In the realm of fighting video games, The King of Fighters has long been the equivalent of the oft-used slightly politically incorrect simile of a red-headed stepchild, having a cult following behind the title, but never attaining the prestige of the top titles in the genre such as Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.

Gordon Chan's 2010 cinematic take on The King of Fighters isn't going to raise the worth of the brand. In fact, this steamy turd, which is one of the worst game-to-movie adaptations ever, managing to be even lower on the B-movie scale than the debacle that was Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, goes a long way to regulating the King of Fighters gaming series to permanent second-tier status.

To provide a bit of a defense for the film-makers, the King of Fighters games never really had a deep foundation to begin with, with most of the story deliver via cutscenes that delivered clumsily translated bon mots such as "what a weak little fellow". But surely the brain trust behind this production could have come up with something better than a team of loosely-connected combatants swaddled in throwaway S&M gear sparring in an alternate dimension, which they access via bluetooth headsets? Well, apparently not.

Even just taking this movie as a base adaptation of the game, The King of Fighters doesn't even get the small matters right, right down to the casting. Sure, Maggie Q is nice to look at, but her athletic body isn't a good fit for the character of Mai, who is well-known among gaming geeks for her buxom curves. And as for the main villain of Rugal, Ray Park definitely has some talents in the martial arts department, but he's a good foot shorter and 100 pounds lighter than the mammoth character model from the games.

As poor as the exposition is, the fighting scenes are even worse. Despite having Hong Kong veterans Arthur Wong and Chan Ki-Hop as the cinematographer and editor, the action still comes off like your drunken uncle's home movies. There's no focus and the camera shakes like the operator is going through delirium tremens, leaving the viewer with a headache instead of a sense of excitement.

The clumsy CGI effects, which come off like the work of an intern half-assing his way through the job, were obviously inserted in to try to capture the power of the game's special moves, and they make the fighting scenes come off as cinematic wankery, where anything and everything is thrown at the viewer to attempt to interest them, but ulimately leaves them feeling empty. So very empty.

RATING: 2