Worst Movie Based on a Fighting Game

[Deck Rickard]

Live action video game adaptations on the whole, have been bad. Some have been REALLY bad. But movies based on fighting games are almost their own genre of awful. While the first Mortal Kombat film is regarded by many as the best video game movie (and I do like it, despite its MANY flaws) all of the other ones have been abysmal, IMO. And it’s puzzling as to WHY they are so bad. Most of these games feature fun characters competing in some sort of fighting tournament. That’s not a complicated plot, or even that hard to pull off if you have competent people working on it. The Karate Kid/Cobra Kai series has mostly pulled it off. I feel like I saw 15 Van Damme movies in the 1990s that did the same.

Yet when it comes to video game adaptions, movie studios feel the need to make a lot of bizarre changes about dictators taking over the world and heroes rolling around in some leftover ball cages from American Gladiators. So I wonder, what was the WORST adaptation of a fighting game? Because wow, we’ve had some bad ones.

 

[Luigi]

Totally forgot about The Legend of Chun-Li. Man, that movie is atrocious.

 

[Joe Von Zombie]

DOA hands down

 

[Deck Rickard]

Oh wow. I’d never even heard of DOA before but when Jaime Pressly gets top billing in your movie, it has to be bad, lol.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I didn't see DOA, fortunately, but I did see MK: Annihilation and just wow... everything about that movie was so bad. There are fan videos on Youtube that are more professional and have better special effects than that.

 

[Detective Conan]

Oh wow. I’d never even heard of DOA before but when Jaime Pressly gets top billing in your movie, it has to be bad, lol.

That movie and Double Dragon is literally available for free on You Tube - DOA is a bit of a guilty pleasure movie for me because well...there’s hot woman kicking ass and...you know I like that.

But a very bad movie nonetheless.

 

[Deck Rickard]

That movie and Double Dragon is literally available for free on You Tube - DOA is a bit of a guilty pleasure movie for me because well...there’s hot woman kicking ass and...you know I like that.

But a very bad movie nonetheless.

I never saw the Double Dragon movie either. Maybe I should get high and do a double feature of that and DOA.

 

[jignat]

I havent seen Tekken, DOA, or King of Fighters.

MK Annihilation is the second worst film I have ever seen. (Worst was Batman and Robin)

 

[KaijuDude1992]

Outside of MK 95 they are all pretty bad in their own ways, but The Legend of Chun-Li was next levels of awful to the point where I pretty much wiped it from my mind and pretend that it never existed.

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

Wait a minute, there’s a live action Tekken movie? I thought they only made the anime OVA based on it.

 

[chintai80]

live action DOA is maybe the worse live action movie i seen based off a fighting game.

the only thing good i can say about it is the hot womens that serve as eye candy in the cast, but even that could not save the movie.

 

[jignat]

Wait a minute, there’s a live action Tekken movie? I thought they only made the anime OVA based on it.

IIRC, there was a live action film released in 2010. It never released theatrically in the US. It was a Direct to video deal.

It has Cary Tagawa (From MK 1995) as Heihachi.
Wiki says there was another Tekken film released in 2014 as a prequel lol.

Tekken (2009 film) - Wikipedia

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

IIRC, there was a live action film released in 2010. It never released theatrically in the US. It was a Direct to video deal.

It has Cary Tagawa (From MK 1995) as Heihachi.
Wiki says there was another Tekken film released in 2014 as a prequel lol.

Tekken (2009 film) - Wikipedia

I’ll be damned. I have to watch this lol.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I never really cared for Tekken the game. It always felt like Street Fighter with crappier characters. I’m surprised they bothered to make one movie, let alone two.

 

[Batmannerism]

I'm going with MK Annihilation, but with Street Fighter ( Van Damme) as a very close second - it has marginally higher production values, and is hilarious ( sometimes unintentionally ) plus it has Raul Julia's "For me it was Tuesday" line.

I think JCVD was coked out of his brains during the filming, that's a nice way of explaining his performance.

The others are all crap, but are forgettable crap, the other two linger with you as spectacularly crappy.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I'm going with MK Annihilation, but with Street Fighter ( Van Damme) as a very close second - it has marginally higher production values, and is hilarious ( sometimes unintentionally ) plus it has Raul Julia's "For me it was Tuesday" line.

I think JCVD was coked out of his brains during the filming, that's a nice way of explaining his performance.

The others are all crap, but are forgettable crap, the other two linger with you as spectacularly crappy.

Yeah, the Double Toasted guys reviewed SF last week and pointed out all the scenes where it’s painfully obvious that Van Damme is coked out of his mind. Can’t blame him though... I would have to be on some heavy drugs if I was locked in by contract to make that awful movie.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I actually liked Street Fighter. It is a better GI Joe movie than the actual GI Joe movies. It is silly and stupid, but at least it is entertaining and it is worth watching for Raul Julia's performance.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Eh... trying to pick the crappier movie between GI Joe: Rise of Cobra and Street Fighter is kinda like debating whether feces or bile is a better pizza topping. Though I suppose Van Damme looked more like Duke than Channing Tatum did so there’s that, lol.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Street Fighter and MK95 shouldn't be here. But DOA should.

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

I actually liked Street Fighter. It is a better GI Joe movie than the actual GI Joe movies. It is silly and stupid, but at least it is entertaining and it is worth watching for Raul Julia's performance.

Raul Julia gave the last bit of his energy to give us a guilty pleasure masterpiece. Loved his take on Bison and all of his monologues lol.

God rest his soul.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I wish I knew DOA existed when I made this poll; I did a few searches for fighting game movies when I was making it to make sure I wasn’t missing anything but that one never came up. I’m not even familiar with the game.

As for MK ‘95 and SF being included... I don’t think anyone would pick MK as the worst of the worst but it wouldn’t have been fair to leave it off. SF though... I probably would vote for that one as the worst (that I’ve seen anyway) if MK Annihilation didn’t exist.

EDIT: What do you know; you can edit polls now! I didn’t know that. DOA and Tekken 2 have been added.

 

[KaijuDude1992]

Not going to lie Double Toasted's review definitely made me want to revisit Street Fighter, especially for that insane looking Raul Julia performance and coked out Van Damme. I don't think I've actually seen it since I was a kid, but it has to be better than that abysmal The Legend of Chun-Li.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Not going to lie Double Toasted's review definitely made me want to revisit Street Fighter, especially for that insane looking Raul Julia performance and coked out Van Damme. I don't think I've actually seen it since I was a kid, but it has to be better than that abysmal The Legend of Chun-Li.

Yeah, that Chun-Li movie was awful. That’s one of those things where I don’t even know why a movie was made. SF’s popularity was waning at the time and Kristen Kreuk wasn’t some big breakout star (or even a good actor). I have no idea why they thought that movie was a good idea.

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

Not going to lie Double Toasted's review definitely made me want to revisit Street Fighter, especially for that insane looking Raul Julia performance and coked out Van Damme. I don't think I've actually seen it since I was a kid, but it has to be better than that abysmal The Legend of Chun-Li.

Oh bro it deserves a rewatch. As long as you know that you’re going into a campy, over the top but fun 90s video game movie, you’ll enjoy it.

But again Raul Julia had some great lines in that.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I will say that Ming-Na looked fine as hell as Chun-Li (who was probably my first computer generated crush lol).

Also, I kept getting flashbacks to Street Fighter while watching the new MK movie because the actress playing Sonya looks a lot like Kylie Minogue, haha.