The Film Vindicator Review: Tekken 2: Kazuya's Revenge

Hey everyone welcome to a new year and a new review. Kicking off 2015 is Tekken 2: Kazuya’s Revenge and to tell you the truth I wish this film never came to being. Because despite the title this film is not a sequel, it’s a prequel. A really stupidly, shitty prequel.

We open a guy waking up in a hotel room and SURPRISE, SURPRISE has amnesia. (NOT) SPOILER ALERT its Kazuya Mishima (played by Kane Kosugi); and yeah he does remember his name but it takes forever to get there so I’m calling him Kazuya for the sake of time. As Kazuya gets dress a group of armed men are approaching the room. Some of the men break in the room to apprehend him but with the power of plot-convenience Kazuya REMEMBERS KUNG-FU and beats the armed men. So not only this is a shitty prequel but a Borne Identity knock-off; because those never get old. Anyway Kazuya makes it outside while fighting off more armed men but gets hit by a car and is capture by some random woman. And I said that very heavily because she not a character from the games. After a short yet boring narration from Heihachi Mishima (played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) we cut to Kazuya awaking at the base of operation of the “Minister” (played by Rade Serbedzija) located at the slums outside of “Tekken City”. And believe me this guy is about as threating as Mai from Dragonball Evolution. Seriously this guy is just goes by the numbers in villainy like a cheesy Bond villain. The Minister informs Kazuya that he has a small explosive implanted in him and he doesn’t so what he say, KABOOM! So the Minister has Kazuya working for him for…..reasons.

Cut to next day, Kazuya is having memory dreams…I guess until he’s awaken by one of the Minister’s slutty hencewomen dry humping him. Or raping him whichever way you look at it. He’s then approached by the random woman from earlier Rhona Anders (played by Kelly Wenham). She takes him to gun ranch but despite Kazuya being a good shot he doesn’t like guns. A little bit later Rhona takes him to a fighting arena where pair off against some random dude as the minister watches the fight. Whose this dude that Kazuya’s fighting I don’t know and don’t care. And I highly doubt this random dude is from the games so again don’t care. After an intense fight Kazuya wins and walks out of the arena, meanwhile, he’s being watched by Heihachi WHO LOOKS NOTHING LIKE FROM THE GAME! Hell he doesn’t even look like Heihachi from the first movie WHAT THE FUCK?!?! To summarize the Minister wants Kazuya to kill a few guys; believe me it’s not as exciting as it sounds. Rhona takes Kazuya to some restaurant to kill some other random dude. OK I know I should give some ounce of care to these characters but this movie is not giving any reason to. About 90% of the main characters are even based off from the games and the remaining 10% are characters that don’t even try to show any importance to the plot. The Raid 2 has better characterizations than this and at least that movie promise the audience awesomely badass action scenes. Hell I rather be watching The Raid 2 instead. Anyway Kazuya just walks up, beats up the bodyguards, kills the guy with chop-sticks and just walks away. Yeah we don’t even get an interesting fight scene he just kills a guy and walks off like he just paid the water bill. I still rather be watching The Raid 2.

Cut to Kazuya checking into some apartment housing; afterwards he goes online to find the hotel he was in from the start of the film. The next day Kazuya leaves the apartment until he spots a woman Laura (played by Paige Lindquist) being harass by two men. Kazuya immediately kicks one of their asses and the two leave. Right away there’s an immediate connection between the two but trust me it’s gonna get horribly insufficient later. Kazuya continues his hotel search….dude why don’t you try Priceline? While the movie breaks into a mind-numbingly boring walking montage and it’s not like he’s out looking for the hotel either. Just aimlessly walking to random places as if they matter I suppose….expect no they don’t just complete waste of runtime. Movie you’re starting to remind me of Legend of Chun-Li NOT A GOOD SIGN! Kazuya is contacted by Rhona to kill yet another random guy who’s not from the games, I don’t care moving on. He heads to a nightclub where the target is a regular there. However, the target spots Kazuya and sends down his bodyguards. Unfortunately that was no good as Kazuya just magically shows in the VIP room, kills the target and then magically leaves the room without even fighting the bodyguards. Well this movie does a good job of building tension and suspense now does it…..and yes that was sarcasm. And just what were the bodyguards doing when their boss was being killed, giving Ladyboys blowjobs?

Kazuya returns home telling Rhona that he wants out but she responds that the only way out is in a body-bag. Laura shows up asking Kazuya to join her for dinner; as a thank you for the other day. Kazuya refused but changes his mind after Rhona tells him not to get attached. There’s definitely gonna be a sense of irony later. The two are having dinner and having conversion until Laura notices Kazuya’s arm bleeding (he got cut by one of the two assholes during the fight). After Laura stiches him up, Kazuya just leaves and goes back to his place. The follow morning Kazuya goes on his boring walking montage again but this time he finds the hotel from earlier. And this leads up to…..abso-fucking-lutely nothing only that his initials are K M. Oh gee I wonder what they stand for? Seriously this movie thinks it’s being clever and mysterious with the main character; especially when the character’s name is in the title of the movie. EPIC FUCKING FAIL! Cut to Kazuya back home pissed off until Rhona enters the room with another kill job. But this time it’s to kill Bryan Fury, yes the same Bryan Fury from the first movie. And yes that is Gary Daniels reprising the role. Though it’s too bad that he’s NOTHING LIKE THE FIRST MOVIE! At this point this movie clocks around at 55 minutes and so far there are only three characters from the games. And that’s just really sad.

A little bit later Kazuya tracks down Bryan and follows him; he seems to have lost him until Bryan sneaks behind him. The two start fighting which to be fair this is a good fight scene. Because unfortunately this is the ONLY fight scene that has two characters from the game fighting each other and I’ll get to what I mean by that later. In the middle of the fight Kazuya notices the Minister’s mark on Bryan’s arm; meaning that he use to work for him. Bryan soon overpowers Kazuya and defeats him but instead of finishing Kazuya off he just says they’ll meet again and walks away. Kazuya returns home as Rhona waits to kill him for botching the mission. Kazuya believes that he and Rhona can walk away from the Minister as well but Rhona doesn’t believe so. Stating that being on the run from the Minister’s killers is no freedom. Kazuya convinces Rhona to talk to the Minister to buy some time on finding Bryan and she leaves. Kazuya goes to Laura for help on something; since she’s good at patching people up she may be good at the opposite. As in taking things out of people surgically speaking that is; specifically the explosive implanted into Kazuya. Laura proceeds to removing the explosive and successfully takes it out with no difficulty whatsoever. So apparently the Minister didn’t install any measures to prevent the explosive from being removed, like a heart monitor or something? And that anyone working under him can easily get someone to take it out with no problems at all? So in case you haven’t figured it out the Minister is made of stupid. Kazuya recovers shortly thereafter upon which he and Laura start making out. I guess surgically removing bombs turns them on???

Anyway after that scene Kazuya is awakening by Bryan speaking via hacked radiowaves, electricity and UHF channels. And how the fuck does that work is beyond me so I’m just gonna call bullshit. And apparently Bryan has a camera in Kazuya’s room which means he may have seen him and Laura having sex. Fucking pervert. Bryan informs Kazuya that the Minister is not the righteous man he claims to be. Noooooo, really? I’ve never would guess that, do go on. Kazuya doesn’t believe him but Bryan shows him a fake news report saying that one of the guys Kazuya killed was an undercover cop. Apparently the Minister is pissed and is after Kazuya but Bryan suggested that he strike first before hanging up. Kazuya gets a text from Rhona asking him to meet her but Laura tells not to go that it may be a trap and just leave with her. But he goes anyway promising Laura that he’ll be back and go together. Kazuya meets up with Rhona at a restaurant informed that the Minister wants him dead and Rhona was gonna do the job. However, Kazuya tells her that the explosive is removed. Rhona is curious of why he still showed up and Kazuya replies that he wants answers and he believes in her. He speculates that Rhona had the chance to kill Kazuya but she didn’t. She didn’t even take the chance to kill him and Bryan; speaking of which. Bryan shows up with a fake newspaper this time about Rhona murdering the “undercover cop”. So apparently the Minister doesn’t give a shit for neither of them now. Rhona decides to take him out as Bryan just leaves off-screen like he’s fucking Batman. Later at the Minister’s place Kazuya and Rhona show up…..only to have Rhona literally stab him in the back. Yeah, that’s how pitiful the villain is in this movie. No epic hero villain standoff just a simple shank to the spine and they leave. EPIC TENSION BUILD UP, WHAT’S THAT?!

Anyway Kazuya and Rhona return to his place only to find it ransacked and Laura gone. Kazuya spots a GenTek Factory business knifed to the wall indicating that she must’ve been taken there. Ah fuck it I’m just gonna say it….IT’S A TRAP! The two head to the GenTek Factory to rescue Laura; Kazuya takes out a few guards and enters the building. Rhona goes off fighting one of the Minister’s slutty hencewomen….yeah I know that sounds mean but the movie never identifies them by their names so I don’t even care to look them up. Anyway Rhona takes her out with a quick jab to the throat and takes out the other one with choke-slam hold….I think. The movie just cuts away as soon as she has her in a hold. At this point the movie is just failing at creating tension; only differing from decent to lazy. Back inside Kazuya final confronts Heihachi and here is where the bullshit takes flight. Heihachi goes on a long boring exposition dump but I’ll summarize for the sake of time. Apparently he considers Kazuya as weak willed to be a weapon; that he’s incapable to kill without mercy. Kazuya starts to remember and we start seeing flashback of him angry at Heihachi. For what reason I don’t know and what did Heihachi do to piss him off the movie got very vague on the details. All we get from the flashback is when Kazuya had his memories erased due to having weak mind as Heihachi puts it. Kazuya is ready to fight him but Heihachi shows him a surprise in the form of Laura who was working for Heihachi all this time. And before we get an explanation on why she’s immediately killed by Heihachi. OK so what was the fucking point of this character if you’re just gonna kill her off for no reason whatsoever? And just what was her purpose in this plan of Heihachi’s; seduce the pants out of Kazuya? Well I guess she must’ve failed considering Heihachi killed her now. That or this movie just stopped caring at this point. Also did Heihachi just killed her with a kiss? Is this fucking Lifeforce all of sudden? Is he now a fucking space vampire?

OK enough bullshit we just want to see the two Mishimas fight. To finally see these two bitter rivals fighting to the death. Now that would be awesome to see except for onnnnnnnnnnnne small problem and you probably won’t believe it but. WE DON’T GET TO SEE THE FUCKING FIGHT!!!! That’s right this movie is so piss poor bad that we don’t get to see a Kazuya Heihachi fight scene. And I can’t believe I’m saying this but this movie is lazier than Legend of Chun-Li. So instead Heihachi who somehow jump cuts up to some stairs (OK how the fuck did he do that, does he possess the Devil-Gene now?) And just leaves two random guys to fight Kazuya. But you know what I’m too piss off of this bullshit that I’m just gonna skip the final fight scene. Oh yeah, if this movie doesn’t give a shit then I don’t give a shit either. You can go watch this piece of shit and see this fight yourself. As for me FUCK THIS MOVIE SKIPPING TO THE END! So after that storm of bullshit we cut to Heihachi monologuing to himself on a rooftop glaring at his city. Uhhhhhhhh…..because he’s Batman………. Oh whatever this shit is over with and so am I.

My Final Verdict: Not since Speed of Thought have I ever come across a movie this so ungodly boring. Seriously I had to leave out so many scenes that were just dragging this movie’s runtime so obnoxiously that I would’ve ended up spending forever reviewing this thing. I don’t mind if an action movie is cheesy or bad but I refuse to have any action movie to be so fucking boring in the process. This movie clocks in at 1:28:51 yet it felt I sat through three hours of this shit and given how much barely happens it really didn’t need to feel that way. The Raid 2 didn’t felt this dragged out and that movie clocked in around 2 hours at least. It’s just so shameful that the first movie managed to have most of the characters from the games yet this film only bothers to have three characters. And none of them aren’t like from the games nor from the first movie for that matter. The biggest problem with most prequels that barely stay in continuity to the first established movie; Kazuya’s Revenge is no exception. Like the audience is supposed to believe that somewhere between movies Kazuya evolves from a kind-hearted person to a grade A douchebag. That’s a lot bullshit to swallow that it’s just not funny anymore. It’s nice to see Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa reprising the role as Heihachi Mishima unfortunately he’s brutally put to waste in this movie. He’s pretty much reduced to voice-overs and just stands off in the background doing nothing. I’m calling bullshit on the movie’s subtitle; I mean revenge on whom exactly sure as fuck wasn’t on Heihachi. What you mean those two random guys were supposed to count for Kazuya getting revenge? Well one BULLSHIT and two KAZUYA’S REVENGE MY ASS!

Dear god this movie is such a piece of shit that I need a good 90s cheesy action flick to get the shit-taste out of my mouth. And I think I know the perfect one that fits the bill. So go make some dinner reservations folks because next time we’re diving into TC 2000. Stay tuned.