DOA: Dead Or Alive

While the rest of us are sleeping soundly in our beds, multitudes of young boys must stream out of their homes in their thousands and pack into the nearest cinemas to see the latest computer game adaptation. A good review for a film like this is harder to find than Paris Hilton's sense of decency, but they must make an enormous amount of money, as there seems to be a new one every two months and these teenage nightly excursions are the only reason it could be possible. The latest adaptation is a Charlie's Angels meets a sassy Mortal Kombat or Streetfighter or any other beat-'em-up that blend into each other after a while - a high-kick chick-flick, if you will. The plot, if anyone cares, follows Princess Kasumi (Aoki) as she enters the lethal DOA: Dead Or Alive martial arts tournament with the hope of finding out what happened to her brother, missing the past year. There she meets pro-wrestler Tina (Pressly) and assassin Christie (Valance) and, after bonding over clothes (or a lack thereof) and a curiosity of the true motives of tournament director Dr. Victor Donovan (Roberts), the three are forced to fight against other competitors to reach the final stage and move closer to DOA's secrets. DOA may not be a lot of things, but it certainly isn't dull. Once it kicks off it rarely lets up, and only slows down to show the girls wearing bikinis so tight that if any of them made a quick turn, they'd be in danger of dicing themselves. So that's the half-naked girls taken care of; onto the fight scenes (the only other reason we're watching this), which, although appear manic in trailers, are in reality anything but. They do the job asked of them, but fans of the genre have seen it done better many times before. One star for Holly Valance alone.