The history of Mortal Kombat spans nearly three decades, eleven mainline games, and one of the most massive and passionate fanbases in video games. That’s a lot of pressure for the cast and crew of the upcoming Mortal Kombat, but going off of my own viewing of the first 13 minutes of the film, and a recent roundtable interview with director Simon McQuoid and producer Todd Garner, it seems like the cinematic fates of Earthrealm, Outworld, and Netherrealm are in the hands of people who love and understand what makes Mortal Kombat so beloved.
[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=mortal-kombat-2021-movie-images&captions=true”]
One of the main things that Mortal Kombat is known for, of course, is its violence. And that’s not something that the movie is shying away from.
“I just wanted to do Mortal Kombat justice,” said McQuoid. “It was about studying and looking at what the fundamental ingredients are to Mortal Kombat. What are the key strands of DNA that make this what it is. So I spent a lot of time thinking about that, so that stylistically it ended up in the right place. One of those [key strands of DNA] is the brutality of it. What I liked about the blood aspect is that we could be authentic. We didn’t have to hold back on the fights. If there was a fight going on, someone got stamped through the head, blood probably would burst out the back, and we could do that. New Line deserves a lot of credit because they always wanted to do it justice as well.”
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=I%20just%20wanted%20to%20do%20Mortal%20Kombat%20justice”]
And sure enough, the extended scene I watched did not pull back on the violence, but it’s also important to note that it was more than just bloodshed. It opens on the Hasashi Compound in the year 1617, where Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada), the man who will eventually become the yellow clad spectre of vengeance, Scorpion, shares a tender moment with his family before he goes out to collect some water from the river. We get to see a brief bit of the Hasashi family life before it gets torn apart due to the attack of Bi-Han (Joe Taslim) and the Lin Kuei clan.
“There’s a difference between violence for violence’s sake… and violence [that’s] motivated by characters you love and care about and worry about. We’re trying to do that,” said Garner. “We’re trying to make a movie where you care about the people. It’s grounded, it has a realistic tone to it, and the violence comes from the rules of the world we’ve established, but you’re not just trying to make torture porn. You’re trying to do something that is faithful to the IP, but also comes from a motivated and grounded place that is motivated by real characters that feel like they’ve lived real lives up to this moment.”
[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/mortal-kombat-movie-vs-game-characters-compared”]
Once the fighting does begin, that’s when the movie earns its R rating. Hanzo straps a gardening kunai to a rope to form his trademark spear, and starts absolutely tearing through a crowd of Lin Kuei clansmen, at one point piercing clean through a man’s head before yanking him to the ground and ripping the blade out with a healthy spurt of blood erupting from his skull.
One of the most notable aspects about Mortal Kombat’s absolutely enormous roster of characters over the years is the diversity of cultures and martial arts featured within it, from Japanese ninjas to Chinese monks to American special forces and Australian thugs, and casting actors that were not only authentic to that spread of nationalities and cultures, but also could fight, was extremely important to both McQuoid and Garner.
“It’s important because it’s the right thing to do. It’s that simple. To make these the best versions of these characters, that’s what we needed to do,” said McQuoid. “The thing about Mortal Kombat is its rich textural mixture of really great things. Many different cultures, and that’s a really important ingredient as we analysed it. It didn’t cross anyone’s mind at any point that we were doing it any other way. Perhaps the guys at New Line are just braver than most. We didn’t even talk about it much because it was like, ‘Obviously, that’s what we’re doing.’ When I talked to New Line for the first time and I could see their respect for it, I was like ‘well, this is great, because this is how I want to do it and how we all want to do it.’ It was easy because it was the right thing to do. It would have been silly to do it any other way.”
[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=meet-the-cast-of-the-mortal-kombat-reboot-movie&captions=true”]
Garner said that the first thing they told Warners out of the gate was that not only was the movie going to be diverse, but that the cast also needed to know how to fight. Action scenes that had to be cut in a way that hides the fact that a stunt double was being used during the fight just wouldn’t work with the kind of movie that they had wanted to make. This shrunk the talent pool considerably, but Garner feels like it was worth it.
“It took a while, and it’s to Simon’s credit, he’s the most patient man, and he did it,” said Garner. “Everyone says that this is a video game movie, and OK, [but] it’s a martial arts movie.”
While video game adaptations certainly have gotten better over the most recent years, there’s certainly a history of disappointing adaptations. McQuoid’s thought on the secret to making a good video game adaptation is simple, but refreshing to hear.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=The%20intent%20was%20to%20respect%20the%20material.%20That%20had%20to%20be%20first%20and%20foremost.”]
“The intent was to respect the material. That had to be first and foremost. It was to treat the game structurally like a film. Not to borrow the wrong things from the video game. From what I’ve observed from when video game films don’t do so well, it’s because they don’t respect the material,” said McQuoid. “I have great respect for video games and video game companies and video game characters. There’s a reason people love these video games. They immerse people far better in many cases than movies can. But I think also understanding what a film can give you that a video game can’t to make things totally real. To see Scorpion in full real samurai Japanese-inspired, richly led, richly textured [armor] that matters. And that’s something that we can bring in a film that couldn’t be done in a video game, because it’s not real.”
Mortal Kombat will be released on HBO Max on April 16, 2021.
[poilib element=”accentDivider”]
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @JurassicRabbit
