11. ⬆⬆⬇⬇⬅➡⬅➡🅱🅰: Select and start a movie based on a video game.

Look, I want to say something like, “Dead or Alive series depicts a collection of skilled martial artists in a worldwide competition that’s sponsored by the DOATEC (Dead or Alive Tournament Executive Committee), a massive corporation with unknown motives,” but really the video game series is Street Fighter with breasts and butts. I mean, the spin-off Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball had a mode where you got girls to perform tasks for you and then take photos of them while they posed.

It was created by Team Ninja and Tomonobu Itagaki. Itagaki has said that “violence and eroticism were needed for true entertainment.”

I’m not decrying exploitation.

I’m just telling you this is a different video game experience.

How amazing is it that the movie based on the game is so good? That’s probably because of the cast and the director. Corey Yuen directed this! The same director who made Dragons Forever, No Retreat, No Surrender and the action scenes for Lethal Weapon 4, Romeo Must Die, Kiss of the Dragon, The One, Cradle 2 the Grave, War and The Expendables.

If you’ve played the game, you know the fighters, but let me get into them for those who may not know anything about all of these bikini ladies and ninjas.

Tina Armstrong is a pro wrestler who made it to the finals of the first DOA tournament, won the second, became a supermodel, a rock star and a politician. She’s played by Jaime Pressly and her father, Bass, the pro wrestler who raised her as a single dad, is Kevin Nash.

Kasumi is played by Devon Aoki, daughter of the man who brought Benihana to America. She’s a ninja princess of the Mugen Tenshin Ninja Clan. She’s the main character of the series and also appears in the Ninja Gaidan games.

Christie Allen is a master thief and killer who is way meaner in the games than she is in the movie. She’s played by Holly Valance.

Helena Douglas is the daughter of DOATEC’s founder, who has recently died, and is running the tournament along with Donovan (Eric Roberts). She’s played by Sarah Carter.

Natassia Malthe is Ayane, a ninja assassin who is trying to kill Kasumi, who is being protected by Ryu Hayabusa, the star of Ninja Gaidan, who is played by the son of the man who introduced ninjas to America. Yes, that’s Kane Kosugi. They’re also looking for her brother Hayate (Collin Chou).

Plus, there’s Christie’s partner Max (Matthew Marsden), Zack (Brian J. White) who eventually runs the island that Dead or Alive Xtreme is on, Russian soldier Bayman (Derek Boyer), Robin Shou as a pirate, Brad Wong (Song Lin), Lei Fang (Ying Wang), Hitomi (Hung Lin) and Gen Fu (Fang Liu).

This movie was a lot of work with the actresses all training for three months and Yuen having two crews working 17 hours a day, getting four hours of sleep and then waking up to shoot.

The plot is, well, every single martial arts tournament movie you’ve ever seen, but it’s also a movie as relentlessly devoted to gorgeous women kicking people in the face, smiling right into the camera and then a butt, crotch or breast is seen before more fighting. It’s absolutely shameless and yet, isn’t that what we want from a video game movie? I love how reviewers expected something more, like this was great literature. I’ve played all the games, I won’t lie and they’re relentless and brutal fighters that are a lot of fun. But they also have volleyball mini-games and all of the girls have multiple outfits that are all very revealing. Sometimes, you need to shut off your brain and enjoy things.

You can watch this on Tubi.