Pretty hate machine

It had been a long time since I’d had the fantasy of renting a movie theater to play a video game. Then I played “Asura’s Wrath.”

An Eastern answer to “Star Wars,” “Asura’s Wrath” is aggressively cinematic, looking to the distant past and future for narrative and artistic themes. Aerial armadas are joined on the ground by giant metallic Buddhas itching to destroy you. Wide shots of dogfights in space recall scenes from “Return of the Jedi,” except here the explosions look uncannily like cherry blossoms popping. Our hero, Asura, is a sort of Hulk-meets-Vishnu, sprouting additional arms as he gets angrier.