The King of Fighters (2010) – A Movie A Day 2021 #18
The King of Fighters (2010) – A Movie A Day 2021 #18
I love video games, but I’ve never really gotten into fighting games. I understand the appeal, and I’ve tried to get into certain fighting game franchises over the years, but at a certain point I always get bored and put the game away forever. Even the initial Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat crazes that happened when I was young couldn’t instill a love of fighting games within me. So for me, a movie based on a not-as-popular-but-still-probably-good fighting game franchise such as The King of Fighters holds no nostalgia value nor any particular affection for the characters. To me, The King of Fighters might as well be any other low budget martial arts/action movie, and as such, I think it’s pretty okay.
The thing that really drew me to want to watch The King of Fighters is the cast. Specifically, seeing Ray Park and Maggie Q on the cast list made this an easy decision for my daily movie. I’ve been a fan of Ray Park since he first appeared as Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, and I’ve been watching more and more Maggie Q movies over the past year as I become a bigger fan of hers as well. The rest of the cast is good and fine, but I’m glad Maggie Q and/or Ray Park were in nearly every scene.
As I understand it, the The King of Fighters game series is based on a fighting tournament. I’m sure the various characters each have their own background stories that play out as you, the player, progress through more and more fights, but at its core the game is about a tournament. That sounds like an easy enough premise for an action movie, but it’s also a premise that has been done countless times. I suppose the makers of the The King of Fighters movie wanted to add more originality to their story, so what we get instead of a tournament is a sci-fi/fantasy adventure with a man named Rugal (Ray Park) trying to take over the world. At least, I think that’s what he’s trying to do. Regardless, Rugal is bad and must be stopped.
Let me back up a bit though. The main character of the movie is Mai Shiranui (Maggie Q). When we first see Mai, she uses a Bluetooth-style headset to transport herself to another dimension where she fights some guy in some friendly competition (judging by their banter). This is the King of Fighters tournament. Mai wins the fight, and she touches a glowing orb which transports her back to our dimension where almost no time has passed. We don’t learn about the alternate dimension stuff right away, and the rules regarding traveling back and forth remain unclear for a very long time, but that’s what’s happening in that opening scene.
Mai’s first fight is technically the only tournament match we see in the entire movie. After that, Rugal steals some ancient artifacts which are tied to the alternate dimension, and he attempts to use the artifacts to summon Orochi, an ancient being of unlimited power represented on-screen by a floating ball of snakes. Rugal’s plan is put on hold when he realizes he lacks an artifact needed to take Orochi’s power. Rugal’s backup plan is to lure other tournament fighters into the alternate dimension so he can take over their minds and use them to help him get the final artifact. Meanwhile, Mai is also on the trail of the artifact, and that leads her to Kyo Kusanagi, the last in line in the legendary Kusanagi clan and the key to defeating Orochi.
That’s just about enough plot setup. I think you get the idea of where this is headed. Mai ends up assembling a group of people to fight Rugal, then they all end up battling in a climactic, multi-layered fight sequence. The big final battle is very entertaining in a lot of ways, but the trek to get there isn’t nearly as fun. Everything I explained above is only part of the complicated story that unfolds in the first hour of the movie. There’s a lot more going on, mostly interpersonally between Mai and her group, and a lot of it feels unnecessary. That feeling was confirmed for me when I ended up enjoying the final thirty minutes of The King of Fighters. What that tells me is there should have been less mystical mumbo jumbo and more punching and kicking.
To be fair, there are fight scenes sprinkled throughout the first hour of the movie, and they’re mostly a good time. Ray Park is fun as an over-the-top villain, and he can absolutely fight. There’s a lot of goofiness in Rugal’s personality, but that’s fine. As long as he beats people up and it looks cool, I’m fine with it. All that said, the action doesn’t really kick off until just past the hour mark. By then you might have given up on The King of Fighters, but if you’ve stuck around, then you’re in for a treat. Well, maybe not a treat, but you are in for a neat series of fights.
One thing I thought was kind of funny is just how much this movie feels like it should have been made in the nineties. And I’m not even talking about the special effects which are just okay. A lot of what I’m referring to has to do with the way nearly every scene was shot. I don’t know if the film crew lost their tripods or what, but it felt like there are almost no level shots in the movie (except near the end when they decided to mimic to look of two fighters squaring off in one of the games). The King of Fighters has Dutch angles for days, and you might find yourself tilting your head in response to the near-constant angling of the camera. And yeah, I know Dutch angles aren’t exclusive to the nineties, but those combined with the cheap effects and fast-motion pans just gave me that feeling.
But now I’m just looking for stuff to pick apart. Overall, The King of Fighters isn’t a great movie, but the final fights were fun. I don’t know how closely the movie sticks to its video game source material, so fans of the games may have a much more extreme reaction than I had to it. I understand that Kyo is quite popular and is one of the main characters from the games, but the way the movie is structured really made me feel like Mai was the main character. I guess Kyo had to be the one to rise up in the final battle and become the focus, but for me, not being a fan of the games, I felt a little cheated that Mai took somewhat of supporting role in the end. But that’s another nitpick. Maggie Q and Ray Park were good, so I was happy enough to watch the movie.