Moving on, some chick who’s a dead ringer for Britney Spears is rollerblading somewhere and telling us what DOA is in voiceover. Telling us that it’s the world’s “greatest” martial arts tournament. In what sense? In what way is it better than boxing or MMA ultimate fighting? Tournament, that’s all she says, no twists, no gimmicks to make it unique, nothing. This person calls herself “Helena Douglas”.
Helena is a French opera singer in the games, so her wearing a bikini and hot pants while rollerblading, chewing bubblegum and talking like she’s fresh out of High School Musical makes a pointless change as they could have just been their guest celebrity announcer. French accent and all.
We see that she’s really on a plane’s TV screen and bring watched by a bunch of Comic Con cosplayers who are apparently this tournament’s fighters. Interestingly enough, in this movie’s single moment of good casting, one of them happens to be Kevin Nash, an actual wrester in real life who plays Bass, Tina’s wrestling father. Britney-Helena calls them the best of their fighting styles and thus unwittingly brings up the number one problem with Bass and Tina, even in the games. How is entertainment wrestling a fighting style? Without a script to follow, could any wrestler from WWE really hold their own against any professional fighter or martial artist using only their wrestling techniques? The answer is no. They’d be blown away like a storm in a pee cup.
A black guy with a bizarre haircut who looks like he has a spike in his head (inspired by Rhyhorn) comes on to Tina. With her father right there. Ouch. He says what we’re all thinking, that wrestling isn’t a real fighting style. Mullet tells Kasumi he was invited to DOA, which makes me wonder if Shurikenman went to all of these people’s pads throwing invites their way. It’s called email. We’ll see that in this movie, every character seems to have a stubborn and inexplicable inability to do anything the way normal people would do it.
Devon Aoki drains the life out of the scene.
Christie has some dialogue with her ex boyfriend Max. Remember him from the games? Me neither. Pissed off, she grabs and painfully twists his crotch. What is it with this woman and inappropriate sexual conduct? Normal women don’t grab and twist the genitals of men at every opportunity. Thief Christie comes across as some kind of S & M dominatrix, as opposed to a thief.
Here we go again with the complete inability to do anything normally. Rather than have the pilot land the plane and have the passengers walk out, Helena TV informs our cosplayers that they have to bail out with parachutes and whoever doesn’t make it by a certain time is disqualified. Well what’s the point of that? What if there was a terrifically gifted fighter who’s only weakness is his or her fear of heights? Would that be fair to a competitor who think’s they're going to a martial arts tournament? What if none of them bother to jump out the plane? I guess that would mean the tournament’s cancelled and it’s movie over? It’s just filler, as clearly none of the main characters are going to be disqualified so early on.
Kasumi than opens the plane door from thousands of feet up and rather than the depressurisation sucking her out, she’s able to stand there calmly and go at her leisure. Tina’s hat doesn’t even move from her head as she holds it only after the depressurisation is over. The characters then decide to try their best to act in front of a mild fan being blown in their faces amidst a matte painting of the sky while over the top action movie music plays. None of these characters have had any sky diving training, so were this realistic, you would see most the characters soiling themselves at this point.
Kasumi, Christie and Tina, land “off target” and find themselves at the bottom of some kind of Asian tower built into the cliff that has an empty centre. It’s a wholly impractical design that looks like a wooden skyscraper with a every floor having a huge square hole in it leading all the way from the bottom to the roof. This architectural nightmare easily perplexes them, and all three women decide to go up by way of wires as opposed to using the stairs or ladders that must be there and will appear later. Devon Aoki scoffs at the very idea that any man made structure can be more wooden than she is, and is the first to start this .
This is what the tower's cleaners have to go through on a daily basis.
As if it couldn’t get any worse, Devon Aoki’s presence causes the woodenness of the tower to burst it’s capacity, and down she falls to her death.
Oh rats, they had to catch her. Kasumi, having fallen three stories sees someone looking knowingly back at her. Anyone want to guess who it is?
It’s…
WIGGY!!
WHAT THE!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
>HEADDESK<
Wiggy just happened to know the exact moment when and where Kasumi would have her little mishap? Is Wiggy psychic? The logical place for her to wait for them would be at the top, not waiting at a certain point hoping to get very lucky, waiting for Kasumi to have an accident and conveniently fall the three stories necessary for her to look badass! We also see that Holly Vallance has the strength to hold a fully grown, hanging woman by the ankles. The movie than cheats and has Kasumi get up from an impossible position off screen. Truly this is drivel of the most stupid kind.
Britney-Helena, then takes the three knuckleheads to Disneyland, or at least a place that looks just like it. Their host, Dr Victor Donovan, is introduced, and the announcer barely stops short of telling them that this will be your villain for this evening. What we get is a weird cross between Lex Luthor and Hugh Heffner dressed in gold Steven Seagal pyjamas. He pontificates that Dead or Alive was created by the late Fame Douglas. Why? Reasons I guess.
All the fighting characters then have “physicals”, which serve as a quick way to get all the minor ones named by again, captions. These physicals are unlike any I’ve ever seen and to sum it up I will say that it’s very sci fi and very CGI. Scanners scan here and there and places you really shouldn’t. Of note we see that Mullet’s caption says, “HAYABUSA”. Ryu Hayabusa? The Super Ninja of the Hayabusa Clan? Only now is such an important character from the games given a name? Well of course not because he is not the Hayabusa from the games. All the studio wanted was the name, and clearly offered the part to some bartender that came in off the street. Spike head, or as this movie would have us believe, “Zack”, does some embarrassing dance moves in his scanning booth. Eh, at least he isn’t wearing a sports bra...and at least he isn‘t Jar Jar.
Yours is big? You ain't got nuthin on mine, girlfriend!
Dr. Donovan and his resident computer nerd Weatherby watch the half naked girls being scanned. Exactly what is this guy doctor of, Pervology? The nurses inject “nanobots” in the fighter’s bodies. Why? We’ll find out later.
Yet another caption informs us that it’s “DoA Day One”, and while other fighters are wisely preparing for bouts that can easily leave them life long cripples, Britney-Helena has taken to rollerblading around the compound in her underwear. Someone should really get this poor girl’s head looked at. Important to note! We see that Kasumi has the strength to break a hard tightrope that’s bound to a wide mahogany pole in only four strikes, with her finger. I must say that's impressive. Other characters are training, in Dragonball style , with Tina doing a bunch of kickboxing moves (kickboxing? Wasn’t she a wrestler?), and a guy doing a handstand on a pole. All the while, Britney-Helena is still rollerblading around in her underwear. Someone's been waxing!
The tournament begins, and we hear this annoying female announcer, say, “Get ready! Fight!” before every single match. This is the world’s greatest martial arts tournament? Is it the fact that it thinks it’s a video game that makes it the greatest? Britney-Helena, fights and beats, an unnamed muscular Asian martial artist. Nice to see those rollerblading sessions have done such wonders for her power level. Must also pay to be a lunatic in a fight, as she viciously gouges his eyes and screams like a shrill banshee. The fights are choreographed like a DVD bargain bin kung fu movie, and to cut a long story short, every main character wins. Stamp collecting has more tension than this movie.
Mortal Kombat making too much sense? Try DOA! We have HP bars!
Round one, is thankfully over, and now Kasumi is doing some soul searching. By “soul searching” I mean sitting on some stairs and waiting for her pay check to clear. Seems that she is day dreaming of being tied to a pole by several men. Hey Kasumi, I never knew you were so kinky. Being a repressed princess must mean she has to find her sexual outlet somewhere huh. Then Hayate, her brother, swings into her sexual fantasy, rescues her and sweeps her off her feet. How very Freudian and weird. What’s that you say? This is an actual flashback? Oh no it isn‘t. Were this a flashback, than that would create a plot hole large enough to swallow Delaware, being that Kasumi isn’t allowed to leave the ninja palace and possesses fighting skills that can beat these jokers in her sleep. So I’m sticking with bizarre sexual fantasy.
Dr Pervology then addresses Kasumi as a princess, which leads me to question how he knows her rank if she’s supposed to be princess of a secret ninja clan. He then calls her the “Sister of Hayate”. What, no Prince Hayate? If this dude’s a doctor, than he surely knows that the brother of a princess is a prince. Dr Pervology tells Kasumi that Hayate was killed by a fighter called Leon, who’s the kind of dumb jock you’ll see hanging around gyms who thinks steroids makes him all that. Kasumi then has another bizarre fantasy where she calls her brother the best in the world. Which given how she's never seen the outside world, makes that pretty speculative. We see that Mullet is stalking them, and Wiggy is lurking in the bushes watching. These two...
LIVES. GET THEM.
Hayate then tells Kasumi that when he leaves, it’s up to her to lead the clan. Come again? How is it up to a prince or princess to lead? Where are their parents? Do they have no parents? In that case who was the old guy giving Wiggy orders to kill Kasumi? Why is Kasumi still a princess? Why has she not queened or empressed up in the total absence of her parents? Hayate actually has a humorous line, that Mullet will protect Kasumi. Which is like Ren protecting Stimpy.
Save me Popeye! Saaaave mee!
Kasumi then has a bath in rose petals. Alright enough already. Kasumi is femme. We get it. She has a vagina. We understand. You can stop shoving this chickification down our throats now. She’s so wooden that its hard to tell which ones the bath and which ones the actress. Boring lines are exchanged between her and Mullet and the movie tries to establish Mullet as a designated love interest, but quickly gives up after realising what it has to work with.
Christie, then has sex with Max. She tells him she’d rather him do something else with his mouth rather than talk. What would that be? Suck as bad as her?
Zack then tries again to come onto Tina by the Jacuzzi and one wonders why he is bothering with a woman who clearly isn’t interested in him. There are plenty of better looking women on the island, so it’s not like this guy’s spoilt for choice. What gives?
Wiggy makes a pointless bid to eat up screen time by attacking Kasumi. Again, no tension involved, just meaningless flash.
Dr Pervology matches Kasumi against Leon. With all the subtlety you expect from a shaven ape, Leon Steroids, goes crashing in, smashing this and that. Leon Smash! Rwwaarr! Kasumi then jump kicks him in the head (!) and the chest (!!), and like a Dragonball Z villain, Leon Steroids doesn’t flinch at any of it. Remember when I brought up the point about being impressed by Kasumi’s power? Well It’s nice to know that Kasumi, a ninja who has the power to break ropes asunder with her bare fingers, can’t make a man flinch with a full jump kick to the head. I’d say this has given up on logic about now, but it can’t give up on what it never had. The movie then decides to spit on it’s vomit by having Leon Steroids’ arms actually make the sound of guns. Subtle.
Kasumi is being smashed through ceramic structures and gets up from moves that should at the very least have left her a bloody mess. Alas in the DoA franchise, blood and pain don’t exist.
Max and Christie are in the afterglow of a good night’s shagging. He tells her that Britney-Helena is “The Key”. Given what he know about her, Britney- Helena probably told him that and really believes that she’s a key. I bet she spends her days trying to stick her head into keyholes. When she’s not rollerblading in underwear of course.
As usual, Leon Steroids comes crashing through the wall, bringing one Devon Aoki with him. In a yet another breach of continuity, Kasumi’s kicks now have a devastating effect on the muscle head. Each blow now sends him flying, and Kasumi comes to the stunning realisation that he couldn’t have killed her brother.
Well I beg to differ.
There are many ways he could have killed her brother. It’s called cheating. He could have snuck weapons into the fight or spiked her brother’s piña coladas ahead of time. Unlikely as it may have been, there was always a chance that Leon Steroids might’ve had a good fight and her brother an off day, thus the circumstances of the fight could've simply gone against him.
Zack tries his best to get thrown in jail by attempting non consensual sex with Tina. She removes his shorts and quietly takes them with her as she leaves the Jacuzzi area. Anyone who now can’t see the obvious set up for what’s coming next, must have never seen a comedy in their lives.
Once you go Zack, you never go black.
Kasumi kicks Leon Steroids over the balcony and into the Jacuzzi. where a naked Zack awaits him. Surprise, surprise, what komedy. Tee hee! There is a genuinely humorous moment when Kevin Nash’s Bass mistakes his daughter Tina for a lesbian with Christie. The chemistry between Bass and Tina does work well by bad movie standards.
Max, Christie’s boyfriend, has taken to seducing Britney -Helena. I get the feeling that this guy just wanted to sleep with her as he’s probably fed up with Christie’s ball busting. Helena naively falls for him. Dr Pervology and his resident gimp Weatherby, don’t like that the in house rules of no harassing the fighters with mental impairments has been violated. So he sends the Bayman to go kick Maxie’s ass. Max however “hilariously” beats Bayman with his shoes, in true slapstick grovelling fashion.
It’s here that we realise that the film has no idea what it wants to be. A serious drama? A titillation fan service movie? A slapstick comedy? An action kung fu movie? One minute you will be watching the most outrageously silly slapstick hi jinks, the next you are supposed to take Kasumi’s search and Wiggy’s hunting seriously. While all the time they’re hopping on wires like frogs with ADD.
Of all the competitors, Max was a shoe in.
Kasumi and Tina are having a moment on a wooden raft, but I can’t see Devon Aoki, I can only see Tina and the raft. It’s Bass vs. Tina time, and when Bass lands on the raft, a piece of wood flies out of it’s structure. Oh there she is. Tina somehow manages to beat her three hundred pound father in an unscripted wrestling match. Okay whatever.
And now for the XTREME beach volleyball filler scene. Sigh, yes another fan service. With a plot this thin, (girls at a tournament), they have to pad this crap out anyway they can. There has been no A plot so far, just three subplots, Kasumi‘s, Christie’s and Tina’s. This scene has nothing to do with any of them.
Zack acts like a little hurt child and insults Tina over his rejection. Okay, but this could have, and does take place during their actual match. Having it here is just redundant. Is this Zack guy for real? He acts so butt hurt that I get the real feeling that he’s using his insults to hold back tears. I think the movie want’s us to believe that he’s a player, but real life players don’t spend all their time focused on a woman who rejects them. They know that it’s inevitable that a proportion of the women they try it on with will reject them. It’s a natural part of it. Only movie players stubbornly stick on the one girl, doggedly trying the same misogynistic technique for the purpose of comedy and then throw a tantrum when their perseverance doesn’t work. It’s a waste of everybody’s time. If the key doesn’t fit the lock Zack, than no amount of you forcing it through is going to make it fit. It‘s dim.
Mullet, the dork he is, is wearing a ninja suit at the beach. I’m sure he fits right in at nightclubs. He bends over to pick up the beach ball and as soon as he looks up, he sees Kasumi looking back at him in a bikini. Remember when I said that the cops from earlier in the film had an immature reaction to a girl? Well that’s nothing compared to what’s going on here. Mullet, Forrest Gump acts more mature around boobs than you, and Devon Aoki isn’t exactly blessed in that department to start with
They have a volleyball game. There’s nothing else to say. it’s just a volleyball game and there’s nothing interesting about it. Once we’ve seen these girls in bikinis, we’ve seen them. There’s nothing left under their hats and the fan service has been used up. Thus the scene falls flat. Were this tied to the story in any way, then that would have been a different matter, but you can’t just put Devon Aoki and Holly Vallance in bikinis and go “Haah? Haah?” It’s a waste.
Meanwhile, Mullet tries to sneak. Into Dr Pervology’s base. Out of the entire cast, he alone is being the least bit proactive.
A shuriken bursts the volleyball.
OH NO!!
Kasumi decides that now would be a good time to run away, before they replace the ball. For truly all ninja ninja princesses hate losing volleyball games.
Mullet then get’s himself trapped in the exact same way that Bruce Lee did in Enter the Dragon. The wall doors shut on him in the exact same way after he goes through a lot of henchmen, just like in Enter. Originality be damned.
Kasumi wanders into a bamboo forest repeatedly calling Wiggy’s name. How does she know Wiggy’s there? We are never shown. Seems Kasumi was right though, as Wiggy comes charging in like a drugged maniac, brandishing a sword and screaming like she’s William Wallace. Ah, the way of the true ninja. Kasumi dodges and weaves and Wiggy swings that thing with such force that it slices thick bamboo clean with each strike. What's Wiggy trying to accomplish? The complete bisection of Kasumi’s body? That’s awfully violent, so what’s the motivation here? Is it really, “If you leave palace grounds I’m going to bisect you and carve you up?” If Kasumi’s sexual fantasy from earlier was an actual flashback, than why didn’t Wiggy try to carve up Kasumi when she left the clan grounds back then? There is also a double standard here. Kasumi isn’t allowed to leave the clan to chase after her brother, but Wiggy is allowed to leave the clan to chase after Kasumi? Wheres the assassin who’s supposed to carve up Wiggy?
Kasumi drives away her attacker by, get this, trapping Wiggy’s arm in a sliced up bamboo shoot in slow motion. Well that’s… odd. Instead of running off like a normal person, Wiggy decides she’d rather escape in style, and slowly swings from bamboo to bamboo like an inbred monkey.
Inbred Monkey.
Helena is a French opera singer in the games, so her wearing a bikini and hot pants while rollerblading, chewing bubblegum and talking like she’s fresh out of High School Musical makes a pointless change as they could have just been their guest celebrity announcer. French accent and all.
We see that she’s really on a plane’s TV screen and bring watched by a bunch of Comic Con cosplayers who are apparently this tournament’s fighters. Interestingly enough, in this movie’s single moment of good casting, one of them happens to be Kevin Nash, an actual wrester in real life who plays Bass, Tina’s wrestling father. Britney-Helena calls them the best of their fighting styles and thus unwittingly brings up the number one problem with Bass and Tina, even in the games. How is entertainment wrestling a fighting style? Without a script to follow, could any wrestler from WWE really hold their own against any professional fighter or martial artist using only their wrestling techniques? The answer is no. They’d be blown away like a storm in a pee cup.
A black guy with a bizarre haircut who looks like he has a spike in his head (inspired by Rhyhorn) comes on to Tina. With her father right there. Ouch. He says what we’re all thinking, that wrestling isn’t a real fighting style. Mullet tells Kasumi he was invited to DOA, which makes me wonder if Shurikenman went to all of these people’s pads throwing invites their way. It’s called email. We’ll see that in this movie, every character seems to have a stubborn and inexplicable inability to do anything the way normal people would do it.
Devon Aoki drains the life out of the scene.
Christie has some dialogue with her ex boyfriend Max. Remember him from the games? Me neither. Pissed off, she grabs and painfully twists his crotch. What is it with this woman and inappropriate sexual conduct? Normal women don’t grab and twist the genitals of men at every opportunity. Thief Christie comes across as some kind of S & M dominatrix, as opposed to a thief.
Here we go again with the complete inability to do anything normally. Rather than have the pilot land the plane and have the passengers walk out, Helena TV informs our cosplayers that they have to bail out with parachutes and whoever doesn’t make it by a certain time is disqualified. Well what’s the point of that? What if there was a terrifically gifted fighter who’s only weakness is his or her fear of heights? Would that be fair to a competitor who think’s they're going to a martial arts tournament? What if none of them bother to jump out the plane? I guess that would mean the tournament’s cancelled and it’s movie over? It’s just filler, as clearly none of the main characters are going to be disqualified so early on.
Kasumi than opens the plane door from thousands of feet up and rather than the depressurisation sucking her out, she’s able to stand there calmly and go at her leisure. Tina’s hat doesn’t even move from her head as she holds it only after the depressurisation is over. The characters then decide to try their best to act in front of a mild fan being blown in their faces amidst a matte painting of the sky while over the top action movie music plays. None of these characters have had any sky diving training, so were this realistic, you would see most the characters soiling themselves at this point.
Kasumi, Christie and Tina, land “off target” and find themselves at the bottom of some kind of Asian tower built into the cliff that has an empty centre. It’s a wholly impractical design that looks like a wooden skyscraper with a every floor having a huge square hole in it leading all the way from the bottom to the roof. This architectural nightmare easily perplexes them, and all three women decide to go up by way of wires as opposed to using the stairs or ladders that must be there and will appear later. Devon Aoki scoffs at the very idea that any man made structure can be more wooden than she is, and is the first to start this .
This is what the tower's cleaners have to go through on a daily basis.
As if it couldn’t get any worse, Devon Aoki’s presence causes the woodenness of the tower to burst it’s capacity, and down she falls to her death.
Oh rats, they had to catch her. Kasumi, having fallen three stories sees someone looking knowingly back at her. Anyone want to guess who it is?
It’s…
WIGGY!!
WHAT THE!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
>HEADDESK<
Wiggy just happened to know the exact moment when and where Kasumi would have her little mishap? Is Wiggy psychic? The logical place for her to wait for them would be at the top, not waiting at a certain point hoping to get very lucky, waiting for Kasumi to have an accident and conveniently fall the three stories necessary for her to look badass! We also see that Holly Vallance has the strength to hold a fully grown, hanging woman by the ankles. The movie than cheats and has Kasumi get up from an impossible position off screen. Truly this is drivel of the most stupid kind.
Britney-Helena, then takes the three knuckleheads to Disneyland, or at least a place that looks just like it. Their host, Dr Victor Donovan, is introduced, and the announcer barely stops short of telling them that this will be your villain for this evening. What we get is a weird cross between Lex Luthor and Hugh Heffner dressed in gold Steven Seagal pyjamas. He pontificates that Dead or Alive was created by the late Fame Douglas. Why? Reasons I guess.
All the fighting characters then have “physicals”, which serve as a quick way to get all the minor ones named by again, captions. These physicals are unlike any I’ve ever seen and to sum it up I will say that it’s very sci fi and very CGI. Scanners scan here and there and places you really shouldn’t. Of note we see that Mullet’s caption says, “HAYABUSA”. Ryu Hayabusa? The Super Ninja of the Hayabusa Clan? Only now is such an important character from the games given a name? Well of course not because he is not the Hayabusa from the games. All the studio wanted was the name, and clearly offered the part to some bartender that came in off the street. Spike head, or as this movie would have us believe, “Zack”, does some embarrassing dance moves in his scanning booth. Eh, at least he isn’t wearing a sports bra...and at least he isn‘t Jar Jar.
Yours is big? You ain't got nuthin on mine, girlfriend!
Dr. Donovan and his resident computer nerd Weatherby watch the half naked girls being scanned. Exactly what is this guy doctor of, Pervology? The nurses inject “nanobots” in the fighter’s bodies. Why? We’ll find out later.
Yet another caption informs us that it’s “DoA Day One”, and while other fighters are wisely preparing for bouts that can easily leave them life long cripples, Britney-Helena has taken to rollerblading around the compound in her underwear. Someone should really get this poor girl’s head looked at. Important to note! We see that Kasumi has the strength to break a hard tightrope that’s bound to a wide mahogany pole in only four strikes, with her finger. I must say that's impressive. Other characters are training, in Dragonball style , with Tina doing a bunch of kickboxing moves (kickboxing? Wasn’t she a wrestler?), and a guy doing a handstand on a pole. All the while, Britney-Helena is still rollerblading around in her underwear. Someone's been waxing!
The tournament begins, and we hear this annoying female announcer, say, “Get ready! Fight!” before every single match. This is the world’s greatest martial arts tournament? Is it the fact that it thinks it’s a video game that makes it the greatest? Britney-Helena, fights and beats, an unnamed muscular Asian martial artist. Nice to see those rollerblading sessions have done such wonders for her power level. Must also pay to be a lunatic in a fight, as she viciously gouges his eyes and screams like a shrill banshee. The fights are choreographed like a DVD bargain bin kung fu movie, and to cut a long story short, every main character wins. Stamp collecting has more tension than this movie.
Mortal Kombat making too much sense? Try DOA! We have HP bars!
Round one, is thankfully over, and now Kasumi is doing some soul searching. By “soul searching” I mean sitting on some stairs and waiting for her pay check to clear. Seems that she is day dreaming of being tied to a pole by several men. Hey Kasumi, I never knew you were so kinky. Being a repressed princess must mean she has to find her sexual outlet somewhere huh. Then Hayate, her brother, swings into her sexual fantasy, rescues her and sweeps her off her feet. How very Freudian and weird. What’s that you say? This is an actual flashback? Oh no it isn‘t. Were this a flashback, than that would create a plot hole large enough to swallow Delaware, being that Kasumi isn’t allowed to leave the ninja palace and possesses fighting skills that can beat these jokers in her sleep. So I’m sticking with bizarre sexual fantasy.
Dr Pervology then addresses Kasumi as a princess, which leads me to question how he knows her rank if she’s supposed to be princess of a secret ninja clan. He then calls her the “Sister of Hayate”. What, no Prince Hayate? If this dude’s a doctor, than he surely knows that the brother of a princess is a prince. Dr Pervology tells Kasumi that Hayate was killed by a fighter called Leon, who’s the kind of dumb jock you’ll see hanging around gyms who thinks steroids makes him all that. Kasumi then has another bizarre fantasy where she calls her brother the best in the world. Which given how she's never seen the outside world, makes that pretty speculative. We see that Mullet is stalking them, and Wiggy is lurking in the bushes watching. These two...
LIVES. GET THEM.
Hayate then tells Kasumi that when he leaves, it’s up to her to lead the clan. Come again? How is it up to a prince or princess to lead? Where are their parents? Do they have no parents? In that case who was the old guy giving Wiggy orders to kill Kasumi? Why is Kasumi still a princess? Why has she not queened or empressed up in the total absence of her parents? Hayate actually has a humorous line, that Mullet will protect Kasumi. Which is like Ren protecting Stimpy.
Save me Popeye! Saaaave mee!
Kasumi then has a bath in rose petals. Alright enough already. Kasumi is femme. We get it. She has a vagina. We understand. You can stop shoving this chickification down our throats now. She’s so wooden that its hard to tell which ones the bath and which ones the actress. Boring lines are exchanged between her and Mullet and the movie tries to establish Mullet as a designated love interest, but quickly gives up after realising what it has to work with.
Christie, then has sex with Max. She tells him she’d rather him do something else with his mouth rather than talk. What would that be? Suck as bad as her?
Zack then tries again to come onto Tina by the Jacuzzi and one wonders why he is bothering with a woman who clearly isn’t interested in him. There are plenty of better looking women on the island, so it’s not like this guy’s spoilt for choice. What gives?
Wiggy makes a pointless bid to eat up screen time by attacking Kasumi. Again, no tension involved, just meaningless flash.
Dr Pervology matches Kasumi against Leon. With all the subtlety you expect from a shaven ape, Leon Steroids, goes crashing in, smashing this and that. Leon Smash! Rwwaarr! Kasumi then jump kicks him in the head (!) and the chest (!!), and like a Dragonball Z villain, Leon Steroids doesn’t flinch at any of it. Remember when I brought up the point about being impressed by Kasumi’s power? Well It’s nice to know that Kasumi, a ninja who has the power to break ropes asunder with her bare fingers, can’t make a man flinch with a full jump kick to the head. I’d say this has given up on logic about now, but it can’t give up on what it never had. The movie then decides to spit on it’s vomit by having Leon Steroids’ arms actually make the sound of guns. Subtle.
Kasumi is being smashed through ceramic structures and gets up from moves that should at the very least have left her a bloody mess. Alas in the DoA franchise, blood and pain don’t exist.
Max and Christie are in the afterglow of a good night’s shagging. He tells her that Britney-Helena is “The Key”. Given what he know about her, Britney- Helena probably told him that and really believes that she’s a key. I bet she spends her days trying to stick her head into keyholes. When she’s not rollerblading in underwear of course.
As usual, Leon Steroids comes crashing through the wall, bringing one Devon Aoki with him. In a yet another breach of continuity, Kasumi’s kicks now have a devastating effect on the muscle head. Each blow now sends him flying, and Kasumi comes to the stunning realisation that he couldn’t have killed her brother.
Well I beg to differ.
There are many ways he could have killed her brother. It’s called cheating. He could have snuck weapons into the fight or spiked her brother’s piña coladas ahead of time. Unlikely as it may have been, there was always a chance that Leon Steroids might’ve had a good fight and her brother an off day, thus the circumstances of the fight could've simply gone against him.
Zack tries his best to get thrown in jail by attempting non consensual sex with Tina. She removes his shorts and quietly takes them with her as she leaves the Jacuzzi area. Anyone who now can’t see the obvious set up for what’s coming next, must have never seen a comedy in their lives.
Once you go Zack, you never go black.
Kasumi kicks Leon Steroids over the balcony and into the Jacuzzi. where a naked Zack awaits him. Surprise, surprise, what komedy. Tee hee! There is a genuinely humorous moment when Kevin Nash’s Bass mistakes his daughter Tina for a lesbian with Christie. The chemistry between Bass and Tina does work well by bad movie standards.
Max, Christie’s boyfriend, has taken to seducing Britney -Helena. I get the feeling that this guy just wanted to sleep with her as he’s probably fed up with Christie’s ball busting. Helena naively falls for him. Dr Pervology and his resident gimp Weatherby, don’t like that the in house rules of no harassing the fighters with mental impairments has been violated. So he sends the Bayman to go kick Maxie’s ass. Max however “hilariously” beats Bayman with his shoes, in true slapstick grovelling fashion.
It’s here that we realise that the film has no idea what it wants to be. A serious drama? A titillation fan service movie? A slapstick comedy? An action kung fu movie? One minute you will be watching the most outrageously silly slapstick hi jinks, the next you are supposed to take Kasumi’s search and Wiggy’s hunting seriously. While all the time they’re hopping on wires like frogs with ADD.
Of all the competitors, Max was a shoe in.
Kasumi and Tina are having a moment on a wooden raft, but I can’t see Devon Aoki, I can only see Tina and the raft. It’s Bass vs. Tina time, and when Bass lands on the raft, a piece of wood flies out of it’s structure. Oh there she is. Tina somehow manages to beat her three hundred pound father in an unscripted wrestling match. Okay whatever.
And now for the XTREME beach volleyball filler scene. Sigh, yes another fan service. With a plot this thin, (girls at a tournament), they have to pad this crap out anyway they can. There has been no A plot so far, just three subplots, Kasumi‘s, Christie’s and Tina’s. This scene has nothing to do with any of them.
Zack acts like a little hurt child and insults Tina over his rejection. Okay, but this could have, and does take place during their actual match. Having it here is just redundant. Is this Zack guy for real? He acts so butt hurt that I get the real feeling that he’s using his insults to hold back tears. I think the movie want’s us to believe that he’s a player, but real life players don’t spend all their time focused on a woman who rejects them. They know that it’s inevitable that a proportion of the women they try it on with will reject them. It’s a natural part of it. Only movie players stubbornly stick on the one girl, doggedly trying the same misogynistic technique for the purpose of comedy and then throw a tantrum when their perseverance doesn’t work. It’s a waste of everybody’s time. If the key doesn’t fit the lock Zack, than no amount of you forcing it through is going to make it fit. It‘s dim.
Mullet, the dork he is, is wearing a ninja suit at the beach. I’m sure he fits right in at nightclubs. He bends over to pick up the beach ball and as soon as he looks up, he sees Kasumi looking back at him in a bikini. Remember when I said that the cops from earlier in the film had an immature reaction to a girl? Well that’s nothing compared to what’s going on here. Mullet, Forrest Gump acts more mature around boobs than you, and Devon Aoki isn’t exactly blessed in that department to start with
They have a volleyball game. There’s nothing else to say. it’s just a volleyball game and there’s nothing interesting about it. Once we’ve seen these girls in bikinis, we’ve seen them. There’s nothing left under their hats and the fan service has been used up. Thus the scene falls flat. Were this tied to the story in any way, then that would have been a different matter, but you can’t just put Devon Aoki and Holly Vallance in bikinis and go “Haah? Haah?” It’s a waste.
Meanwhile, Mullet tries to sneak. Into Dr Pervology’s base. Out of the entire cast, he alone is being the least bit proactive.
A shuriken bursts the volleyball.
OH NO!!
Kasumi decides that now would be a good time to run away, before they replace the ball. For truly all ninja ninja princesses hate losing volleyball games.
Mullet then get’s himself trapped in the exact same way that Bruce Lee did in Enter the Dragon. The wall doors shut on him in the exact same way after he goes through a lot of henchmen, just like in Enter. Originality be damned.
Kasumi wanders into a bamboo forest repeatedly calling Wiggy’s name. How does she know Wiggy’s there? We are never shown. Seems Kasumi was right though, as Wiggy comes charging in like a drugged maniac, brandishing a sword and screaming like she’s William Wallace. Ah, the way of the true ninja. Kasumi dodges and weaves and Wiggy swings that thing with such force that it slices thick bamboo clean with each strike. What's Wiggy trying to accomplish? The complete bisection of Kasumi’s body? That’s awfully violent, so what’s the motivation here? Is it really, “If you leave palace grounds I’m going to bisect you and carve you up?” If Kasumi’s sexual fantasy from earlier was an actual flashback, than why didn’t Wiggy try to carve up Kasumi when she left the clan grounds back then? There is also a double standard here. Kasumi isn’t allowed to leave the clan to chase after her brother, but Wiggy is allowed to leave the clan to chase after Kasumi? Wheres the assassin who’s supposed to carve up Wiggy?
Kasumi drives away her attacker by, get this, trapping Wiggy’s arm in a sliced up bamboo shoot in slow motion. Well that’s… odd. Instead of running off like a normal person, Wiggy decides she’d rather escape in style, and slowly swings from bamboo to bamboo like an inbred monkey.
Inbred Monkey.
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