DOA: Dead or Alive Information

DOA: Dead or Alive is a 2006 ensemble martial arts film very loosely based on the Tecmo/Team Ninja fighting game series Dead or Alive. Directed by Corey Yuen and written by J. F. Lawton, Adam and Seth Gross.

A number of fighters are invited to DOA "Dead or Alive", an invitational martial arts contest. The four female fighters begin as rivals, but work together to uncover the secret Donovan, the organizer of the tournament, is trying to hide. The film has various appearances from characters of the game series, which include: Tina Armstrong (Jaime Pressly), Christie Allen (Holly Valance), Kasumi (Devon Aoki), Ayane (Natassia Malthe) and Helena Douglas (Sarah Carter).

Plot

A group of martial arts and combat masters are invited to a fighting contest, "Dead or Alive", on an isolated island within an advanced complex, with the ultimate prize being $10,000,000 dollars. Among the competitors are Kasumi (Devon Aoki), a shinobi ninja-princess looking for her brother Hayate (Collin Chou) (who was competing in the last tournament), Tina (Jaime Pressly), a professional wrestler setting out to prove she has more potential (complicated by her father Bass (Kevin Nash) being one of the contenders), Christie (Holly Valance), a master thief and assassin, her treacherous partner Maximillian ?Max' Marsh (Matthew Marsden), and Hayabusa (Kane Kosugi), a friend of Kasumi and Hayate who follows Kasumi to keep her safe, using the invitation to DOA for this. A final competitor is Helena Douglas (Sarah Carter), daughter of the tournament's late founder. When they arrive, they are monitored by the island's supervisor, Dr. Victor Donovan (Eric Roberts), who, aided by egghead Weatherby (Steve Howey), is gathering data (using injected nano-sensors) from the fights for some mysterious project. To add to the situation, an assassin from Kasumi's colony named Ayane (Natassia Malthe), has followed Kasumi to kill her and wipe away the disgrace the princess has caused to the clan.

The contest plays out, with multiple contestants fighting and being defeated (including Gen Fu (Fang Liu), Bayman (Derek Boyer), Leon (Silvio Simac) and Zack (Brian J. White), until only Kasumi, Christie, Hayabusa and Tina are left, with Helena being defeated by Christie. During the course of the film, Max and Christie form a plan to steal over $100,000,000 stowed away inside a hidden vault. During her fight, Christie sees that the key to finding and unlocking the vault is a tattoo on the back of Helena's neck. Meanwhile, Kasumi begins to suspect Donovan of lying about her brother being killed in the previous tournament, and Hayabusa, infiltrating the main facility to find the truth, is captured. She is more than once confronted and nearly killed by Ayane, who Kasumi tries to convince that Hayate is alive (since it is eventually clear that Ayane loves Hayate). Also, Weatherby begins to fall for Helena, and in the end tells her about what he knows of the mystery project, and that before Helena's father could shut the project down, he died (indicating that he was murdered).

On the final day of the tournament, wondering where Hayabusa is, Kasumi, Christie and Tina look for him and discover a secret entrance to the main complex, where they find Hayabusa unconscious. They are then gassed and captured. Meanwhile, Helena resolves to stop the mystery project, and has to fight the armed staff of the island, sent to kill her and Weatherby by Donovan. They are followed inside by Max, who finds his way to the vault, and is then knocked out by Bayman, who is working for Donovan. Inside the main complex, Donovan shows the four semifinalists the project he has been developing; an advanced form of neural interface that allows him and others to use the fighters' combined skills to become the ultimate fighter. After ?downloading' the data into the device (shaped like a pair of sunglasses), he then shows that he kept Hayate alive and in peak condition to test the technology. He challenges Hayate to fight and win, if the others are to survive. Hayate accepts and is defeated, then thrown through a wall to die. Hayate is saved by Ayane, and the two of them apparently accept each other.

With the successful demo, Donovan prepares to sell the technology around the world, and begins downloading it to the watching buyers. Weatherby stops the broadcast and alerts the CIA, which provokes Donovan to head for them. Helena keeps Donovan back while Weatherby frees the others, but both are defeated and Donovan activates a self-destruct sequence which will obliterate the base. Kasumi, Helena, Christie, Tina, Ayane and Hayate launch a combined attack on Donovan, while Hayabusa and Weatherby find Max and escape with him, despite Max's urge to go back for the money. During the battle with the fighters, Donovan's ?glasses' are knocked off and he is easily paralyzed by Hayate and Kasumi. The fighters then all escape as the base explodes and Donovan is consumed by the flames, making their escape by a hijacked pirates' boat. The film ends with Helena, Ayane, Christie, Tina and Kasumi preparing to fight an army of ninja in Kasumi's palace (it is strongly hinted that they did beat them all).

Cast

• Holly Valance as Christie, a thief and assassin who plots to break into the island's vault. It is the Australian actress's first major role in a film.
• Jaime Pressly as Tina Armstrong, a professional American wrestler, entering the tournament to prove to her critics that she is not a fake.
• Devon Aoki as Kasumi, a princess who flees her temple in order to seek out the truth about the mysterious "death" of her brother. She will not be convinced that her brother is dead until she sees a body.
• Sarah Carter as Helena Douglas, who welcomes all of the other fighters to the DOA island. At the age of 21, she is competing in her first tournament and hopes to win to honour the memory of her late father, Fame Douglas the founder of DOATEC.
• Natassia Malthe as Ayane, a ninja assassin, is ordered to seek and kill Kasumi, who is considered an outcast to the clan (a nukenin, though the word shinobi is mistakenly used throughout the movie). She first confronts Kasumi before she flees the temple, then several times on the island. She has feelings towards Hayate (she is not his half-sister in the movie), and initially believes him to be dead.
• Kane Kosugi as Ryu Hayabusa. Hayabusa tries his best to convince Kasumi not to leave the temple, and after she leaves, he follows her by entering into DOA, which displeases Kasumi. Hayabusa is Hayate's (Kasumi's brother) best friend and pledges his help in finding him. (Kane previously played a black-garbed ninja, Jiraiya / NinjaBlack of the Super Sentai series Ninja Sentai Kakuranger).
• Matthew Marsden as Maximillian Marsh, Christie's lover and co-conspirator; he enters the DOA tournament under false pretenses, and begins planning to rob DOATEC's vault with Christie.
• Eric Roberts as Dr. Victor Donovan, the head of DOATEC. Throughout the film we learn that he, however, has a hidden agenda.
• Steve Howey as Weatherby, the head of the technical capabilities during the DOA tournament. He also has an affection for Helena, and reveals to her Donovan's sinister plans.
• Derek Boyer as Bayman, a combatant in the tournament, follows Donovan's orders without question on the island, acting as his bodyguard.
• Kevin Nash as Bass Armstrong, Tina's father, also a professional wrestler. He enters the tournament also in an attempt to persuade Tina to return to wrestling. During the tournament, he misinterprets Tina's relationships with Christie and Kasumi as being 'more than friends'.
• Collin Chou as Hayate, a superior fighter, Hayate was captured by DOATEC in the previous tournament. He is believed to be dead, leading Kasumi to enter DOA to unravel the truth behind his disappearance.
• Silvio Simac as Leon, another fighter at DOA, Hayate is stated to have been killed during his battle against Leon in the last tournament. Nevertheless, when Kasumi defeats him, she starts to doubt the story even more with the phrase: "You could not have killed my brother."
• Brian J. White as Zack, another fighter, who is eventually eliminated by Tina, with whom he had been trying to flirt during the tournament.

Other characters:

• Fang Liu as Gen Fu
• Hung Lin as Hitomi
• Song Lin as Brad Wong
• Ying Wang as Leifang
• Robin Shou as pirate leader

Production

The film began principal photography on May 4, 2005, and concluded on July 19, 2005. Filming locations include Bangkok, Guilin, Hengdian and Hong Kong. The production budget was estimated to be $21,000,000.

Lisa, Kokoro, Tengu, Raidou, are only a few of the original DOA characters that did not make it into the film, while most of the others appear. Plus there are two new characters entering in the film, Maximillian "Max" Marsh (who helps Christie on her mission to steal the money) and Weatherby (who acts as a love interest for Helena).

Release

The film was released first in a number of markets during September 2006 including United Kingdom, Australia, and the Philippines. The BBFC rated it 15, IFCO 15A, OFLC M (unrestricted, unlike the MA-15+ rating), all Canadian provinces gave it a PG except for Quebec which gave it a G with warning, and the MPAA PG-13.

The film was released in North America on June 15, 2007, without press screenings.

Box office

In non-US markets, the film was somewhat successful, making over $6,000,000 in the foreign box office, with almost 1 million USD in both the U.K. and Australia. In the USA though the film was a box-office bomb, making only $260,000 its first week. It was released into 505 theaters, and spent 21 days in theaters closing on July 5 with a domestic gross of $480,813 (or about 7.2% of worldwide gross as of 7/5/07).

The film grossed a total of USD$6,924,930.

Critical reception

Reviews were generally negative with the film receiving a rating of 34% based on 44 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

Home media

The DVD of DOA: Dead or Alive was released on September 11, 2007, selling 68,578 DVD units in the first week, opening at #12 and earning $1,370,874 in the first week of DVD sales (first week only). This does not include Blu-ray sales or DVD rentals.

In the UK and in Australia, the film is available on DVD and features two special features which are: Making of documentary and deleted scenes. There is no DVD commentary on the UK release and there are two covers for the DVD, one exclusive to online store Play.com and the original cover in most retail shops.