Anchor Bay snapped up U.S. and Australian/New Zealand distribution rights on Tekken, it was announced today. “The Tekken videogame franchise has sold millions of copies over the past decade,” commented Bill Clark, President of Anchor Bay Entertainment. Production company “Crystal Sky invested millions in the production, making sure they were able to convey not only the incredible fight scenes, but also the emotional journey of the main character, Jin.”

Written by Alan McElroy and directed by Dwight Little, the film is set in a world run by all-powerful corporations (reality?), of which the mightiest is the Tekken Corporation, headed by Heiachi Mishima. Because financial monopoly apparently isn’t enough, these corporations regularly send their best fighters to challenge each other in the ring. After running contraband outside the fortified walls of Tekken City, Jin Kazama (Jon Foo) returns home to witness Tekken security forces destroying his house and murdering his mother. In order to avenge her, Jin files a complaint in the form of a strongly worded letter and enters the Iron Fist Tournament, and is pitted against some of the most brutal martial artists in the world.

In addition to Foo, the film stars Kelly Overton, Luke Goss, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Ian Anthony Dale, Mircea Monroe and Gary Daniels, and features real fighters and martial artists such as
Roger Huerta, Cung Le and Lateef Crowder. The film’s stunt
coordinator, Eric Norris, and fight/parkour choreographer Cyril
Raffaelli, whose credits include District B13 and Transporter,
collaborated closely to make the fight sequences as reminiscent of the
videogame as possible. Tekken will be released widely in the United States in 2011, at a date to be determined.