Mortal Kombat (film)

Plot

Mortal Kombat is a fighting tournament between the representatives of the realms of Earth and Outworld conceived by the Elder Gods amid looming invasion of the Earth by Outworld. If the realm of Outworld wins Mortal Kombat ten consecutive times, its Emperor Shao Kahn will be able to invade and conquer the Earth realm.

Shaolin monk Liu Kang and his comrades, movie star Johnny Cage and military officer Sonya Blade were handpicked by Raiden, the god of thunder and defender of the Earth realm, to overcome their powerful adversaries in order to prevent Outworld from winning their tenth straight Mortal Kombat tournament. Each of the three has his or her own reason for competing: Liu seeks revenge against the tournament host Shang Tsung for killing his brother Chan; Sonya seeks revenge on an Australian crime lord Kano for murdering a fellow officer; and Cage, having been branded as a fake by the media, seeks to prove otherwise.

At Shang Tsung's island, Liu is attracted to Princess Kitana, Shao Kahn's adopted daughter. Aware that Kitana is a dangerous adversary because she is the rightful heir to Outworld and that she will attempt to ally herself with the Earth warriors, Tsung orders the creature Reptile to spy on her. Liu defeats his first opponent and Sonya gets her revenge on Kano by snapping his neck. Cage encounters and barely beats Scorpion. Liu engages in a brief duel with Kitana, who secretly offers him cryptic advice for his next battle. Liu's next opponent is Sub-Zero, whose defense seems untouched because of his freezing abilities, until Liu recalls Kitana's advice and uses it to kill Sub-Zero.

Prince Goro enters the tournament and mercilessly crushes every opponent he faces. One of Cage's peers, Art Lean, is defeated by Goro as well and has his soul taken by Shang Tsung. Sonya worries that they may not win against Goro, but Raiden disagrees. He reveals their own fears and egos are preventing them from winning the tournament.

Despite Sonya's warning, Cage comes to Tsung to request a fight with Goro. The sorcerer accepts on the condition that he be allowed to challenge any opponent of his choosing, anytime and anywhere he chooses. Raiden tries to intervene, but the conditions are agreed upon before he can do so. After Shang Tsung leaves, Raiden confronts Cage for what he has done in challenging Goro, but is impressed when Cage shows his awareness of the gravity of the tournament. Cage faces Goro and uses guile and the element of surprise to defeat the defending champion. Now desperate, Tsung takes Sonya hostage and takes her to Outworld, intending to fight her as his opponent. Knowing that his powers are ineffective there and that Sonya cannot defeat Tsung by herself, Raiden sends Liu and Cage into Outworld in order to rescue Sonya and challenge Tsung. In Outworld, Liu is attacked by Reptile(under orders from Shang Tsung to prevent him and Cage from rescuing Sonya), but eventually gains the upper hand and defeats him. Afterward, Kitana meets up with Cage and Liu. She reveals to the pair the origins of both herself and Outworld. Kitana allies with them and helps them to infiltrate Tsung's castle, while advising Liu Kang about three challenges in the castle: To face his enemy, himself and his worst fear.

Inside the castle tower, Shang Tsung challenges Sonya to fight him, claiming that her refusal to accept will result in the Earth realm forfeiting Mortal Kombat (this is, in fact, a lie on Shang's part). All seems lost for Earth realm until Kitana, Liu, and Cage appear. Kitana berates Tsung for his treachery to the Emperor as Sonya is set free, claiming that his arrogance and greed will cost him the tournament if he doesn't honor his deal. Tsung challenges Cage, but is counter-challenged by Liu. During the lengthy battle, Liu faces not only Tsung, but the souls that Tsung had forcibly taken in past tournaments. In a last-ditch attempt to take advantage, Tsung morphs into Chan. Seeing through the charade, Liu renews his determination and ultimately fires an energy bolt at the sorcerer, knocking him down and impaling him on a row of spikes. Tsung's death releases all of the captive souls, including Chan's. Before ascending to the afterlife, Chan tells Liu that he will remain with him in spirit until they are once again reunited, after Liu dies.

The warriors return to Earth realm, where a victory celebration is taking place at the Shaolin temple. The jubilation abruptly stops, however, when Shao Kahn's giant figure suddenly appears in the skies. When the Emperor declares that he has come for everyone's souls, Raiden declares "I don't think so," and the warriors take up fighting stances.

Cast

Sandy Helberg is briefly seen in the beginning of the film as the director of Cage's latest movie. Originally, this part was to be a cameo appearance by Steven Spielberg, but scheduling conflicts forced him to back out; the "director" character in this scene still resembles Spielberg.

Production

Originally based on the first game in the series, there are several notable elements that were incorporated from the second game, Mortal Kombat II (MKII). Outworld was seen in the movie, but was never mentioned in the first game (only mentioned in the video game's manual). Similarly, Shao Kahn is seen in the final scene of the movie, but was not even referenced in the first game. Jax and Kitana were introduced in the second game as well. Shang Tsung's ability to steal the souls of fallen victims—seen twice in the film—was first seen in MKII as one of his Fatalities, while his youthful appearance debuted in the second game but is seen throughout the film; according to Tagawa, this was in order to avoid the excessive makeup that would have been required to duplicate Shang Tsung's aged appearance in the first game. In his match with Reptile, Liu Kang uses his "Bicycle Kick" special move, which was first introduced in the second game, as was Reptile's ability to turn invisible. After killing Scorpion, Cage drops an autographed picture of himself near his remains, in a reference to his Friendship move in MKII. When Reptile assumes his human form, the voice of Shao Kahn - sampled directly from the second game - can be heard announcing "Reptile". The Shadow Priests, seen before the final battle, were first seen in the second game as part of two of the backgrounds.

Cameron Diaz was the original choice to play Sonya Blade but she broke her wrist before filming begun and Bridgitte Wilson replaced her last minute. Brandon Lee was the filmmakers' first choice to play Johnny Cage but his tragic death at the set of The Crow forced them to re-cast the role. Jean-Claude Van Damme was offered the role but turned it down in order to do Street Fighter and the role eventually went to Linden Ashby. Russell Wong, Dustin Nguyen, Keith Cooke and Phillip Rhee all auditioned for the role of Liu Kang.

Robin Shou said that in the original script he "was supposed to fall in love with Talisa Soto [Kitana]. I was looking forward to it, but they thought we have so much action, we don't want to add romance to it. They cut it out." Also scripted but not filmed were a short battle between Sonya and Jade, another of Shang Tsung's servants, and a scene where Shang Tsung allowed the heroes a night to mourn the loss of Art Lean and bury him in the Garden of Statues, underneath the statue of Kung Lao. Originally not included in the movie, Reptile was added in response to focus groups being unimpressed with the original fights in the film. Robin Shou and Paul W. S. Anderson noted that neither knew what Reptile's lizard form would look like until after filming, making the pre-fight sequence difficult to shoot.

Filming began in August 1994 and ended in December 1994. The Outworld exterior scenes were filmed at the abandoned Kaiser steel mill in Fontana, California; the site is now the Auto Club Speedway. All of Goro's scenes were filmed in Los Angeles. Shooting locations in Thailand were accessible only by boat, so cast, crew and equipment had to be transported on long canoe-like vessels. Gerrit Folsom constructed an outhouse in a secluded area near the set in order to alleviate the problem of repeated trips to and from the mainland. Filming locations in Thailand include the Wat Phra Si Sanphet and Wat Ratchaburana temples. The arrival of Earth's contestants via boats, Liu Kang's meditation scene and the fight between Liu Kang and Kitana were filmed at the Railay Beach and the Phra Nang Beach, respectively. The bows of the boats were fitted with ornamental dragon-head carvings and used in the movie as the fighters' secondary transport to Shang Tsung's island from his junk.

The film was originally scheduled for a May 1995 U.S. release, but was pushed back to August. According to co-producer Larry Kasanoff, this was because New Line Cinema's executives felt the film had the potential to be a summer hit. It was released on October 20 in the United Kingdom, and on December 26 in Australia.

The Journey Begins

On April 11, 1995, several months before the movie's release, Turner Home Entertainment and Threshold Entertainment released a tie-in animated film on VHS and Laserdisc, Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins. It features traditional animation, motion capture and CGI to explain the origins behind some of the movie's main characters, as well as a 15-minute behind-the scenes documentary of the theatrical release. Trailers of the film was seen on the promotional screener VHS copy, and on other VHS releases from Turner Home Entertainment and New Line Home Video. The film was included on the Mortal Kombat Blu-ray released in April 2011.

The plot follows Liu Kang, Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade—also the three main characters in the live-action movie—traveling on a mysterious boat en route to the Mortal Kombat tournament. On the way they meet Raiden, who provides them with some hints about how to survive the tournament and defeat Shang Tsung and his army of Tarkatan minions. Upon arriving at the island where the battles takes place, Raiden retells the origins of Shang Tsung, Goro, Scorpion, Sub-Zero and the Great Kung Lao in between fight scenes.

Mortal Kombat: A Novel

A novelization of the movie by Martin Delrio was released through Tor Books. It is based on an early version of the film's script, and as such it includes several deleted or unfilmed scenes, such as a fight between Sonya Blade and Jade.

Music

Mortal Kombat: Motion Picture Score is the instrumental score album with the music by George S. Clinton, released by Rykodisc on October 11, 1995. Mortal Kombat: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the compilation album released by TVT Records on August 15, 1995. Original Motion Picture Soundtrack won the BMI Film & TV Awards BMI Film Music Award and went platinum in less than a year reaching No. 10 on the Billboard 200.

Box office

Mortal Kombat opened on August 18, 1995, and was #1 at the box office for the weekend, with $23.2 million, nearly eight times the opening amount of the only other new release that weekend, The Baby-Sitters Club. At the time, it was also the second-highest August opening after 1993's The Fugitive. The film enjoyed a three-week stint at number one, grossed $70 million domestically, and earned an estimated $122 million worldwide. As of September 2016, the film sits as the fifth highest-grossing video game adaptation ever released in the US, behind Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Angry Birds Movie, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and Pokémon: The First Movie.

Critical response

Mortal Kombat received a score of 34% on Rotten Tomatoes sampled from 32 reviews, with an average score of 4.4/10. The site's consensus reads: "Despite an effective otherworldly atmosphere and appropriately cheesy visuals, Mortal Kombat suffers from its poorly constructed plot, laughable dialogue, and subpar acting". Metacritic gave the film a rating of 58/100, based on reviews from 12 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Critics praised Anderson's frenetic direction, the exotic locations, imaginative production design, soundtrack and martial art sequences, in particular those choreographed by the main lead Robin Shou. Much of the criticism was directed towards the simplistic story and weak acting performances.

Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly called Mortal Kombat "a contentedly empty-headed extended advertisement for the joy of joypads (filmed in cheesily ornate cinema de Hong Kong style)" and too noted how it "is notably free of blood and gore." According to Stephen Holden of The New York Times, "Mortal Kombat might be described as mythological junk food. Although there is talk of the three kombatants' having to face their deepest fears to prevail, the action is so frenetic and the dialogue so minimal that the allegory is weightless." Roger Ebert said he was "right in the middle" and noted that the fans might be disappointed by the film's killings being much less brutal than the notoriously violent Mortal Kombat video games. Similar to Ebert, Marc Savlov from The Austin Chronicle mentioned that " It's the cinematic equivalent of cotton candy and Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots, but you may recall, you loved that stuff as a kid. I know I did" giving it a 2.5/5 star rating. Laura Evenson from San Francisco Chronicle mentioned "Mortal Kombat the movie has everything a teenage boy could want: snakes that jut out of a villain's palms, acrobatic kung- fu fighting and a couple of battling babes. Everything, that is, but an interesting plot, decent dialogue and compelling acting" commenting however that Mortal Kombat will become a cult classic.

Kevin Thomas of Los Angeles Times gave the film a much more positive review, writing that "as impressive as the special effects are at every turn, even more crucial is Jonathan Carlson's superb, imaginative production design, which combines Thailand exteriors with vast sets that recall the barbaric grandeur of exotic old movie palaces and campy Maria Montez epics. John R. Leonetti's glorious, shadowy camera work and George S. Clinton's driving, hard-edged score complete the task of bringing alive the perilous Outworld". Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave it a "thumbs up" rating on Siskel & Ebert, calling it "the only half-way decent video game movie [he] has ever seen" and "a lot of fun," saying he was positively surprised by its various high quality production values, including the "often sensational" special effects, exotic locations and the cast of characters being "clearly drawn out of appealing types". Leonard Klady from Variety awarded the film a 3.5/5 stars stating that "But where others have sunk in the mire of imitation, director Paul Anderson and writer Kevin Droney effect a viable balance between exquisitely choreographed action and ironic visual and verbal counterpoint". Kim Newman from Empire magazine said "By the time the big, world-saving bout comes around, it's hard not to wish that Shung Tsu would settle the fate of mankind by asking Liu Kang what the capital of Venezuela is... rather than engaging him in yet another round of supernaturally assisted dirty fighting" with a final rating of 3 stars out of 5.

Sequel

The sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was released in 1997, directed by John R. Leonetti (cinematographer of the first Mortal Kombat) and starring the returning Robin Shou and Talisa Soto as well as Brian Thompson, Sandra Hess, Lynn "Red" Williams, Irina Pantaeva, Marjean Holden and James Remar. Its storyline is largely an adaptation of Mortal Kombat 3, following a band of warriors as they attempt to save Earth from Shao Kahn himself. Although the story picks up where the last film left off, most of the lead roles were recast.

In contrast to its predecessor, which was a box office success and marginally well received, Annihilation was critically panned and underperformed at the box office. As a result, development of the planned third installment halted and never progressed beyond pre-production.

Spin-off TV series

Two television series, the cartoon sequel Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm and the live-action prequel Mortal Kombat: Conquest, were produced by Threshold Entertainment between 1996 and 1999.

Reboot

In September 2011, it was reported that New Line Cinema (Mortal Kombat film rights holders), sister studio to Warner Bros. (current MK franchise holders), had hired Kevin Tancharoen to direct a new feature-length movie based on the franchise. Oren Uziel, who wrote the original short film Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, but was not involved in Mortal Kombat: Legacy, was said to return to pen the story, while no actors, nor other crew, were confirmed. Reports stated that the film would not be an extension of the game, nor of Legacy.

New Line President Toby Emmerich said that the success of the video games combined with Tancharoen's vision means, "You don't have to squint too hard to see how it might make a good movie", while Tancharoen says discussions have only concerned an R-rating, with darker, brutally real martial arts. Tancharoen had discussions at the 2011 Comic Con with Uziel and Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon, saying that it will be a very big origin story with the sensibility and realism of Rebirth and Legacy as opposed to the traditional Mortal Kombat mythology. He said, "I've always been a fan of properties like Batman where you can expand the universe in different directions. Mortal Kombat is big enough that you can allow for multiple different kinds of storytelling."

But as for its continuity with the web series, Tancharoen said "you won't have to have seen all ten episodes previously - or have played the videogame - to understand the movie." Shooting was expected to begin in March 2012 with a budget of well under $100 million and a release date of 2013, coordinated with the next installment of the video game series being produced by the same studios. It was later delayed due to budget constraints. The director started working on the second season of Legacy until problems with the movie had been sorted out. In late 2012, Warner Bros executive Lance Sloan revealed that the Mortal Kombat movie would have a budget of between $40–50 million.

In October 2013, Tancharoen announced that he would not direct the film. In August 2015, it was reported that James Wan had signed on to produce. In August 2016, Wan told IGN that he's confirmed as the producer of the film and won't rush the film but want it heading in the right direction. On November 18, 2016, Variety reports that Simon McQuoid is in talks to direct the reboot. There are have been many rumored reports over the internet stating that the movie is going to have an R rating with A-Lister actors as Warner Bros is looking to invest big time in the Mortal Kombat movie reboot franchise.