DOA: Dead or Alive 4K 2006 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

"Dead or Alive" is the name of an international martial arts tournament featuring the world's best fighters. The participants fly to an exotic island, where they will battle each other for the grand prize—$10 million. However, tournament organizer Donovan has entirely different plans.

Review 4K Movie

In the world of 3D fighting games, Dead or Alive has always played a supporting role. This fast-paced, fun, and colorful fighting game carried on the best traditions of *Street Fighter* and, at one point, even dared to challenge the more popular *Tekken*. Without bringing anything revolutionary to the mind-numbing process, Tecmo’s creation wholeheartedly exploited the sexual aspect. The female roster, with their enormous breasts bouncing joyfully in time with every movement, left a much stronger impression than the flat storyline and the stereotypical male fighters. Naturally, the DOA film released for the game’s tenth anniversary was hardly going to revolutionize the adaptation landscape, which had been stagnant since the days of the first *Dead or Alive*. That simply wasn’t necessary. They just needed to bring in more girls! Young ones, with toned figures, pouting lips, and dazzling makeup. Well, they brought in the classic blonde element and even taught them how to kick their legs up. How clever of them… If only the glossy picture contained something more meaningful than a ridiculous tournament with nonsensical rules, the hundredth in a dismal series.

I wonder, do the creators of this tacky piece have even the slightest clue about martial arts styles and the differences between them? Apparently, to them, kung fu, karate, and taekwondo all hang out somewhere near wrestling, which isn’t even a martial art to begin with. Saccharine boys and pretty girls arrived on a stereotypical island, where they were directed by yet another domineering jerk spouting clichéd drivel, and off they went… no, not to the ring, but to the beaches and luxurious suites. So what? Everything that happens is much more reminiscent of resort entertainment for gentlemen with tight balls, who suddenly decided to crush everything around them with their tanned bodies. Out of boredom, probably. If the game, for all its obvious absurdity, remained a quality brawl, then for most of the movie the fights are replaced by a slapdash montage with a bunch of implausible moves and superhuman pirouettes. It’s all just glitzy nonsense. A quartet of appetizing and pretentiously aggressive girls would feel more at home at a fashion show, because it’s impossible to believe for a single moment that years of grueling training lie behind each bikini-clad model. Cynthia Rothrock would have shown them real skill… Just as all the styles here are merely a set of random, computer-generated movements, the battles have nothing in common with the drama of real, all-out fights.

To be fair, there wasn’t a single character in the game itself worthy of being the center of bone-crushing attention. It relied on sheer numbers and a decent variety of characters in its roster of fighters—which included a ninja, a Chinese bodyguard, and a Russian soldier—but there was no dominant figure, which also hurt the film adaptation. Yes, there was the Japanese princess Kasumi, who stood out with her magical tricks, but they might as well have promoted the American Tina to the lead role, since, as a wrestler, she should know how to make a dramatic entrance. She could have learned a thing or two from Kevin Nash, who played the role of the muscular blonde’s father. A seasoned, combative showman—one of the few in the film who entertains without making you want to bang your head against the wall.

The second eccentric, though in the opposite sense, is Eric Roberts, who invariably takes offense at comparisons to his star sister and who is incapable of portraying anyone other than a smirking mannequin with dregs-of-society plans. So the clear-eyed beauties had to fend for themselves and for all the onlookers, and, as Buddha knows, it’s not the girls’ fault that they weren’t born actresses.

You lose. Continue?

“Dead or Alive”… The creators couldn’t have come up with a more inappropriate title. Oh, that teaser… Come on, what the hell kind of deaths are these? This isn’t “Mortal” or anything….

Its focus on middle schoolers prohibited finishing moves, excluded blood, rejected violence, and incidentally instilled a love for ideal female forms. The film logically mines the same vein, and so it can be called whatever you like, but certainly not something that goes against its own rules. The film crew was stuck with poor source material, and getting anything out of it was a mission only Chuck Norris could handle. That’s probably why DOA didn’t turn out to be a disgusting low point like the Tekken movie or the Mortal Kombat sequel. Returning years later to watch this film, you find it surprisingly familiar, since it’s molded from a formula known to every “80s kid.”

When there’s no strict canon to speak of, there’s no need to cynically count the number of broken gamer hearts.

What’s more, you can even enjoy the colorful production—provided you switch off your brain completely, of course. Of course, a film like this has nothing to do with martial arts, let alone their millennia-old wisdom. That’s probably why the filmmakers decided not to bother with the fighters’ backstories and focused on their physical appearance instead. For hardcore action and realism, please turn to the timeless classics of Bruce Lee and Jean-Claude Van Damme; here, you’ll find a reasonably enjoyable beach cocktail for all fans of spectacular fights.