An overly long and rambling review/recap of the King of Fighters movie

Let it be known that I have stared into the abyss, and it did not just stare back; it popped out my eyes, crawled inside my skull, and drove me around like a car.

The production companies, Double Edge Entertainment and Inferno, kind of say it all. And yet it took many more entities to create this. You could call bullshit here if you've heard anything about this movie and justifiably so, so I came prepared with a mountain of horrific evidence:

   

Revisit this fact often over the course of what I'm about to subject you to, because the only way to keep your sanity is to just imagine all these suits reacting to the product as it developed.

Let's start with a G-rated Maggie Q shower scene. Go ahead, movie, show us everything. It won't change a damn thing, we'll just be be confused as to why this movie stars a 13-year-old boy.

That's not to overly denigrate Maggie Q, who as a middle talent is the highlight of this film, but it's a bad start if you're trying to appeal to your core audience of gamer nerds as the character she's playing, Mai, is kind of famous for having an improbable acreage of tits. Maggie Q is famous for possibly being a really pretty boy.

That's not what she wears in the KoF flick, by the way. At no point is she even wearing red. I'm not a stickler for these kinds of details, but seriously it sometimes feels like this movie is doing the opposite of trying. It tends to feel like one massive titty twister directed at the audience.

(Hey kids, take off SafeSearch while googling Mai for a vivid afternoon lesson in how the Japanese are not to be trusted!)

When I call this shower scene G-rated, I mean that in every conceivable way. You'll see exactly what's presented here. It's titillation without any actual titillation, which is a bizarre choice. You could get something just as erotic by sticking a bike horn filled with ink up my ass, putting me in front of a canvas, and punching my hips repeatedly.

Anyfuck, Mai is obviously moody about something as she looks into the mirror. What, you might ask? Fuck you, we're never going to find out. It's called emoting. Maybe it was meant for the sizzle reel to be circulated at the art house theaters. Either way, it's this film's equivalent of heavy lifting.

Next thing we know, Mai gets a magic phone call on a magic freaking bluetooth headset with a magic freaking hologram of the KoF logo on the outer side. She sticks it in her ear and we're magically freaking transported to...

A walk-in freezer. Where they mostly just store their shelves and two recycling bins. Because you know shelves, if they get too warm they get all rapey or something.

Mai is now wearing blue, which as various fantasy games and the abysmal American political arena teach us is the opposite of red. The color this character is associated with, I remind you. But perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the outfit is her garter suspenders, which we'll be staring up quite often in what passes for fan service in this movie.

If you can get off on this, congrats. You're going to be seeing it a fair amount.

But hey, we're staying true to video games because these two bitch about each others' level select and background music choices (actually, just level selection... I misheard "sauna" as "song"). Of course it's really kind of foreground music because it sometimes gets loud enough to spare us the wheezing dialogue.

If you haven't figured it out, this is the basic premise of the movie. A group of people are engaged in a fighting tournament that takes place in an alternate dimension accessed via bluetooth headsets, all vying for the title of King of Fighters. Why? No actual prize is ever mentioned. There's one reason given toward the end, but it's so flimsy and handwavey that it's not even quite laughable. We'll get to that, because I suffered through this for no payoff and so will you.

Though in Sam here's case, judging from the coat, he's just looking for rough trade.

Is that a fucking Beholder!?

NERD CHECK: A Beholder is a creature originating in birth control aid Dungeons and Dragons, dating back to 1975.

When Snakeball shows up, Sam asks what the hell it is. Mai says it's her victory... except then it fucks off and she says "That was close" and the fight continues, leaving us feeling like there was a mid-movie rewrite and nobody checked for continuity, followed by this little bon mot:

DIALOGUE CHECK: "Hey, does your mother know you wear her coat?" "It was a gift!"

At the point you can just feel the screenwriter demanding a high five from God. Regardless, the fight continues, and it speaks of an ill hour and a half to come because Mai is kind of touching this guy lightly in place of hitting him and on one occasion missing a hit by about half a foot. Even James Caan came closer in The Godfather.

In his defense, the guy playing Sam looks like he's having a lot of fun.

Swear to god, I didn't add anything to this picture. That was the actual special effect. To be fair, quite a lot of the fighting effects (especially some flaming kicks later on) actually look really damn cool.

Fine, don't hold me to that.

Mai wins, of course, and the spasmo operating the fog machine once again kicks it into high gear to celebrate. It's been on and off throughout the scene because hey, you can only afford so much dry ice when you dedicate your budget to such lavish sets.

And then she claims the prize, which is possibly a defective Cadbury Egg. It does nothing. It means nothing.

So far this could be less enjoyable, but you'd have to put the disc back in the case and insert it, unlubricated, into my body.

Upon grabbing the giant red herring of a chocolate drop, Mai is transported back to her bathroom, as naked as it's possible for Maggie Q to get, and not a second of time has passed in the real world as evidenced by a drop of water we zoomed in on when she entered the lametrix. She cuts herself on one of her toiletries or maybe the cup they're contained in (either way wouldn't shock) and lets a bit of blood splash right in our faces as a way to segue in the opening credits.

If the movie keeps going at this level of clever, my liver might not make it out of act two.

Mai leaves her apartment in time to catch her date, Iori. The two engage in a dating ritual known only to the people who live under the three suns of the planet Xoomar.

DIALOGUE CHECK: "You wouldn't happened to have seen my date, would you?" "No, but I could try to help you find her if you want."

You hear about this lack of screen chemistry thing, but you're rarely beaten about the head and shoulders with it like an especially bad child in the Prohibition era. This is what empty marriages look like.

Iori chides Mai for being late... in stepping out into the hallway just as he was walking up, I guess, and notes that she was "called in". Except that... time didn't really seem to be passing in the real world when Mai was fighting.

As if to remind us that we suck and don't deserve nice things, Mai is wearing a rather dramatic plunging neckline dress.

Date night consists of a cultural event at a museum in Boston, Canada. Mai exchanges a glance with the doorman. It's Sam, the guy she just trounced. This is played up as something clever and I have no words. My words have failed me.

Meanwhile, Terry Bogard of the CIA (!) is crammed into a minvan with five other agents, watching the event through several "hidden" cameras.

This is what discreet surveillance looks like, apparently. It's pretty hot and gay to actually see it in motion. And that, in the passenger seat, is Fatal Fury star Terry Bogard, who has apparently angered the Pac-Man-like God of videogaming because he's a far cry from the rough and tumble yet happy-go-lucky drifter in the games. In fact he's kind of the movie's sad clown, which is just an amazingly tone deaf direction to take the character in.

It should be noted that he's played by David Leitch, a very active stuntman whose credits include Orgazmo and Balls of Fury, making this a lateral move at best.

Inside, Iori introduces Mai to Chizuru, owner one of the world's more garish makeup kits.

There's a party in progress with a ton of Asians... I'm going to venture a guess and say the KoF game devs? Chizuru and Mai both glare up at the CIA's "hidden" cameras, which look like they were installed by an alarm company. No seriously, look:

That's not a CIA spy camera, that's a security company installation to deter burglars, the type that aren't even real most of the time. So that we don't miss the point, it has "CAMERA" printed around the lens.

And Bogard asks if these people just staring directly at them ARE AWARE of the cameras! What the fuckity fuck fuck? How can you NOT be aware of those?

I have even money on the next fight involving a giant cherry and a power pellet.

DIALOGUE CHECK: "You never told me why you retired." "It's complicated." "You're a complicated guy, Iori."

Now they're showing off several MacGuffins, including a sword, a shield, and a necklace that looks like Red Sonja's bikini bottom. They make the tournament possible somehow, but I'm really glazing over at this point. But the core point is that if all three of these artifacts were controlled by the same person, they could release the demon Orochi. Good thing they've gathered them all together right there onstage.

There's a half-hearted attempt to explain how this translates to magical earpieces, but if I reprinted it both you and I would wind up hanging in a closet somewhere after a few minutes of stupefied silence.

Now our big bad Rugal, played by astonishingly unintimidating martial artist Ray Park, walks up to doorman Sam and explodes. Or shoots him or something. It's really badly put together and unclear what happens.

And you need to see it to believe it because you'll think I'm full of shit when I tell you that he's wearing a Tom Baker-long red polka dot scarf. Our villain. Is wearing this.

Now Bogard and his clown car of CIA agents start running the moment they hear the gunshot, but Rugal is in the auditorium in the next scene and they're still outside running.

Predictably, all hell breaks loose. Mai fighting Rugal is at least better than the opening fight scene. A painful looking fall of Rugal's back meeting the edge of the stage was actually looking good, but it's made up for by the complete travesty that is the editing and pacing. A team of CIA agents (who are STILL outside!), two fighters, all these people, security, and Rugal is just taking his sweet time stealing all the shit on the stage.

Rugal manages to grab the artifacts, slice up Chizuru with the sword, and run for it. Iori gives chase.

DIALOGUE CHECK: "Wouldn't it be ironic if I was to kill you with this sword right now?" AT NO POINT DO THIS MOVIE AND THE CONCEPT OF IRONY DO SO MUCH AS TOUCH DICKS.

This comment is directed toward retired KoF champ Iori but even then there's no fucking irony. And that's... screenwriting 102, seriously.

I went into this not knowing much about KoF, but I know less than I did half an hour ago.

They have Rugal cornered, he's about to I guess teleport out, Iori is trying to convince the CIA to let him in. What's the proper SOP in this case, Terry? Yelling BACK OFF while aiming your gun at the civilian, of course!

Man, look at these guys. What frat are they recruiting from these days? While we're at it, isn't the CIA prohibited from staging ops on American soil?

Rugal cuts himself with the sword and teleports (CALLED IT!) "back in" to the "other side", then a wounded Chizuru tells Mai that the sword was a fake. So how did it work? The internal logic is just too fucked to follow here.

I've lost the plot completely at this point. Chizuru tells Mai that she must go after Rugal, but must not tell Iori. She must do this alone. Why? Well... they don't say. I think they're just speaking in cliches for the fuck of it now. Either that or they're low on quarters.

Notice the camera angles here. No shit, virtually every other shot is tilted to some degree, even when it adds nothing to the scene. The awkward hallway zombie flirtation between Mai and Iori? Dutch angled to death. It's honestly giving me a bit of a headache in my left frontal lobe at this point.

Mai's first stop to find the real sword sees her going to a hospital where she asks to see Kusanagi, a character we haven't met or heard of yet. The nurse acts like she just asked to see Hannibal Lecter.

And she gets a text from Terry Bogard. You might wonder if Mai's leading a double life, and normally I'd make a joke that you might be a little stunted if you even have to wonder except that this movie has already proven that logic equals nothing.

Did I just reference Silence of the Lambs? Well does this overlong hallway walk remind you of anything?

Really, I kind of see the movie itself as a Buffalo Bill figure, standing over me screaming as I'm in the bottom of a pit with a fresh strip of flesh missing from my right arm. And oh god here comes the basket again.

God, where were we? We meet old man Kusanagi, a vegetable who dared to look, Cthulu-style, directly at the script for this movie. Now he just stares out the window all day but that doesn't keep Mai from trying to speak with him repeatedly. Then we meet his son Kyo, played by Sean Faris. That's right, KoF has ONE UPPED THE MOTHERFUCKING 80s by sticking a white Asian in the same room with his Asian Asian father.

DIALOGUE CHECK: "His son? I didn't... I didn't realize!"

Wow. Yeah, neither did I. I wasn't aware genetics took a holiday up its own ass. This is technically a nitpick, but I'm also not sure Kyo can really read.

Wait now what the fuck am I watching? ...is a phrase I'm sure I didn't author before other viewers of this movie, but still. We're now seeing a flashback where Kusanagi Sr. is training what I assume to be a young Kyo, WHO IS NOW ASIAN. "Boy, you keep taking these disasterous martial arts movie roles and I will SLAP THE ORIENTAL RIGHT OFF YOUR FACE"

What really sets a masterpiece like this apart from hackery like The Karate Kid is the weedy marram grass and the streetlamps back there. Really sells the mysticism.

This is sandwiched by shots of Mai getting into her car, getting ready to leave, and deciding to sleep right there in the parking lot. She goes back into the hospital and runs into Iori, and together they go back to visit Kusanagi.

And that's when the vegetable attempts to murder Iori, because I guess somebody has to.

He fails, unfortunately, and immediately dies of shame.

A few rooms over, I assume, Chizuru is trying to shut down the fighting tournament with the help of a manchild and his laptop because that is how you control an alternate dimension created by three ancient artifacts. Also, he announces that he's doing this AS he enters the alternate dimension's password. Unfortunately, Rugal overrides the shutdown so they have to rely on warning emails to the fighters not to accept challenges in the meantime. Which should work, it's not like these characters are bone stupid or anything.

We find out just how effective it is when we meets our next pair of fighters, Vice and Mature who oh good Christ, two lightly teased shower scenes in one movie?

Dear KoF: Thanks for making lesbian flirting boring. Please find enclosed five pounds of toxic spiders. Your in Jesus, The Colonel.

I could be bothered to remember which character is Vice and which is Mature, but Lesbian One gets a magic Bluetooth call, but they note hey, we're not supposed to accept challenges until Chizuru says so. Then Lesbian Two also gets a call, so they figure HAY THAT'S NEVER HAPPENED LET'S TRY IT OUT.

So they end up in... of all the fucking things... a long alley covered in graffiti with one ramp so I guess it's a skate park. And Rugal is now skating around them menacingly. I mean, I guess it's supposed to be menacing. And like the fucking elevator in Silent Hill 2, there's a disembodied crowd and announcer screaming about how Vice's gloves are off... as she has her hands up in a fighting stance clearly wearing these crackwhore pink gloves. Literally, this voiceover and this visual exist in the same shot.

Rugal beats them both up and then loses balance on his skates and falls down. The tone of the movie just keeps sliding all over the place like a hard turd on an icy pond.

I think we're now well beyond the Dutch angle, possibly having invented the Swiss angle. That camera is damn near 90 degrees tilted.

I need to rewind this to confirm... Okay, I haven't gone insane. He sits up after his random fall, and to show he means BUSINESS he just kind of waves his arms and all his hockey guard equipment just flies off.

And another fight scene that wouldn't be bad (Ray Park is a great stunt martial artist) except for two things. Our lesbians are actually kinda hot, but look like lightweight ravers trying out their first BDSM cosplay and just erring on the side of cuteness. And it's hard to take Park serious when he A) speaks and B) is dressed up like a third grade goalkeeper in big brother's outfit. YOUR VILLAIN SHOULD NEVER WEAR A BACKWARD BASEBALL CAP UNLESS HE IS VIOLENTLY CORNHOLING NED BEATTY.

Also it is like panty flash central.

Aaaand here's Rugal's evil plan: Using his mind control that is impelled upon lesbian one by making out with her, he has them call all the other fighters and say it's like totally okay to accept the challenges really. I don't see this working in a world where the competitors are older than, say, twelve.

DIALOGUE CHECK: "I mean I lost but it was a lot of fun."

Again, not sure if this is shitty editing or the movie's heinous logic, but the lesbian that made the calls wasn't under the mind control at this point, or at least seemed to regret what she was doing, and is shown being rape-kissed by Rugal afterwards

Okay, seriously. Just seriously, movie, I need to talk with your supervisor. Chizuru and geek with a laptop who seems to just be slapping keys at random are talking when Bogard comes in to question her. The geek tries to cover by saying "Thanks for looking at my blog" (!) and Bogard decides he needs the laptop because "I need answers". This results in the two of them PLAYING TUG OF WAR with the laptop.

Just WATCHING this is undignified, and it continues the thread of Terry Bogard as rogue CIA agent. Which he tops off by demanding the geek type in the password, threatening him with Gitmo if he doesn't. Geek refuses, so Bogard looks at his phone and immediately types in the correct password. "How did you do that?" "I'm CIA."

Most of that scene just didn't need to exist. Well, none of it did, technically, but you follow me.

This little chat leads to Bogard finding out about the alternate dimensions, which leads to this bit of dialogue:

DIALOGUE CHECK: "Don't give me that bullshit about dimensions!" "Actually string theory supports the idea of over 10 or 11 different dimensions occupying the same time capsule as this one." "You got beat up a lot as a kid, didn't you?" "No."

Chizuru reveals that *SHOCK* she knows Mai is an undercover CIA agent inserted into the organization a year ago. Remember that Mai has been undercover for a year.

Meanwhile, Mai and Iori are about to have a chat with Shiroi... sorry, Kyo Kusanagi. Iori says it's a waste of time, drawing argument from nobody except Mai. He states that Kyo is a half-blood, which as reasons for him going from Asian to white rates just below severe sickle cell anemia.

DIALOGUE CHECK: "Iori, what is the Orochi? What is it?" "You wouldn't understand. It's pure evil."

Then Mai flops something about trust out of her dialogue hole and just goes off with Kyo because "he might have answers" and rides off on the back of his motorcycle, making it look strongly like Iori just got cuckolded. And they go to some motorcycle guy's place. He's fixing a motorcycle, he has crude drawings of motorcycles... I think this is "character depth" as perceived by the writer.

CORRECTION: It's Kyo's house, the guy is just some... friend of the director? He's just there to bitch about a broken motorcycle that might be his or Kyo's.

Mai and Kyo get into a tepid argument, he puts a hand on her, she winds up severely injuring him and immediately being so, so sorry.

All of the character relationship development has been marked with this kind of awkward lack of chemistry that would really befit an indie art film portraying two Catholics post-coitus.

So she resets his arm and they tumble off the couch and he's on top of her and oh god they're meant to be together this is how psychotics think isn't it. The whole thing is so maneuvered that it's like watching puppets having foreplay.

DIALOGUE CHECK: "You don't know the story? Your boyfriend didn't tell you?" "He's not my..." MEANINGFUL STARE.

Okay, so I've developed a theory about Kyo. Old man Kusanagi was training his son, the Asian Asian, when there was An Accident. Kusanagi, unable to deal with his grief, adopted a son as an emotional replacement and started to develop a fixation on him being his lost son, to the point where he started to believe it. Either that or this is a page one rewrite of The Jerk Three and we just barely lost what could have been a comedic treasure.

After some exposition that I dare you to stay awake through (blah blah clans blah blah murdered my ancestor) Kyo asks where he can find Rugal, for he's the one who destroyed his (adoptive) father's mind. Somehow. Maybe they'll explain it later and I won't get my hopes up. Anyway, I gleaned that Kyo and Iori's clans have hated each other for a while, possibly fueling Mai's passive-aggressive breakup with the guy.

I need to take a break here and revisit a few things that are bothering me, hastily but accurately defined as everything. If I could be fucked to really take this movie at all seriously, of course. We have; Mai, a deep cover CIA agent who has been infiltrating this tournament for a year. In all this time she's obviously never filed a report because the details come as absolute news to Terry Bogard. And while we're on Bogard, why the fuck was he staking out the museum event with a full team of goons if they had a mole on the inside? That Rugal chose that night to create security jelly on the window was a complete coincidence as far as I can tell.

Why am I even bothering?

Back to the story aaaaand almost immediately we're assaulted by stupid. I say assaulted but it's more like "beaten where the bruises won't show", since Terry Bogard is showing Mai photos of people Rugal has murdered... in an alternate dimension that he doesn't believe in. And a minute later he even calls bullshit on the dimensions theory AGAIN.

Then he outs Mai as a CIA agent right in front of one of everybody. Not pictured; the movie's sense of logic is now curled up in the corner, weeping softly about how she'll be a good girl from now on and please not the stick again oh please god not the stick.

DIALOGUE CHECK: "Wow, this just keeps getting better and better." Director Gordan Chan, you and your mouthpiece actors are the blackest of liars.

Iori then decides to jack into the Matrix and is confronted with something I guess we're supposed to consider visually freakish, a kind of stadium filled with department store mannequins in identical dresses, wearing Phantom of the Opera masks. It fails in its intended visual agenda, but I'll admit it must have sounded cool on paper. Maybe if there was some competence behind this production.

That's it, I'm going to find the DP and bitch slap his fucking soul. Was the camera tripod broken? Was there just a retard convention in Canada during the weekend that this was filmed? God fuck fucky shaft and balls shitting moose I'm leaving.

Okay, I have a few horse tranquilizers in me, courtesy of the Mexican police. Ready to carry on.

Of course Rugal is there, in yet another humiliating 12-year-old doing Halloween as a pimp costume. There's some of the movie's requisite godawful dialogue. And then, it's an episode of When Lesbians Attack. And here I'll wish that they didn't practice the MTV style of editing wherein the editor attacks the film with a pair of scissors and an overzealous erection because the actors are middling to decent screen fighters and the special effects are actually kind of neat.

Another fight scene we can barely see, another dozen panty shots. It's like the god of Shame is out there struggling for relevancy in this modern world.

Since I'm not terribly familiar with the games, do Iori's eyes have a habit of smoking and glowing right before he screams and magically repels attacking lesbians? I never learned that in the Tae Kwan Do class I took at the strip mall next to the Carvel.

Oh, there's the Beholder! Turns out this is Orochi, but I kind of figured. I guess he spends his days just kind of Dude-ing around and taking in the fights, not really bothering to do a damn thing.

For no good reason, Iori steps on Vice's hand and pimp smacks her. Beats up Mature a bit much, who at least was putting up a pathetic attempt at hurting him. During all of this we get a lot of random close-ups of the mannequins. Rugal rattles off some bizarre attempt at a corrupting the hero speech, followed by Iori taking his magical floating Cadburry Egg prize and transporting back to the real world. He shows off his newfound pact with the devil by having a mild conniption and telling everybody to stay away before he... turns normal again. This doesn't bode well for the dishes, but doesn't seem like a major thing otherwise.

Iori reinforces to Shiroi GOD DAMN IT Kyo that they need to find the sword. Kyo repeats his opinion that this is nuts... despite having seen Iori vanish and then reappear with magic snake eyes... and leaves.

Dialogue check: "I'm not the one pitting two of our suspects together in a vicious love triangle that threatens to unleash an evil force into our world, potentially unraveling the fabric of our universe."

In the movie's one blind ass-grab at sanity, Bogard now confronts Mai with the fact that she never disclosed anything about the tournament, but it devolves into really banal, childish wordplay where they say they hate each other. I think in real life this kind of conversation would end with a burn notice.

Also revisits the question of why they were investigating these people in the first place. If you take away the whole dimension hopping fighting tournament it's a bunch of people who have little to nothing to do with each other.

Dialogue check: "Why does this place smell?" "We're on a budget."

Meanwhile, Rugal is doing... something... with the Orochi Beholder. It's not clear, but I'll just guess that he captured it after the Iori fight. Though if this was some sort of plot on Rugal's part, it really doesn't make sense. Does the floating snake ball just show up at fights? If we had seen Rugal killing any of the previous fighters (thanks for skipping the action part of this action movie, by the way) we might have the answers to this. As it is, we don't and fuck you.

Iori confronts Kyo about what it means to be a Kusanagi and my brain wonders if any of the Asians demanded extra pay to treat one of the whitest men in the universe as if he too were Asian. I'm reminded of the game store I owned in Little Tokyo, the innumerable fetish relationships I witnessed, and I'm sure this kind of monetary arrangement has occurred before.

Iori gives Kyo the magic Bluetooth and sends him packing into... a fucking alleyway. What was the budget on this movie and how many Almond Joy bars did they spend it on?

Did I mention that people get an automatic clothing change when they visit the alternate dimension? They've been plain but acceptable up until this point, but Kyo's costume looks like a really basic cosplay where the tween ninja in question gave up after the armguards and just raided his grandfather's assisted living condo for the rest. Rugal is suddenly the less garish one, dressed up as a dungeon master or something.

Rugal and lesbian friends are there, of course, and Rugal kicks Kyo into a doorway and he immediately flies out another door down the hall. Oh my god, it's a Looney Tunes bit.

Kyo gets his ass kicked, but Rugal decides to send him back with a message; he'll stop the killing if everybody comes in and fights him. As plots go, this one is just... it's...

Kyo warps back from the set of the Super Mario Bros. movie and quickly flees, confused. Mai accuses Iori of almost getting him killed, to which Iori is silent. You can just feel the screenwriter forcing Mai and Kyo's heads together and yelling "Kiss, you fucks! Do it!"

Kyo goes to his father's grave, so I guess we already had the service, and Mai comes to talk to him and oh my god how does the dialogue keep outdoing itself? And WHY?

DIALOGUE CHECK: "I just don't understand what you saw in that place. My father was a man of peace. All I saw was evil." "It wasn't always that way." "What do you see in there?" "I dunno. A place where I can be me?"

DOUBLE DANGER DIALOGUE CHECK, BITCHES: "You know, one lost soul can recognize another." "I thought you were just after the sword." "I'm looking for a lot of things."

MAKE IT FUCKING STOP: "Why are you after me? Because my last name is Kusanagi?" "No, because you are the last Kusanagi."

Astonishing the population of Moron Town, Kyo reveals that he had the sword the entire time.

Bogard has used Chizuru's list to round up all the Bluetooth headsets... entirely off camera, because what we need to see is all these people hanging out at Kyo's house talking. Mai, need I remind you a FUCKING CIA AGENT, takes issue with this intrusion of Chizuru's trust. What right did Bogard have to round up a bunch of unheard of technology that's been transporting civilians to an alternate dimension inhabited by somebody set on doing a murder on each and every one of them?

Clearly we're supposed to side with her, but she comes off as utterly deranged and out of touch with reality, complaining as she is about somebody taking a precaution to protect people too stupid to avoid getting obviously murdered. As it is, the movie beats us over the head and ass with the whole trust thing.

Bogard points out that he's blocked off the means of entering the alternate dimension when Chizuru is wheeled in by the rest of the gang and says no, he hasn't. This is never explained, but it's an important claim as you'll find out in a minute.

Out of nowhere, with no explanation of how they know this, Chizuru and laptop nerd announce that Rugal is planning on merging the other dimension with Earth and we're just freebasing Mortal Kombat now. Rugal interrupts this explanation, which would certainly just be more bullshit technobabble anyway, by revealing that he can now drag people into the alternate dimension at will and takes Mai... INTO THE FUCKING ALLEY. Not only are we using the shittiest settings imaginable, we're now retreading them.

Laptop nerd is now watching her on his computer, something we haven't seen them doing until now, and to prove it's another dimension they're viewing it with the yellow filter removed.

Kyo brings the sword and Iori is the only one outraged by his previous subterfuge. In fact he's kind of dressed down for a mild accusation about Kyo hiding it. I kind of like how any character who acts halfway rational is chastised for it in this movie.

Anyway, they decide they're all going to the Outworld, except that Chizuru cockblocks Iori on the basis that he might succumb to Orochi again... despite the fact that the last time this happened, he just kind of told everybody to back off. And Chizuru entered the scene in a wheelchair. This all makes sense.

"It's cool, guys, this wheelchair is full of healing potions and love."

Chizuru tells Iori to destroy everything if they don't return, which will apparently help because it's the only way in or out of the OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH wait what's that she said when she entered? No it isn't the only way? Continuity is out in the alley getting a shiv in the gut, sorry people.

They just keep flogging this teleporting hallway gag like they invented it as Mai walks through a few doors at random before just turning to look and see what she's presumably trying to find. Rugal's throne (and didn't he just choose the greatest place to set up court?) at one end of this stupid hallway, backlit by blacklights and a fog machine. I assume if you go far enough back there, you'll find some crazy Grateful Dead posters and a lifetime supply of granola.

The whole gang shows up suddenly and Mai elbows Bogard in the face, which I suppose the audience is supposed to laugh and cheer at. Rugal appears and there is some OH GOD FUCK MY EARS

I chose this poor shot for a reason. Remember that Bogard is wearing that hat.

DIALOGUE CHECK: "This isn't life. This is where we come to challenge ourselves and learn, so we can be better in the real world."

And if you can figure out how beating the shit out of people in an alternate dimension betters yourself, brother, you're a smarter man than I.

Dear screenwriters: If you ever have one character say "This is over" and the other say "This is just beginning", you may need to go to the back of the class and pout.

Vice attacks, Rugal runs off, and Kyo follows. Chizuru tells him he can do this (TM) and he goes through the door, to wind up in...

...a fucking dojo or something. I guess that's a common enough fighting game background, but for fuck's sake, why?

Mai winds up in an alternate dimension hobo camp.

Chizuru duplicates herself and orders her alternate selves to split up and find the other treasure pieces.

Dialogue check: "Do you know what this is? This was your father's favorite level."

And again we're in the middle of a fight scene that would probably be highly watchable except for spazoid editing and a brief pause for a flashback about Kyo's father being possessed by Orochi and trying to kill him.

Cue a scene where Rugal gets bored with using his staff and is tossed a few different weapons from different directions from FUCK KNOWS WHO and settles on a baseball bat, preparing to go all Double Dragon on Kyo.

Mai continues to look for Terry by standing still and calling his name, when he comes flying out of the wall in his spiffy new combat duds... and his orange vest looks a bit like a life preserver.

The lesbians are close behind, so it's a two-on-two match in many puddles of urine. Mai beats the ever loving shit out of both of them while Bogard is grounded, the two regroup, and then flee in panic when the lesbians come back for seconds. Which makes sense. I guess. If you disregard that everybody's fighting abilities seem to fluctuate wildly and Mai now feels the need to run from two people she took on single-handedly.

Meanwhile the battle between Kyo and Rugal is going badly, Kyo's sword being badly outmatched by the baseball bat. Rugal steals a page from God Hand, albeit lamely, and starts swatting flaming baseballs at Kyo. WHO IS TEN FEET AWAY FROM HIM AND CAN ONLY THINK TO DUCK REPEATEDLY.

The requisite dramatic turn comes when Kyo slices a baseball in half. There's your loser trailer moment, assholes.

A brief but decent sword fight later (yes, at some point Rugal just suddenly has a sword because fuck I'm too bitter to even try right now) Rugal is poised to kill a defenseless Kyo. How does Kyo get out of this situation?

By a deus ex machina fueled by the power of friendship, of course! Iori teleports in and kicks Rugal away just as he's about to slice up white boy.

Mai bursts through the dojo wall like a Kool-Aid man full of misery and failure, involved in a kung fu battle with TWO HOBOS. I'm sure Vince McMahon is watching this somewhere and taking notes.

Oh wait, I thought they came into the dojo fight but apparently it was a different scene altogether. Fuck this editing. The lesbians are also here and everybody's just fighting everybody and who cares at this point. None of this matters. There are so many panty shots that it'd make the Japanese blush and the evil lesbians are taken out in a Wile E. Coyote fashion.

Seriously, let me try to encapsulate this. Bogard knocks over Vice and calls out to Mai, who leaps down a stairwell from the floor above and Mario bops the woman's stomach, ensuring her uterus will never function properly again. Then Mature leaps at Terry, who kicks her out of midair and sends her down on top of Vice, breaking the fucking stairs and sending them both plummeting to the floor below. The only thing missing is the FX guy from The Mask.

Like it matters, though, because they're up in about two seconds and it's again time to run away from the scary lesbians who get beaten up repeatedly.

Would you look at that, it's my old friend the half-empty whiskey bottle that somebody used to extinguish a cigarette! At this point I'm desperate enough to stick in a straw and try to work my way around it.

They go back through the hobo camp... where they just came from, I remind you... just beating up a bunch of homeless people who may or may not be attacking them. Mai loses Terry, who spots a guy just walking along, definitely not being hostile, wearing Bogard's signature Fatal Fury hat. Terry takes it and decks the guy. Just... decks the guy. Did this hobo wander out into the +1 Hallway of Many Doors and back or is just

Rugal and Iori are fighting in a scene SO FUCKING INTENSE that we're not allowed to actually see it, with two different clips played over each other in a transparency that makes it impossible to actually see anything, which is kind of a kick in the nuts because if there's one thing this movie does right, it's the flame effects and they are in full force here. It starts to look more like they're doing some kind of tango, honestly.

Seriously, the WHOLE FIGHT SCENE does this shit.

Rugal knocks Iori down and Kyo, remembering that he had something to do with this fight, steps in with the sword to defend him.

Another flashback where Rugal seeks to tell Kyo the truth about Iori sees him talking about himself in the third person. Always a great sign. Iori and Kyo's father worked together to defeat Rugal years ago, but upon losing, Iori harnessed the power of Orochi and visited a curb party upon Rugal, then turning his attention to his friends and turning Kyo's dad into the vegetable we all knew and didn't care about.

And Iori, once again corrupted in the present day, attacks Kyo. Soo-prise, soo-prise. He beats the shit out of Kyo for a minute and I'm a bit conflicted about how I should be feeling over this when Mai attracts his attention, allowing Kyo to slice him open and let out all the bad things. Because it'd work that way.

Dialogue check: "This is not fun anymore." I don't even need to touch that one.

Rugal teleports them all  to... of all the fucking things... another, bigger alley. He winds up to throw a gigantic fireball, which Mai blocks with an electric field and this all makes perfect sense because I... hold on, let me get my D&D manual. Saving throw vs. fireballs thrown by gimpy cosplayers...

Yes, that's Kyo and Iori in the background being thrown like ragdolls, which happens a LOT during the disappointing and guilt-ridden climax of this film.

Chizuru and clones return with the artifacts just in the nick of time, because hey we didn't need to see that happening either, and they trap Rugal in an energy field using their trinkets. Except they don't because he just knocks one of them away. He then throws a car at them in a manner that simply defies everything you might know about physics and reality and not sucking ass through a straw.

And he's just ranting and demands to know if there's anybody strong enough to challenge him and dialogue you could predict from a coma where the nurse is feeding you beer intravenously, when Mai runs up and dramatically jumps over the car in another low-reaching trailer moment and another fight begins.

Finally, along comes Terry and his puffy orange safety vest, along with the lesbians and basically all the hobos. I don't get the hobos, are they supposed to be intimidating? Hilarious? What? Terry offers to take care of them while Mai goes after Rugal, since he had enough trouble taking care of one of them earlier I have to question this despite the fact that I know better. Questions only lead to pain and self-cutting here.

The wires have completely taken over as people are now flying through the air and throwing fireballs in the same way I imagine Ann Romney dreaming of herself doing. Much like the latter, shittier Matrix flicks that it rips off, there's now no real context to base your suspension of disbelief in and the whole thing is way too abstract to be thrilled by. The fire effects continue to look very cool (with a few notable exceptions) but that's about it.

Chizuru, apparently mortally wounded by some glowy spot on her abdomen, overdramatically tells Mai that she needs to take her place. Just what Chizuru does has been vaguely ill-defined, she's obviously in charge but the control hierarchy is a bit all over the place. There's a champion, the King of Fighters, then there's this woman her buttkissing toady with the laptop.

Mai counters that she can't be like Chizuru, which brings us back to what they're attempting to champion as a theme in this movie: "I don't need you to be me. I need you to be you."

Pause. I can dig the idea of exploring the concept of identity, of expectations versus being true to yourself, but it makes ZERO. FUCKING. SENSE here, no matter how hard they hammer it home (and there is a lot of hammering on this particular nail). If there's a connection between evil cosplayer with bad fashion sense merging an alternate dimension with Earth and somehow ruling all of it with the power of the unholy snakeball and FINDING YOURSELF, it's just not working here. Hell, try to get a group of masters to sell that concept, it probably still won't happen. It's certainly not happening in this bottom-of-the-ballsack production.

Anyway, Chizuru then disintegrates into glowy flakes to go join the Mako lifestream or whatever the fuck it is that happens in this cock and bull version of reality.

Meanwhile, Bogard fights a hobo that's ON FIRE! Kind of.

Mai starts up the artifact energy field again, and Rugal uses the same move to escape, only this time it doesn't work because FUCK LOOK OVER THERE WHAT'S THAT?

He screams "YOU NEED ME!" to the sky and the Ovaltine powder of evil that earlier exited Iori flies into him obediently as he strikes a Highlander pose, sending everybody flying. Sensing a theme here?

Kyo gets the shit kicked out of him some more, giving me a few brief seconds of enjoyment before Rugal breaks the sword and Kyo has one of those Power of the Flashback moments and we have to see several scenes from the movie again because hey we're all sinners in the hands of an angry god, right? Rugal throws a huge ball of fire at him, engulfing him, but just like in real life thinking about your dad makes you non-flammable, and he proceeds to summon another sword because I guess it was inside him all along. At this point the movie has broken my spirit and I'm just letting myself accept that it's a series of cliches that it expects the audience to take for granted.

Kyo strikes a pose, slices the fire away, and then flings a flaming blade at Rugal. It does the double insult of implying that he's about to fall into two pieces...

...before he goes all charcoally and blows the hell up.

The gang beating that Bogard was receiving this entire time stops as everybody passes out and wakes up, seconds later, feeling all normal and not at all weirded out.

Cue some kind of Asian funeral ritual where laptop geek, of all the fucking people, places what looks like a giant Chinese take-out box in the least scenic harbor that film has ever witnessed. Probably for Chizuru, they never say, and then they discuss the future. Kyo says they should continue with the tradition. They all smile. Geek says he could get on with the preparations immediately and they all grimace and walk away. I'll give them this much credit; in real life you'll get the same spectrum of reactions to the same idea when they're put forward by the jock and the nerd. It's the comedic equivalent of fingering a hobo's asshole.

Oh and then Kyo's father's ghost shows up telling him it's time to face his destiny. I'd mock this but I'm afraid poking this corpse with a stick any further is just going to result in something very, very dark happening.

The ghost vanishes but we're subjected to the meaningless philosophy Kyo read to him in the hospital earlier. There's really no context for these lines. But the important thing is that it's all over.

Or is it?

Okay, we get it. Iori will be all evil in the sequel that's going to happen any day now despite the fact that Rotten Tomatoes has one review total, making this one of the most ignored films in history.

I said we get it.

Oh god stop.

Seriously, I can count this man's Oriental pores.

FOR SHIT'S SAKE.

CALLED IT.

So I'm in pain. I did that to myself and I can't blame anybody else (though Gordon Chan and crew are still on the shitlist), but I'm also proud. I've come face to face with the devil's dick and I'm still relatively sane. And to be fair, there are worse movies. Jack and Jill springs to mind. And... well, actually, that might be it.