Tekken Live Action Movie Review

Wow, its been a while since I've posted on my poor little blog. Well today, I wanted to talk about the Tekken movie. I used to play Tekken quite a bit, especially Tekken 3 back in the PS1 days. I haven't really kept up with the franchise lately but I hear there's a Street Fighter vs Tekken game coming out soon which is pretty exciting!

But anyway, the movie! We finally got around to watching it. First off, I'd like to make it known that I love 'bad' movies. I say 'bad' because that's what most people tend to call them. I loved the Street Fighter movie with Van Damme and I thought the Dead or Alive movie was awesomely hilarious. However I didn't like the Chun Li movie, it didn't seem to reach the target of "so bad its genius". In my own terms, it was just normal bad. So when I heard about the Tekken movie a while back, I was quite excited! I was hoping for epic corniness mixed in with awesome fighting.

Let's get through the story outline first. The main character of the movie ties in with the main character of the game, Jin Kazama. In the movie, he's some street smart guy that makes his money illegally stealing stuff from the Tekken corporation. The Tekken corporation are what is equivalent to the government in this future world of Tekken. Near the start of the movie, Jin's mother who taught him how to fight is killed by Tekken. Around this time, the Iron Fist tournament run by Tekken is starting. To get revenge for his mother's death, Jin is determined to enter and win Iron Fist in order to get close to and kill the head of Tekken, Heihachi. Little does he know that the true evil guy is not Heihachi, but Heihachi's son Kazuya who is determined to take over Tekken from his father and called for Jin's house (and subsequently mother) to be blown up. And little does he know that Kazuya is actually....drum roll....well if you're a Tekken fan, you will know how I was about to finish that sentence.

Along the way you get to meet other Tekken fighters like Marshall Law, Brian Fury, Yoshimitsu, Raven, Eddie Gordo, the Williams sisters and a couple of others. There is also Steve Fox who plays the part of a retired Iron Fist competitor who has now taken Jin under his wing.

So how did the movie fare for me? The fighting was pretty good. However it did look a bit too choreographed and they did one too many leg bars. So I would say it was adequate but not the best fighting for a movie that is based off a fighting game. I didn't get very bloodlusty or flinchy watching the fighting which meant it was just alright. I think a lot of it was due to the sound effects, I know real fighting isn't bish-bashy like those old Kung Fu movies, but it does make watching a fight a whole lot more enjoyable and the sound effects in Tekken just wasn't supporting the choreography as well as it could have.

The story...lol well yeah. Hmmm...I'd say pretty good given that my expectations were very low and for a movie like this, I don't really care much about the story at all. It does follow the Tekken lore from the games but also misses out on a lot of it. Like the whole demon thing in the game! How awesome would it be if Jin just suddenly burst out in demon-ness in a fight? That could have been awesome! Or really really awful...

The writing in this movie is awesome according to my standards of awesome bad movie writing. I did enjoy the corny lines and the bad acting that went with it. Okay, it wasn't bad acting, it was just there's no way to say those lines without it being funny and over the top. So I loved that aspect of it. And the predictable flashbacks with wise advice given to Jin at key moments, so predictable and corny! Just all round goodness.

One thing I really did like was the video game homage they've given to the movie. As its set up as a tournament, they've got the contestants introduced in the similar manner as the game would, from the fight selector screens to the pre-battle poses. And I loved how each fight would have a location and the stage then transforms to be that Tekken battle arena, with ancient ruins, or beautiful blossoms in temple grounds. Completely pointless and made no sense when you think about it but just a lot of fun.

There's also a fair amount of eye candy to be had whether you're a guy or a girl. There's a fair share of scantily clad female fighters with (I have no idea why...) more than a fair share of butt crack showage. Have we moved on from cleavages to butt cracks for sexiness? Last time I was out on the street in real life, any cleavage I see is still way sexier than all the butt cracks out there! For the girls, there's plenty of ripped muscly guys fighting to feast your eyes on. Jin is pretty hot, though he's perpetually covered in blood even when he's not fighting. He's also got a weird accent that I can't really place. In terms of which character looks most like their game character, Heihachi and Eddy Gordo win I think. Steve Fox loses miserably as he's meant to have hair and be a whole lot younger than Nina Williams.

So in summary, I did enjoy it overall. Not the best fighting game movie there is, but definitely way better than the Chun Li movie. Not quite up to Van Damme Street Fighter awesomeness though. Watch it if you're a fan of Tekken or you like corny action flicks. Give it a miss if you're into complex stories and character development.

Here's the movie trailer:

Hooby Groovy on Etsy

I've decided to dip my toes into running a small business. So last week, I set up shop on Etsy under the 'brand' Hooby Groovy. Check out my store here. I have also set up a Facebook page for it, like it here.

So far, I'm focusing on iPhone and iPad cases. In the future, I'd like to try my hands on bags and other accessories. And then see where my interests move onto next.

My time has been taken up by 2 things associated with my store, namely creating stuff and marketing it. So I will blog a bit about both.

In terms of creating things, I think I'm steadily increasing my sewing skills so that's pretty cool. I'm learning heaps about how to work with different types of fabric and how to mix them up so that they won't crease or pull or do weird things. But easiest is to work with the same types of fabrics so I like that the best obviously. I think most of my time is taken up by cutting fabric, more so than sewing them together! Sometimes I wish I just had a mold thing that would do all the cutting for me.

Marketing has been a whole different boat though. Etsy has tons of sellers and tons of items. So its hard for buyers to find my store and items. So I've been spending time on the Etsy forums socialising with other sellers for 2 reasons: to get tips and also to get them visiting my shop. I've also set up that Facebook page so that everytime I list a new item, I can update that page and hopefully my 'fans' will visit.

Other things I will be trying soon is being more active on other forums where my potential customers hang out. And possibly look into other places to list my items, not just Etsy.

I've also been learning more about product photography. What do you think of my efforts?

All in all, I'm taking this all in as experience and not setting my expectations too high. If I can learn heaps about running a business and I have fun in the process, I'm happy. Though lots of sales and money coming in would be ace too. ;)

Well here's what I have on sale so far:

A Bird in Hand iPad Case

A Bird in Hand iPhone Case

Young at Heart iPad Case

Young at Heart iPhone Case

Singing in the Rain iPhone Case

Singing in the Rain iPad Case

If you're in the market for an iPhone or iPad case, drop by or contact me! :)

A Little Cure

A friend and ex-colleague of mine invited me to a lecture he was giving at AFTRS so I went along for it last night. It was focused on the use of sound for narrative purposes, in particular video games. I enjoyed it a lot even though I don't really know what my goal was in going to the lecture. There were many things that I learnt, some things I already knew. But I realised that even more than learning something new, what I enjoyed the most was once again looking at video games from a design/narrative point of view. 

Lately, I haven't been playing many video games, besides the odd casual game or two on the iPad or PC. And I haven't been keeping up with industry news much either. My mental space lately has been in quite a negative state lately actually and I've been having a more negative, skeptical view of video games and the industry in general. I think its a completely natural thing that occurs when you've worked in the or any industry for a while and you know the workings of it so well. So for me, I had gone past that initial wonderment of games and how it was built and what kind of creativity goes into games and had ended up at the (for the lack of a better word) business side of things. 

Primarily, making video games is a business. People make games to make money. Sadly, the people doing the actual making of the games normally don't end up making the majority of the money, but that's a whole other topic. But yeah, its a business. And with business comes processes, budgets, systems, hierarchy and a whole lot of politics. 

It's a little difficult to try to explain what I'm trying to say or what I have in my head but basically the biggest question for me when I started in the industry was "What kind of story/vision do I want to create/share with the world?" and over the years, it turned into "What am I doing here? Why are things done this way?"

I love story games, actually more to the point is I love stories. If they come packaged with good solid gameplay, all the better. If the gameplay is forgettable, that's fine. If the gameplay is so bad it destroys the story, that pisses me off. And I think the essence of a good story is that I'm able to escape into it and put my own self in that story.  As much as I love being in a story, I would also love to be apart of creating a story or a whole new world for other people to be able to escape to. 

Well, that's what was in my head when I first started work in the industry. And I used to push quite a lot for that idea of creating a world, within the constraints of the gameplay, licenses, etc of course. And over the years, that push got less and less and my brain started filling up instead with "the business side". The politics and the numbers and the drama that was going on out of the game's story. 

Well, last night's lecture brought back a little of that old vision to me. For a good 3-4 hours, I was looking and thinking about video games purely from a "how do I tell this story and create this world" point of view. I wasn't thinking about any  negative stuff. 

This is a good thing, it's a healthy thing and I feel a little more positive and healthier from it. 

And Yet Another Hobby

When I came back to Melbourne after my trip to Malaysia, I received a present from Chen-Po and it was an iPad!! I love my iPad so much and can't bear to be away from it for long. Anytime I want to do anything computer/Internet related, my first thoughts fly to my iPad. My poor laptop must be feeling so neglected. Anyway, I decided to make a case for my iPad so I could cart it around and have it protected. This is my handmade iPad case:

It took me 3 weeks! And throughout all 3 weeks, I kept thinking that if I had a sewing machine and knew how to use one, I could have done it in 1 day. Which was the best time for a friend to ask if I was interested in doing a machine sewing course at CAE. So, for the past 4 weeks, I've been attending a weekly class at CAE and out of that, I made pyjama pants for Chen-Po:

If you can't see, it's also got cargo style pockets on the side, so here's a photo showcasing that:

A couple of weeks ago, I also took the plunge and bought a sewing machine. After a long and confusing day at a craft fair looking at all the different brands and models, I finally settled on the Singer Confidence 7470. Interesting fact, everyone's mums/grandmas have Singer sewing machines. Here's my fancy Singer sewing machine:

Another thing I've made is an iPhone 3 case (I don't know if it will also fit an iPhone 4, I should check).

So there you have it, I now have a new hobby which is sewing. I think the part that I enjoy the most about sewing is figuring out how to put all the different pieces together so that bits of fabric transform into something functional and 3-dimensional. And of course, I love browsing and shopping for pretty fabrics. 

I'll be blogging more about what else I've created so stay tuned!

Melaka 2010: Day 1

Melaka (or Malacca) is situated about 150km south of Kuala Lumpur, approximately 1.5 hours drive along the North-South Highway. Just as we left the boundary of Selangor and entered Negeri Sembilan, we had a little bit of a hiccup with the car overheating:

About 5 minutes later, one of the highway patrol cars pulled up on the other side of the highway and came over to see what was wrong. Here's one of the guys waiting to cross the highway:

Another few minutes, another car pulled up to help and then a big discussion and debate started on what could be wrong with the car. They figured the radiator was rusted and probably got clogged up. We put heaps of water in, by we I mean Terence, Sae and I were happy to stay in the shady interior of the car. I ventured out to take a photo of the operation though:

After that, we continued our journey driving slower this time around. We made one stop at a Seremban petrol station to top up our water supply and then went on to Melaka. First stop in Melaka was the apartment we were going to stay in. From there, we ventured back into Melaka Town and hunted for Jonker Street.

Melaka's full of one way streets so it took us heaps of rounds before finally getting close to Jonker Street. It being a Saturday night, Jonker Street had been shut to cars and a night market had started up, complete with a stage equipped with karaoke set.

Here's some photos of the kind of things sold in the market:

























We had planned to maybe snack a bit and then later on, go for some satay. But we overdid the snack part and so pretty much made our dinner from bits and bobs from many stalls in the market. Half way through our exploration, it started to rain and so we went into one of the shops and had more food in there.

The rain was good for driving people away though and so when we went back out, it wasn't so crowded anymore. We decided to check out what was on the stage (Karaoke session had finished for the time being) There was a show on by this troupe of people, some kind of Indian tribe maybe? My Mandarin sucks, so I couldn't understand a lot of what the MC was saying. But they had fire dancers:


















After watching the show and engaging in more snacks, we left Jonker Street and headed to the river. We decided to take the River Cruise along Melaka River. The ticket box and starting point for this is located near the old Go-Downs (is that where the word Gudang comes from maybe?) along the river:

While waiting for the cruise to start, you can get a quick foot clean at the fish spa right across the ticket box (We didn't but thought what a good idea to set one up right there):

And so the cruise was pretty good, the river was surprisingly non-smelly (Except for one tiny, tiny stretch). Seems that the city paid heaps to get the river cleaned up and they must have paid a lot to pimp up the buildings running along the river too. I liked the murals painted along many of the buildings, many depicted Melaka's history of which I can quite proudly claim to know much of, having had it hammered into my head all of high school. Parameswara 1411, Portugese 1511, pretty good eh? ;)

Well, here's some photos of the river cruise:




















After the cruise, we walked around a bit around the Stradthuys and the old Dutch (I think) church:

All the trishaws are super pimped out


Cannons used to guard the port, now it points right at some cafes across the river



We finished the night by driving past the Famous Melaka Maccas (completely made up honorary title) at Dataran Pahlawan:

Pretty good and adventurous first day and the weather was a real blessing. The entire night was cool and slightly breezy, ideal for exploring Melaka.

And I learnt that Melaka is the home of Mamee:






All those ads ended up working and I satisfied my Mamee craving at the night market.

Japanese Buffet at Mizu in Taman Tun

Right before our trip to Melaka, Sae, Terence and I went for a Japanese Buffet lunch at Mizu. Mizu is located in TTDI Plaza in Taman Tun. When we walked in, we were expecting to see tables laid out with big plates filled with sushi and sashimi. Proper buffet style. However, none of that was evident and we were ushered to our seats filled with fear that we had gotten the day wrong and we'd have to get the much more expensive ala carte lunches. Turns out it was a buffet alright, but instead of piling your own plates, Saturday at Mizu offers more of an 'order what you want' style buffet. We were given a stack of ordering slips with the full lists of foods available and just had to note down the quantity of each item we wanted.

For the lazy, it's a good system but not so much for the environmentally conscious; we went through heaps of slips of paper because we were hesitant to order so much all in one go. According to Mizu buffet veteran Sae, anything we left uneaten would be weighed and we'd be charged based on that weight.

Here's all the dishes that we had:

Soft Shell Crab Salad


Edamame


Salmon Sashimi Salad


We didn't actually order this beef sukiyaki. But since its a buffet, we just accepted it anyway.


The unordered beef sukiyaki also came with some chicken teriyaki, yumm.


Beef and salmon teriyaki


Prawn tempura


Our selection of sashimi, there were Salmon, Tuna, White Tuna and 2 others that I can't remember.


Our selection of maki rolls, the row on top is the special Mizu Maki and I can't remember what the one on the bottom was, possibly soft shell crab?


To finish off, we each had a black sesame and a green tea ice cream. I love green tea but this time around, black sesame won.


And once again...

All up, it was RM50 per person for that Saturday's lunch buffet. Awesome value for some really yummy and normally expensive Japanese food.