Today’s game on film is…
Game: Tetris
Developer: Sanritsu Denki
Publisher: Sega
System: SEGA Mega Drive
ReleaseDate: Unreleased*
Police Story 3: SuperCop Aka Supercop (1992)
The film stars Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, Ken Tsang, Yuen Wah, Bill Tung, Josephine Koo, and Wong Siu.
Directed by Stanley Tong, and written by Edward Tang, Ma Fibe, and Yee Lee Wai, with cinematography by Ardy Lam.
Like many of Jackie Chan’s films, Police Story 3 mixes action, amazing stunts and martial arts, with classic slapstick humour in the style of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. The Police Story series is no exception and remains a beloved series by fans.
This is one that really caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting to see Tetris in a Jackie Chan film, let alone Tetris for the Sega Mega Drive.
The scene…
Chan’s and Yeoh’s characters are caught and brought in front of the big boss, Khun Chaibat (Kenneth Tsang). Chaibat just so happens to be playing Tetris on the Sega Mega Drive when they meet. During the scene, the TV screen is visible and shows the Mega Drive version of Tetris. The Mega Drive console with a game inserted is also seen along with the standard 3-button Mega Drive controller.
Tetris on the Mega Drive, what is this Bizarro world?
The creation and subsequent licensing of Tetris is quite a story within itself, a simplified account of which is that Atari (Tengen) held the arcade rights to the game in America, while Sega had the arcade rights in Japan; Sega’s arcade Tetris was released in 1988, the same year the Mega Drive, Sega’s 16-bit home console, was released in Japan. The Sega Mega Drive Tetris was originally slated to come out fairly early on in the Mega Drive’s lifespan, supposedly in April 1989.
However, Nintendo had secured the home console and handheld rightsfor Tetris. Spelling the end for Tetris on the Mega Drive, as it did to Tengen’s NES version of the game. Sega’s cancelled version is believed to have fewer than 10 official copies. Since the game’s official cancellation by Sega, the game was heavily pirated.
Police Story 3: Super Cop (Supercop) original release on July 4th 1992. Now, either this film just so happened to have one of the rarest Mega Drive games as a prop, or it’s just one of the many bootleg copies out there. The bootleg version of Tetris was also included in unlicensed multi-carts. It’s difficult to get a good look at the actual cartridge in the scene, so it’s unclear if this is a multi-cart. Either way, it would be quite fitting for a villain to own an illegal copy of a game.
Not the Tetris theme we’re used to
The music most commonly associated with Tetris, actually Korobeiniki, is based on a 19th-century russian folk song, now often dubbed the Tetris Theme. Anyway, this theme isn’t in the Mega Drive version; instead, it’s what could be described as a series of electric malodic beeps.
The game audio heard in the scene is actually from a different game called ZOOM! (Discovery Software, 1988). This also happens to be a puzzle game, but it’s not at all like Tetris and is more like an isometric version of QIX (Taito, 1981). The game doesn’t seem to have been that popular, getting a mediocre to poor reception at the time. (Had you ever heard of ZOOM!?) While it is conceivable that a bootleg/ROM hack could have used the ZOOM! audio, the more likely scenario is that the ZOOM! game audio was added to the scene in post. Some credit has to be given, though, as they went to some effort to try to match up the action in the scene with the music, such as when the character pauses and resets the game.
(Side note, I’ve only seen the film with its original Cantonese track. I’m aware that there are some differences between the original and English-dubbed versions. I’ll update if and when I find out.)
ARE THEY PLAYING?
It’s a little inconclusive, but the actor does seem to be playing, at least half-heartedly, and he does get up to reset the game and pause during the scene. The button presses aren’t over-exaggerated, and do match how someone might actually play Tetris.
In terms of video game representation, this probably falls somewhere between the Vectrex in Charles in Charge (see GOF#9) and Super Mario Bros 2 in Wiseguy. (See GOF#2) The game is shown with the console, and the characters are seen “playing it”. The footage on screen in the actual gameplay is not something that was added later.
Although the screen is only visible briefly, the game is still on level one (denoted by the red rock mountains background). Later in the scene, even though Khun Chaibat appears to “pause” the game and gets up shortly after, we can clearly see the game is at the title screen and not paused. The demo on the title screen starts before it cuts away from the TV. (Were they at the title demo screen the entire time…).
Tetris on the Mega Drive, where art thou?
Despite the perceived elusiveness of the game, it has, in fact, been officially re-released a few times. It was included in Vol. 28 of Sega’s Ages 2600 line for the PlayStation 2, Tetris Collection (Sept 28th 2006). It was also one of the 40 games in the Sega Megadrive Mini (2020)*
The Mega Drive version of Tetris is fairly decent, if a little bare-bones. One mode that stands out is the “Doubles” mode, where two players share the same screen. Today, with so many different versions of Tetris, there is little reason to play this one aside from it being an interesting chapter in Tetris’s and Sega’s history.
Jackie Chan has an impressive filmography. With that many films, you know there’s got to be more games just hiding in the background of a scene, just waiting to be found. Though they’ll have to wait for another Games on Film (and, yes, I know about the Game Gear in Rumble in the Bronx, watch this space…)
