FIGHTING GAME MOVIES

I like video games. They let me escape into other realities and loose my frustrations in a healthy way. Sometimes there's a decent amount of cussing involved... but still. One decidedly nice venue for anger management is the fighter genre. Nothing makes a person feel better like smashing an opponents face or filleting them with a weapon. So when I put countless hours of ass whipping into a game, I start to grow fond of the characters and their franchise. So when a movie comes out under the banner of a revered fighting game that I have poured my heart into, I can't help but get a little excited. The problem is they all suck. This tends to be the case with most video game movies but especially for the fighting class. The Street Fighter's, Mortal Kombat's, Dead or Alive, Double Dragon and the movie that I just watched that spawned this rant, Tekken. They were all terrible. Anyone that tells you otherwise has no taste in movies or is so in love with that particular brand that they forgave far too much.

Why is it so hard to make a decent fighting game to silver screen adaptation?! Get real martial artists, quality choreographers, a semi-reputable writer/director combo and your in. I just got done watching the first two Ip Man's and they were freaking amazing. Just do what they did but with fairly recognizable costumes and the appropriate names. Don't stick people that can't brawl in a fighters role, damn it! It's painfully obvious when you have to use a plethora of cut scenes to make it look like an intense battle due to your actors overwhelming wuss factor. While I'm at it, let me run through some suggestions to make a good fighting game movie.

• Use actual fighters, martial artists or people with combat training.
• Insert a ton of fight sequences and keep the drama to a minimum.
• Don't stuff bimbos with big tits in the flick to appease moronic men because we aren't buying that they have any real skills other than the kind on a pole.
• Cut scenes are the lame way to fake a fight.
• Real warriors don't fight in stipper heels and big plastic outfits with dumb protrusions. Spruce them up but don't lose focus of their practicality and actual use.
• It's not necessary to say the characters names over and over again. We're smart enough to catch little hints like wanted posters, military name tags and subtle name drops. Hell... don't even tell us them all and let the fans figure it out.
• Flirting isn't needed among combatants. They are there to annihilate the competition, not hump them.
• Keep the talking to a minimum. Anyone who has actually trained for years to fight ninjas in real life probably can't act that well. Write and direct accordingly.
• Overuse of computer graphics makes anything cheesy and we are already battling the nerdy game stigma. Use real places like dojo's, abandoned warehouses and roof tops. You can always "Finish Them!" by uppercutting the loser off of a forty story building.
• Recognizable actors are only needed if they can actually throw down. And guys like Van Damme and Lambert, as much as I love them, usually make it corny even if they do have some training.

Just once I would like to see a seamless blend of a stellar kung-fu flick and one of my favorite fighting games. How bad ass would it be if Tony Jaa played Liu Kang or Ray Park rocked Guile? I would kill for a quality adaptation of Eternal Champions but I'd rather go without then get another Mortal Kombat: Annihilation quality movie. I mean just look at this. Terrible.