I hope the next one I see is better...

Ok, first off, I’ve never seen a lick of Fatal Fury until tonight. I just want you all to know that. Haha…

Where to begin? Let’s start with the summary. Then I can be mean.

Things start out pleasantly enough (ok, almost) and we see young Terry and Andy Bogard having a nice time with their father, Jeff Bogard, and his sensei (teacher, in this case, martial arts) Master Tung Fu Rue. Pretty much out of nowhere several thugs attack and wound Jeff. He’s finished off by a man named Geese (yes, Geese) Howard. At this point you’ll probably be pretty confused because A.) Jeff’s kids look nothing like him, B.) who is this Geese guy? and C.) what was his beef with Jeff?

Ok, well first off, Jeff adopted both Terry and Andy. Problem solved. Next we find out from Master Tung that Geese had a severe grudge against Jeff. Both men were students of Master Tung, but Jeff was the student worthy enough to learn certain techniques of the fighting style they were learning at the time (it’s got a really long name, so I’ll spare you). Yes, Geese killed him because of that. No, wait – it gets better.

Because Geese has pretty much all the police in his pocket through bribes, they’re obviously not going to help put Geese in jail for killing Jeff. Thus the kids are both left with a sense of revenge. Master Tung tells them both to return to their father’s grave in ten years, where he will then teach them skills Geese never knew about. Then they can avenge their father’s death.

10 years later, everyone shows up just like they’re supposed to. As Terry makes his appearance, he meets a girl named Lily, whom he remembers somehow. Lily’s a gorgeous young woman, and Terry takes an almost instantaneous liking to her. He also meets up with a famous kick boxer named Joe Higashi (who also happens to know his brother). It isn’t long before all three guys are competing in the King of Fighters Tournament. The questions now are, who is going to learn the techniques from Master Tung? Will they finally be able to take out Geese to avenge their father? Or will Geese be the one taking out people first? So many questions…

I’m not going to spoil anything, even though I could because I wasn’t that impressed, but you can do that on your own time by simply doing a search on the internet. =P So why did this movie get three stars? Well, my initial reaction after watching this movie was, “…BWAHAHAHAHAHA!” Folks, though the animation was fine and dandy, the fight scenes were so-so, and the dub I had wasn’t that bad at all, this movie was severely lacking. First of all, it was ridiculously short. The length didn’t allow for a decent amount of character development at all. As a stand alone movie (it doesn’t really connect in the ways of timelines and such, at least it seems so), there should be something for people like me to grasp onto. Sure, I get that Terry’s his own man, Andy will freak at the drop of a pin, and Joe’s laid-back, I need more to actually care about who I’m watching. And the whole fling between Terry and Lily? Wow, can we say way too fast? They’d only met twice…

As for the plot – Geese was just killing everyone because he couldn’t get his hands on the ultimate technique? I hate to sound really mean, but how lame is that? I mean, he’s running around killing anyone he wants with all his henchmen – does he really need the technique? Let’s say someone else learned it anyway – what’s the big threat to him? I just didn’t see it.

Three stars for the animation and a decent dub. I’m reminded of Street Fighter. But as always, I’d always rather have the subtitles.

NT

Try the other one Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture

Recommended:
Yes