Sifu’s Live-action Trailer Is Much More Compelling Than The Game

thegamer.com:

Kung fu brawler Sifu is said to be inspired by the legacies of Asian martial arts films, so it makes sense for developer Sloclap to also release a short, live-action film as a teaser for the game. Featuring a broody, young martial artist hell-bent on revenge for his father’s death, the Sifu trailer more than just highlights the game’s features and your protagonist’s motivations; it also spins a remarkable tale centred around his conquest, concluding with the strange, but compelling temporality of his revenge—an aspect of the short film that has somehow escaped the game itself.

Aptly titled ‘At The Cost of Time’, the film follows the young martial artist as he storms a warehouse—incidentally, Sifu’s first level—to hunt down Fajar, one of the assassins behind his father’s death, laying waste to several goons who unwisely try to stop him along the way. Rather than the game’s largely hollow scenes of violence, the film is rife with personality and character, every jab from the protagonist more impactful than the game’s comparatively empty fisticuffs. In one short scene, the hero looks past the two goons threatening to rip him to shreds, their presence abruptly disappearing as he stares at the door that will only temporarily keep Fajar out of sight—followed by a gratifying sequence of furious pummelling against the two ill-fated henchmen.

Related: Sifu's Brawler Is A Soulless Caricature

I’m not, of course, referring to the raw physical prowess of the film’s hero versus that of the same character in the game. Nor am I proclaiming that the cinematic sheen is superior to the interactivity of video games. But it’s the pure emotions at play in the short film: the deliberate panning of the camera, the faces of the cast mired with