Features:
- Color
- Closed-captioned
- Widescreen
- Animated
Description:
Based on the video game, Fatal Fury is widely regarded as one of the best kung fu anime features. The good guys are Terry "Hungry Wolf" Bogard and his brother, Andy; Thai kickboxer Joe Higashi; and the curvaceous ninja Mai. With their masses of spiky blond hair, narrow blue eyes, and sharp features, the Bogard brothers almost cross over into the "beautiful boy" genre, but they and Joe are muscled like dinosaurs. Mai, who has a crush on Andy, provides both humor and jiggle interest in a succession of minuscule outfits. The heroes are pitted against an assortment of equally buffed-out Bad Guys, led by Laocorn, a descendant of the ancient clan of Gaudeamus, who is seeking to obtain "the armor of Vulcan." A relic going back to the time of Alexander the Great, the armor transforms anyone who wears all seven pieces of it into a god. But Laocorn's twin sister, Sulia, knows it will also make the wearer hopelessly evil: she enlists the Bogards and their friends to prevent her brother from acquiring the scattered pieces. Director Masami Obari uses all the standard tricks for the bone-crunching martial arts battles--blurs, streaks, slow-motion images of blows landing on skulls, camera spins, flashes of lighting, flames, and, of course, gobs of blood. Fatal Fury feels like a cross between an Indiana Jones film and a WWE tag-team match, and is sure to delight adolescent boys. (Rated 13 Up) --Charles Solomon
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