

MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*



Though on a whim I chose to borrow illustrations of hot kung fu babes for two martial-arts films, TEKKEN, like the majority of kung-fu films, emphasizes a dark and obsessive world of male violence, with just a few killer babes tossed into the mix.  In contrast, DOA, focusing primarily on three female fighters who cross paths during a tournament, is considerably lighter, with more of a CHARLIE'S ANGELS tonality.

TEKKEN takes place in a future-world wherein eight corporations have taken over the world and continually strive amongst themselves for superiority by matching their martial representatives against one another.  Aside from the hero's battle with one cyborg-opponent (Gary Daniels, veteran of quite a few low-budget martial mayhem films), one doesn't see a lot of advanced technology in the TEKKEN world.  Had there been no cyborg, though, the setting alone constitutes a *marvelous* phenomenality.

The hero Jin (Jon Foo) is raised in poverty by his mother Jun (Tamlyn Tomita).  She's never explained the mysterious absence of his father, and she dies early on at the hands of enforcers sent by the Tekken Corporation.  By luck Jin defeats a fighter scheduled to represent Tekken at the Iron Fist tournament.  Tekken recruits Jin to fight in the tournament, and the hero accepts with the ulterior motive of finding his mother's killer.  After his first victory he's almost assassinated by two babe-assassins (seen above) but Jin is saved by his new girlfriend, a fighter named Christie.

At the film's first mention of the "absent father," I was pretty certain Jin would meet his pappy during the tournament; however, the script did throw me a mild curve in that said father, Kazuya by name, turns out to be the main villain rather than a sympathetic ally to the hero.  Kazuya is responsible for the assassins, as well as for attempting to pervert the Iron Fist tournament in order to have the gladiators kill one another.  One might discern a very light Oedipal theme here, in that Jin's mother is killed by his father, and that TEKKEN ends with a life-and-death battle between the two.  It may also be of mild significance that Jin's mother, a martial artist herself, trained him, and that Jin needs a little help from his fighter-girlfriend to prevail over Kazuya.  This quasi-Oedipal theme is the only reason I consider TEKKEN to possess a fair level of mythicity.