Well guys, this is it. The last Fatal Fury movie. I’m pumped about this review, and I hope you are too. With that out of the way, let’s look at the last Fatal Fury movie, a.k.a. The Motion Picture (More on this towards the end).
BTW, sorry for posting this a day late. I went over to a friends house for a picnic at Saratoga Park. I just got home a couple minutes ago, but I'm still awake enough to post this. Enjoy!
Story/Setup
Unlike the first two movies, Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture features an original story (As well as some new characters). Normally I don’t spoil the whole story of a movie/show, but with how much is in the movie, I’m making this rare exception. Read on, and watch out for spoilers:
“While exploring a cavern in Egypt, Cheng Sinzan discovers a leg armor plate said to be one of six pieces of the Armor of Mars. Cheng is defeated by Laocorn Gaudeamus and his three henchmen before Laocorn attaches the part to his body and destroys the cavern. In Japan, Joe Higashi makes his triumphant return into the ring by defeating Thai champion Hwa Jai after the events of Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle. Joe reunites with Terry and Andy Bogard, as well as Mai Shiranui. While being chased by a masked assailant, Sulia Gaudeamus - Laocorn's sister - befriends Terry. After Big Bear is knocked unconscious by the assailant, Kim Kaphwan defeats him, exposing the assailant as Cheng. Sulia reveals that she has searched for Terry since his battle with Krauser. Sulia, Terry, Andy, Mai and Joe travel to Rhodes, where Sulia reveals that she is a descendent of Gaudeamus, a powerful warrior whose armor drew fear among Alexander the Great. One night, Alexander killed Gaudeamus, but the armor gained life after his death, and reincarnated himself as Mars before destroying a city; it was eventually defeated by four warriors. To prevent Mars from destroying cities again, the armor was broken up and hidden in different places around the world. On the island, the five discover a series of cave paintings that indicate that martial arts moves such as Tung Fu Rue's Hurricane Punch and Krauser's Blitz Ball were influenced by Gaudeamus. Sulia reveals that she possesses healing powers due to her heritage and shares a mental bond with Laocorn. After Sulia discovers the locations of two of the three remaining armor pieces, the group divides into two subgroups in an attempt to find them.
While searching for the breast plate in Turkey, Terry, Joe and Sulia discover an ancient chamber, which was unearthed in the police station's destruction. The three discover that the breast plate is in Stroheim Castle, Krauser's former home. Joe is sent to Baghdad to rendezvous with Andy and Mai. Having realized that the breast plate is in Stroheim Castle in Germany, Terry and Sulia travel to the castle, but are confronted by Laocorn's henchman Jamin. Terry is severely injured after using the Power Geyser attack to escape. At the castle, Panni, Laocorn's henchwoman, defeats Krauser's former henchman Laurence Blood and acquires the breast plate from the castle. In Iraq, Andy and Mai find out that the site of the leg armor was raided when the Mongolians sacked Baghdad and brought their loot back to China. They figure that Tung Fu Rue knew the location of the armor piece before he died, and their next lead would be Tung's old friend Jubei Yamada.
Sulia heals Terry using part of her life force. Terry, hears from Sulia that her and Laocorn's father was leading an expedition to find the Armor of Mars after discovering the first piece - the right gauntlet. Then one day, a business partner killed the twins' father. After Laocorn was shot by the murderer, he used the armor to kill the murderer. Since then, Laocorn developed an insatiable desire to complete the armor. Hearing the story, Terry vows to fight to protect Sulia from any pain or suffering. In Japan, Andy and Mai go to Duck King's nightclub, where they have arranged to meet with Jubei. As Jubei gives Andy the location of the leg armor, Andy confronts Geese Howard's staff-wielding henchman Billy Kane, but is interrupted by the appearance of Laocorn's third henchman, Hauer. After unsuccessfully trying to seduce and bring Mai to his side, Hauer destroys the nightclub. The next day, Billy reports the confrontation to Geese. Geese, however, dismisses it as trivial information. In China, Andy retrieves the leg armor when he and Mai are attacked by Hauer, who defeats them and steals the armor piece. The five regroup in Rhodes, where Sulia tells them that Laocorn has not found the crown - the sixth armor piece. They discover a secret chamber behind the cave paintings and use Sulia's pendant to reveal the Dead Sea in Israel as the location of the final piece.
In Jerusalem, while Andy is away practicing his techniques, Terry and Joe are knocked unconscious while Mai and Sulia are cornered by Laocorn and his henchmen. Sulia agrees to go with her twin brother if he promises not to harm her friends. Laocorn, Sulia and Jamin flee, but Hauer and Panni are easily defeated by Andy and Mai. The heroes head for the Dead Sea, where Laocorn raises an ancient temple. While Andy, Joe and Mai confront an army of Laocorn's masked thugs at the temple, Terry runs toward the entrance and defeats Jamin with his Burning Knuckle technique. He explains that he sees the bond between Terry and Sulia, and that Terry is the only one who can save her and Laocorn.
Laocorn finds the armor's crown, mounted on a statue of Mars. Over Sulia and Terry's objections, Laocorn crowns himself - causing the armor to encase him in vermeil and augment all of his powers and abilities. Andy, Joe and Mai join in the fight, but are overpowered by Laocorn's newly-acquired powers. Then, just when Laocorn is about to finish off the heroes, Sulia stabs her own arm to injure Laocorn. As his abilities have become more powerful, so has his mental bond with his sister. Sulia stabs herself in the heart, causing more pain to Laocorn. Before succumbing to her wounds, Sulia tells Terry to strike Laocorn's breast plate. Terry uses his Burning Knuckle technique to defeat Laocorn and reduce his armor to four coins. The coins assimilate into the statue of Mars, bringing it to life. Realizing that the armor was using him to bring Mars back to life, Laocorn sacrifices himself to save Mai. Terry absorbs the last of Sulia's lifeforce, combining it with his skills to attack Mars head-on. Terry uses the Buster Wolf technique to defeat Mars and he, Mai, Andy and Joe escape the temple. The film ends with Terry throwing his hat in silence.”
I should say that while this story does look big & complex, it’s not really a deep story. It tries to be deep & serious, but it often falls onto it’s face.
Setting
An improvement in Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture is the setting. Whereas the first two movies (More so with the first movie, not as much with the second one) stayed within a urban environment, this film still has that, but it also incorporates other places as well. Just to name a few, the movie goes to Egypt, Rhodes, and Turkey. Each of these places (The ones mentioned & not mentioned) have their own look & feel to them, but they aren’t so over-the-top that they aren’t believable (Maybe one locale is a little goofy, but not terribly so).
Characters
Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture’s biggest strength & weakness is the characters. The movie’s strength in this regard, is in how many characters it has. 24 is the number of characters that appear in this movie, which is much greater than the previous 2 films (The New Battle had 13, while Legend of the Hungry Wolf). The reason that the characters are also this movie’s weakness is two-fold: a majority of the characters is this movie are given either brief cameos, or they act as silent window dressing. Secondly, the character act & feel as if they were from the first two movies, but there are attempts to break out of their molds (Whether they succeed or fail is up to the viewer).
Animation
See the review for The New Battle for details.
Voice Acting
See the Legend of the Hungry Wolf review for details.
Episodes & Episode Length
As with Legend of the Hungry Wolf & The New Battle, The Motion Picture is.....well, a motion picture. This movie is the longest of the three films, clocking in at a whopping hour and 35 minutes. It’s strange that this film is the longest, considering how basic the story is. Be sure to clear out a good part of your afternoon if you want to watch this.
Availability & Pricing
Like The New Battle, FF: TMP is a difficult but possible movie to find. As with TNB, there’s only two printings of this movie: a tape from 1999, and a DVD from around the same time. The tape is surprisingly cheap, as the lone new copy goes for about 19 dollars, and used start at $3.33. The DVD print is a little more expensive: new copies start at 25 dollars, and the used copies being at 14 dollars. Although it’s more expensive, I suggest you go for the DVD edition (New or used doesn’t matter), as there are more copies of that version than the VHS release.
Extras/Other
Since I downloaded this, I don’t know what the extras are.
Okay, let’s get something out of the way. Like it says at the beginning, this is the last of the Fatal Fury movies. With a title like “The Motion Picture”, you expect that this would be the first in the series. Due to the order in which they came out, this caused some confusion back in the day, and still confuses some people today. It’s such an odd decision, I’ll still scratching my head as I’m typing this (Don’t ask how I’m doing this).
Next up is the ending theme. There’s actually two different versions to this, one of which was for the Japanese edition, and one for the North American edition. The Japanese edition was titled Yoake no Legend (Translated: Legend of Dawn) and played as follows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvCO4R5dDzs
With the original Japanese voice, the song sounds a little bit on the serious side. The North American release, however, has a different tone to it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9ROmtU3B20
Although the instrumentation is exactly the same as the Japanese edition, it’s due to the singing voice of Warren Stanyer that changes the tone of the song almost completely. Instead of being a serious song, this sounds like a cheesy sports anthem from the 80s, rather than a serious fight song. It’s still fun to listen to, and I guarantee that you’ll laugh out loud at least once or twice.
General Impression & Rating
Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture is easily the best of the 3 movies. It still has some of the flaws of the previous two films, but they seem to be mitigated by the improvements of this feature. An expanded cast & setting really improve things, and some of the positive from the first movies add to what was improved upon in this one. It’s still not an uber-amazing film, but it’s definitely a step-up from the competition.
Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture gets a 7 to 7.5 out of 10.
See you all next week. Until then, stay Otaku!
***
If you would like to know more about the Fatal Fury series in general, click on the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_Fury_%28series%29
Also, if you want to watch the movie, then click the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5B38EFFE776340EC
No comments:
Post a Comment