According to Moviehole, the “Tekken” movie is finally happening. Or at least, it’s moving forward sufficiently enough for the production office to send out character breakdowns to casting directors. They also say that Dwight Little (”Anacondas”, “Murder at 1600″) is prepping the movie to go into production. As I recall, there was already a Tekken movie, only it was called “Avenging Fist” and was made in Hong Kong without permission, thus the change in the title. So what’s “Tekken” the game about?

Via Wikipedia:

Tekken is one of the earliest 3D fighting game franchises, with the first game applying many of the concepts found in Virtua Fighter by Sega.

As with many fighting games, players choose a character from a lineup, and engage in hand-to-hand combat with an opponent. It is primarily a competitive two-player series, but a human player can fight an AI-controlled character for practice or amusement.

Tekken differs from other hand-to-hand fighting games in some ways. Traditional fighting games are usually played with buttons which correspond to the strength of the attack, such as strong punch or weak kick. Tekken, however, dedicates a button to each limb of the fighter, making learning special attacks more of an intuitive process. The player could watch the animation on screen and figure out the appropriate command (if the character kicks low with their right leg, the move is likely to be executed by pressing down and right kick, or a similar variation). Traditional fighting games, such as Street Fighter, involve inputting commands as rapidly and accurately as possible, whereas Tekken slows the action down, emphasizing rhythm, strategy, and deception over speed.

Here are the character breakdowns:

Principal Photography Dates: November, 2007 (in Budapest, Hungary).
STORY: The film is based on the Namco videogame TEKKEN is a near future “Gladiator” style action film. It tells the story of Jin Kazama, a twenty-something street fighter who embarks on a journey to avenge his mother’s death at the hands of The TEKKEN Corporation and its CEO Heihachi Mishima. Jin travels a hero’s journey into the heart of TEKKEN city and the Ironfist fighting tournament,which is the greatest mixed martial arts competition in the world. He discovers his true identity and fulfils his destiny as the rightful heir to TEKKEN.

Breakdown– Jin: Early 20s, tough for his age and has a developed physical presence. He is Asian, or Asian/American, a fine actor and also a natural athlete and/or martial arts practitioner. Jin should feel more man than boy and ideally have a bit of an edge, garnered from living his early life on the streets. Jin will have complex emotional scenes to play and must be convincing both as an actor and athlete. Jin Kazama is the star and lead character in TEKKEN.

Notice that the sheet has the start of production as November 2007.