Though The King of Fighters is not the first and most certainly will not be the last film to be adapted from a video game. It does continue the trend that countless other video game inspired films have traversed before it. Once again it is yet another film that fails to capture the essence of the game that it is adapting.
 
First off, this film adaptation spends way too much time trying to explain everything who everyone is and the origins of the fighting tournament at the center of this film. And while in most instances such back-story enhances the story at hand, in this film’s case it actually hinders the film from ever building any real momentum.
 
Furthermore it often feels like that the plot is nothing more than window dressing for what is the meat of this production, it’s action sequences. Unfortunately these aforementioned action sequences are not without their flaws and anyone who is even remotely a fan of martial arts or actions films in generally, are sure to come away from these sequences feeling underwhelmed.
 
As if this production did not have enough strikes against it, another area in which it often comes up short are the performances from its cast. Headlining this mediocre cast is Maggie Q, who recent years became a household name because of the T.V. series ‘Nikita’. My first exposure to her was via the film Naked Weapon. The character which she portrays in this film is not to far removed from the bad ass female fighter roles that she is far too often cast in. If any performance that left any lasting impression, that would be this film’s main bad guy, who is deliriously portrayed by Ray Park (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra).