DOA: Dead or Alive
We start off this film in Japan where Hayabusa (Kane Kosugi) is telling the Princess Kasumi (Devon Aoki) that her brother is dead and she is now in charge of the clan. She basically tells the clan to go to hell and charges out to find what happened to her brother. Hayabusa is saying she can't leave because the guards will kill her... what? I thought she was in charge of the clan? Anyway she leaves but not before sparing with Ayane (Natassia Malthe) the prince's love or something. Ayane has sworn to hunt her down if she leaves. Obviously Kasumi isn't worried too much and leaves. As she goes she gets an invitation to DOA.
Next we skip over to a yacht in the middle of the Chinese Sea where Tina (Jaime Pressly) is arguing with her father on the phone. He wants her to join him in some wrestling match but she refuses, saying that she is sick of being fake and wants to be taken seriously. Her boat is attacked by pirates and she kicks the crap out of all of them. After she defeats them get gets invited to DOA.
Next we go to Hong Kong where the police have entered the hotel room of the master thief Christie (Holly Valance). Christie has stolen money and diamonds and beats up the police wearing nothing but panties and escapes. She is then invited to DOA.
Dead Or Alive is an elite fighting tournament where only the best of the best are invited, including Tina's father Bass (Kevin Nash) and Max (Matthew Marsden) Christie's on again off again lover/partner in crime. She is slightly pissed at him for letting her take the rap in Hong Kong but he has the big picture in mind. The winner of the tournament gets $10 million, but there is a vault somewhere on the island that contains $100 million and the two of them makes plans to steal it. Max says that the key to the vault in Helena (Sarah Carter) who is the daughter the the creator of DOA (now dead) who is also fighting in the tournament.
The man running the operation is Donovan (Eric Roberts). He and his geek assistant Weatherby (Steve Howey) keep a close eye on all the fighters. During the tourney our three girls become friends and it is no surprise that they, with Hayabusa are the last four standing. Helena, who lost to Christie is unhappy and Weatherby goes to comfort her and then tells her that he thinks Donovan killed her father and is planning something dastardly.
And it is this: Donovan has injected all the fighters with nanotechnology that has read their stats and he can now download them into himself and he will send the technology to other people around the world. He downloads the four fighters moves into himself and fights Hayate (Collin Chou) a.k.a. Kausmi's brother who had been put in cryogenic freezing since last year. Donovan beats Hayate who is saved at the last minute by Ayane. Weatherby is able to free the fighters and stop the transfer and he even hit a guy! The rest of the guards are taken out by Helena and then she joins her friends and to take down Donovan and all the good guys manage to escape before the place blows up (well, all the good guys and Max).
So this movie wasn't so bad...not really. You just had to get over the fact the that the movie doesn't actually make much sense and that Devon Aoki cannot act and does not have any facial emotions whatsoever. The fighting sequences were pretty awesome though.
The plot was weird. It was fine at the beginning; simple and to the point: Win the tournament, win $10 million. It's when you got to the end that it got stupid. Donovan keeps a fighter around for an entire year just to prove that he is the best fighter? Why didn't he save the best four fighters from last year's tournament and fight all four of them at the same time? Why only one when he kept the best four from this year? And what was Max doing there? He wasn't a fighter. He beat one guy and that was by chance and they never go back to him. Logic dictates that since he wasn't one of the four best four fighters he should've been sent home with the other fighters that got KO'd. He defiantly should not have been there at the end to complain endlessly about not going back for the money while Weatherby and Hayabusa were trying to save him before the place blew up money.
By the way, Donovan? There's this invention, it's called a remote detonator, maybe you should look into that next time so you won't get blown up because you can't get off the island you initiated the self-destruct sequence for. Moron.
The other thing I had a problem with was the wardrobe (or lack of wardrobe in some instances). Ayane's purple hair to match her purple uniform that was a slutty version of the male uniform of the clan drove me crazy. Fine she has purple hair, but did it have to look so cheap? Well, she looked cheap, so maybe they wanted to match her hair to the rest of her.
It was too bad Devon Aoki was such a terrible actress, because the rest of the acting wasn't half bad, and she was the main character, so it ruined the movie. Well, as much as an already crappy movie can be ruined.
Grade: 4/10