Tekken 2: Kazuya's Revenge (2014)

I first saw this back in early 2015 when I did a solo podcast episode on it, and at that time I planned to give it a proper review as well. Unfortunately I went on an unplanned hiatus, and when I came back almost five years later, this wasn't on any of the streaming services. So I waited. And I waited. Until finally, in the summer of 2022, Tubi got it here in the US. In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has covered this as well.

Tekken 2: Kazuya's Revenge is supposed to be a prequel to the first movie? It has Kane Kosugi as Kazuya, who wakes up in a hotel room and has no idea who he is. A military SWAT team raids the hotel, and as he's escaping, he's captured by a commune led by Rade Serbedzija (and that will be the last time I type his full name in this review). Because Kazuya is blessed with a certain set of skills, Rade makes him work as a hit man for him, but when one of those hits is Bryan Fury (played again by DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels), Kazuya realizes there is a way out. At the same time, who is this mysterious Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa playing Heihachi Mishima that's lurking around spying on things? That can't be good, right?

The enigmatic Wych Kaosayananda, aka Kaos, strikes again. What he was going for here, it's hard to say, and I tried in the IMDb trivia to see if I could find out, but nothing was said about it. We have some good fights and kills by Kane Kosugi, but the same way Patty Smyth and Don Henley said "sometimes love just ain't enough," sometimes some good fights and kills by Kosugi just ain't enough. This did have two writers, so I don't know if that explains the story we got here, and perhaps Kaos's attempt to save it and make it coherent. To be fair, beyond the nicely shot action sequences, Kaos as cinematographer also had some well-framed moments like this, that almost made it stylistically something that worked in spite of itself, but not quite. The whole being caught by Rade and his bad commune and being forced to work for them thing is a tough sell in a movie; not to mention the whole main character has amnesia but we all know who he is is hard to pull off. When we were kids and we played basketball, sometimes if we missed we'd ask for a "do over," and I kinda think a Kaos-Kosugi-Daniels-Tagawa do over could yield some nice results here, and maybe divorced from the Tekken franchise it wouldn't have any expectations to live up to, so it could exist better as its own thing.

With this film Kane Kosugi finally gets his tag here at the DTVC, clocking in at 7 movies, which isn't bad. We first saw him on the site with his dad Sho in Black Eagle, the Van Damme film from the 80s, so he's come a long way since then. He doesn't do a ton of stuff, but his skills are legit, and seeing him in this, he could definitely be an action lead in more movies if he were cast in them. He did Ninja II and (technically did) Zero Tolerance with Scott Adkins, but I'd love to see the two of them team up in a high-octane actioner, maybe directed by any one of Isaac Florentine, Jesse V. Johnston, or Kaos. Like just watching the two of them tear through Bangkok would be fantastic. Kosugi brings a lot to the table in this role, and I think if it didn't have the expectations of the Tekken franchise, it might have worked even better for him--but the fact that it didn't work as well as it could have wasn't Kosugi's fault either.

Gary Daniels is now at 55 films here at the DTVC, which is second all-time behind Dolph. While we have Art Camacho, Albert Pyun, and Cannon Films in the 40 Club, the next closest actor is Cynthia Rothrock with 39 movies, so he's comfortably in second place. He isn't in this one much, but the one fight scene he has with Kosugi is 100% official, and I think that's all we can ask for from him. I was looking at what we have left, and I have two that are watched that I plan to mix in soon, and after that, it's waiting for his newer films to be available free to stream, his Christian movies to be available to stream, and a movie called A Stranger in Paradise with Catalina Sandino Moreno and Byron Mann to be available to stream, and we'll have them all. He's definitely bound for the 60 Club with Dolph, it's just a matter of when.

This is the third film directed by Kaos that we've done on the site, the other two being One Night in Bangkok and Zero Tolerance; but, he was also cinematographer on the one Daniels Christian film we've done so far, The Mark, and did additional camera work on the Seagal flick The Asian Connection. He has a very unique style in his storytelling, but then also really likes to have his camerawork and editing showcased as well. In this film there were moments when it worked--Kane Kosugi doesn't look bad walking in slowmotion like a hero in an old Western; but there can be moments when it's obtrusive too. I thought that was more evident in One Night in Bangkok, where letting the scenes breathe more would've helped; but in this movie where it looks like more than one story idea was being put together, maybe he needed to dress it up as much as he could. Either way, he's growing on me, and I'm looking forward to what he has next.

 

Finally, we have to get to my ultimate beef with this: it didn't correct the wrong committed in the first film, which was leaving the Kings out. If anyone could successfully mix in a Mexican wrestler with a jaguar mask, I'd think it'd be Kaos. He needed to come in and giantly swing Rade off the commune; or catch Kosugi in a frankensteiner. When I played Tekken Tag, I almost exclusively used King and Armor King, and won the majority of my matches; then in taking a look through a guide book on that game at a local bookstore, we discovered that they were unbalanced, and I wasn't as good as I thought, I was just using characters who were better. Is that why neither film has featured at least King? How would Kosugi beat him? I remember when people used Kazuya against me, with King I could grab his leg out of midair when he tried to spin kick me. I get it, what do you do with that? Even Kosugi would have trouble.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now, you can stream Tekken 2 on Tubi here in the States. If you're looking for some sweet Kane Kosugi action, are a Daniels completist (me), or you're curious what Kaos has cooking here, this is worth it. Beyond that, it's a bit sauteed in wrong sauce, especially if you're looking for a Tekken tournament movie.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3462696

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