Movies and TV shows like The Prince of Persia, Doom, and The Assassins Creed were all influenced by video games throughout the years. Others have utterly failed, while some have succeeded in capturing the spirit of the video game.
No different from other video games, Tekken sparked a few films but failed to appeal to audiences. The new Netflix Original animated series, however, is set to change everything.
TAKEN ABACK BY TEKKEN
The first episode of the series features the silhouette of a gigantic guy who is being questioned about the things that haunt him and whose eyes stare at him from the shadows. A woman in a hut is shown in the next shot being startled by the sound of rustling grass. Three bullies go after a boy and attempt to beat him up, but after receiving a significant amount of damage, the abused boy strikes back and kills the three bullies. However, the woman from the cabin intervenes and stops him before his savagery escalates.
She tells him that even though he won the battle, he actually lost because of his rage because a warrior should know when to stop. She also highlights the need of knowing when to strike and when to resist when practicing the Kazama combat technique. His mother, Jun Kazama, and Jin Kazama learn who the man is. She has been training and educating him in isolation from the rest of the world.
When she asks him to choose his lessons for the day, he insists on training in martial arts, to which she reminds him that a strong mind paves the way for a strong body. Later we see Jun training him in martial arts while trying to instill noble values in him. Later in the night, the father of one of the bullies shows up at their doorstep to confront Jin for beating up his son. Jin confronts the drunk man but is stopped by his mother, who tries to de-escalate the situation but ultimately tackles the guy when he tries to assault them with a broken glass bottle.
Later that night, a mysterious creature appears out of nowhere. Jun goes outside to battle the creature alone and instructs her son not to come out no matter what happens. She also instructs him to find his grandfather Heihachi Mishima. Jun fights the creature valiantly but is no match for its powers.
Upon seeing his mother’s condition, Jin goes outside to help her but gets severely injured. His mother sacrifices herself to save Jin, and the creature disappears. After that incident, we see Jin trying to enter a building but is stopped by the guard, to whom he reveals that he is Jin Kazama, grandson of Heihachi Mishima. The guard takes him to Heihachi himself. Heihachi challenges Jin to a fight in which he brutalizes him and asks him to leave. It is then that Jin reveals what happened to his mother. Heihachi tells him that the creature is Ogre and he would train Jim to fight it the Mishima way.
Jins training starts the very next day. He is given a few valuable instructions, like never taking his eyes off his opponent while inside the ring. Heihachi asked him only to use his hand techniques for the first lesson, but Heihachi would use all the techniques at his disposal. Jin gets brutalized yet again, but his grandfather asks him to shun the Kazama pacifism and adopt the Mishima rage to fuel his strength while telling him to remember his mother’s sacrifice anytime he is too weak to get up. One day Heihachi asks Jin to escort him on a business affair but asks him to stay silent.
They were meeting a guy who had retrieved a pendant Heihachi was looking for but refused to hand it over when Heihachi declined to pay more than what was settled upon. Heihachi asked Jin to get rid of the guy and retrieve the pendant from him. After some hesitation, Jin did what was asked of him. Heihachi noticed Jin’s hesitation and reminded him that hesitation in front of the Ogre would mean certain death. After that day, Jin moved to the next level of his training, where he was only allowed to use his legs.
Heihachi also told him that the day Jin could walk away on his own two feet, he would have completed his training. After four years of vigorous training, Jin finally manages to accomplish it. Heihachi reveals to his assistant Miss Miura that he would revive the King of the Iron Fist Tournament the very same day. He tells Jin that he was doing it to lure the Ogre since it only goes after powerful fighters to absorb their powers.
Jin flies to Peru to the tournament venue, where Miss Miura is waiting at the Airport to welcome him and other fighters. While walking toward the car, he encounters Hwoarang, his rival. Along with him, Jin also comes across Nina Williams and Paul Phoenix waiting outside the car. While on their way to the venue, Jin stumbles upon an old clip of Heihachi fighting his son Kazuya who also happens to be Jin’s father. Meanwhile, everyone in the car starts talking about how Heihachi killed Kazuya though nobody knows for sure.
On the first day, no fight takes place. Jin is confronted by one of the fighters while going after Nina to enquire about Kazuya, who refuses to give out any information. Finally, he gets to know about everything from Phoenix, where he learns how Kazuya almost killed Heihachi in the first tournament and threw him off a cliff but only for Heihachi to return in the next tournament to avenge his defeat and supposedly kill him.
Jin goes to Heihachi to confront him about his father’s demise. Heihachi reveals his son possessed the devil gene, which gave him unmatched power but also started taking control over his body. He also said that the true fighting spirit of Devil Gene was also what spoke to the Ogre, also revealing that he didn’t possess it. On the other hand, Jin had the Devil gene for which the Ogre appeared the night his mother was killed. While Jin is contemplating the fact, others are preparing for their individual fights.
The next day we see Jin meditating before his fight when Xiaoyu calls him. He tells her he was meditating to focus on the fight, for which Xiaoyu reminded him that his fight was just about to take place and was against Leroy Smith. Leroy had confronted him the day before when he learned that Mishima had personally trained Kazama. The fight begins, and both of them fight valiantly. Jin Kazama isn’t able to take down Smith initially but emerges victorious when he mangles his leg.
Next, we see Xiaoyu going up against Nina Williams, where we see Jin is concerned for her, but Mishima assures him that she makes up for her small stature with strategy. Xiaoyu wins the fight after getting her opponent extremely exhausted. Jin visits a recovering Leroy to check on his condition, where Leroy tells him the reason behind his grudge against the Mishima family.
Leroy also tells him that he didn’t expect Jin to show up since the Mishimas don’t care about the condition of their opponents once they are done fighting. Heihachi shows up the very next moment and agrees to what Leroy had to stay and also tells Jin that this tournament is the only way to summon the Ogre, so he needs to focus on it. The next fight occurs between Hwoarang and Jin, where Jin manages to defeat him but offers to buy him a beer out of good sportsmanship, although Mishima doesn’t appreciate it.
Xiaoyu gets brutally beaten by the fighter named King in a fight. Jin visits her while she is recovering, But Xiaoyu thinks that Jin is there to lecture her about the decision to fight in the tournament being a woman. Jin assures her that he isn’t and tells her that his mother was the first to teach him martial arts, also revealing that she is no more.
Jin goes on to check the last semi-final fight between Paul Phoenix and the King, where Mishima reveals to Jin that the Ogre killed the real King. The King emerges victorious against Paul. Before the final, one of the contestants attacks Mishima because he took the pendant from her mother. Jin tries to stop her by telling her that some other guy brought it to Mishima.
But she stands adamant that she won’t leave the place without the pendant and without knowing what happened to her mother. She reveals to him that Mishima released the Ogre using the pendant. After this, Jin fights the King in the Final, in the Mishima style of fighting, albeit maintaining the Kazama philosophy. Jin defeats the King but doesn’t tap into the power of his devil gene and also promises to give away the winning amount to him as he learned from the girl previously that King would use it to build an orphanage. Jin is named the King of Iron Fist.
Suddenly Mishima, hoping that Jins Devil Gene would summon the Ogre, took things into his own hands. It was announced that Jin would have to fight Mishima to become the King of The Iron Fist. Both of them started fighting. Jin tried his best to contain the Devil gene and fight using his mother’s philosophy, but it was of no use against Heihachi. Tapping into his devil gene, he defeated Mishima but also summoned the Ogre.
Jin has a gruesome battle with the Ogre before finally defeating it using the underlying rage, while Mishima stops anyone else from helping him out. The Ogre lies still but suddenly, it disappears and appears in a new avatar with a wing on its back and his right hand replaced by a serpent. This version of the Ogre is even more powerful and serves hefty damage to Jin, rendering him unconscious.
Other fighters, including Hwoarang, Phoenix, and Xiaoyu, join forces to defeat the creature. Jin, with his red pupils under the influence of the devil gene, manages to defeat the Ogre. Mishima shoots him with a gun, stating that he is an abomination. Jin remembers everything in the little while he spends in his afterlife. He wakes up from the afterlife with wings on his back and ram horns attached to his head. He brutalizes Mishima before flying away into the great beyond. Even in this incarnation, he doesn’t kill Mishima, remembering everything his mother had taught him.
THE “OGRE” OR HEIHACHI MISHIMA
At the beginning of the series, the real villain might seem to be the Ogre, who kills Jin’s mother. But as the series continues, we come across the real face of Heihachi Mishima, who initially seems to be nothing but a tough nut to crack. He trains Jin in the Mishima style of Karate to face the Ogre. Later it is revealed that he only used him as bait to lure the Ogre whom he wanted to capture while exploring the Devil gene possessed by Jin despite knowing the risk to Jin’s life.
Not just that, in the pursuit of power, he not only gets Jun Kazama killed but many other good people. Despite possessing the devil gene, Jin Kazama was much more human than Heihachi Mishima could ever be. Jin Kazama didn’t kill Mishima even when he had all the right reasons because of the virtues instilled in him by his mother. Jin prevails through the inner conflict with two opposing ideologies of his grandfather and his mother.
Heihachi additionally killed his own son Kazuya when as a father and teacher, it was his duty to guide him in the right direction but instead, he lets his ego get the worst of him. Heihachi actually summoned the Ogre to bring out the powers of the devil gene inside Jin for him to experiment and hone his own ability. Still, it was the Kazama way that triumphed over the Mishima way.
TEKKEN’S LEGACY
The series draws heavily from the game, but unlike other movies and series, it stays true to the source. It manages to intrigue the viewer from the very beginning with its hardcore action sequences and the philosophical aspects of martial arts. It is a must-watch for gamers who have enjoyed the game in its glory days and also for new viewers looking for something exciting.