Tekken set to kick big screen ass

'Martial arts spectacular,' promises director

Dwight Little of Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid fame will direct a movie adaptation of popular Namco martial arts game Tekken, Variety reports.

Production on the iron-fisted flick is slated to begin on 4 February. Crystal Sky Pictures is providing the cash to turn Alan McElroy's script into what Little describes as a "martial arts spectacular".

Little said: "The film plays out as a science fiction story set in the near future, about a rebel who rises up against the Tekken Corp. to seize freedom for his people. It's a gladiator story, but the videogame has a complicated enough storyline that it provides the template for a martial arts spectacular."

Little's action credentials include Rapid Fire, with Brandon Lee, and Marked for Death, which starred Steven Seagal as "a good cop", who's rather ominously "in a bad mood", according to the tagline.

Namco, meanwhile, will release the sixth installment of Tekken in North America in January 2008. ®