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Mortal Kombat
Directed by	Paul W. S. Anderson
Produced by	Lauri Apelian Lawrence Kasanoff
Written by	Kevin Droney
Starring	Christopher Lambert Robin Shou Linden Ashby Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa Bridgette Wilson Talisa Soto Trevor Goddard Chris Casamassa François Petit
Distributed by	United States: New Line Cinema Canada: Alliance Communications Australia: Village Roadshow
Release date(s)	Argentina & Israel July 13, 1995 United States August 18, 1995 United Kingdom October 20, 1995 Australia December 26, 1995
Running time	101 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$24,000,000
Gross revenue	$122,000,000
Followed by	Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

Mortal Kombat is a 1995 action and adventure film directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. Based on the Mortal Kombat series of fighting games, the film was the first part of the Mortal Kombat film series. The film follows the warrior Liu Kang (Robin Shou), actor Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), and agent Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson), guided by the Thunder God Raiden (Christopher Lambert), on their journey to combat the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) and his forces on a tournament to save Earth.

The main inspiration for the film was the first title of the video-game series, but also featured elements and characters from Mortal Kombat II. Mortal Kombat was filmed primarily in Los Angeles, as well as on location in Thailand.

The film was released on August 18, 1995 in the United States, on October 20, 1995 in the United Kingdom and on December 26, 1995 in Australia. It proved very popular with fans of the games and received average to good reviews upon release^[1]. The film cruised into the top box office spot earning estimated $122 million worldwide^[2]. To this day, it's still considered one of the best video-game to movie adaptations, and later spanned a sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, released in 1997, and a TV series, Mortal Kombat: Conquest, released in 1998.

Plot

Once every generation, there is a martial arts tournament known as Mortal Kombat, which was designed by the Elder Gods to limit invasions between realms. If Outworld wins it ten consecutive times, the Emperor of Outworld known as Shao Kahn will be able to invade and conquer Earthrealm. Liu Kang and his comrades, movie star Johnny Cage and Special Forces agent Sonya Blade, were handpicked by Raiden, the God of Lightning and Earthrealm's defender, to overcome their powerful adversaries in order to prevent Outworld from winning their tenth straight Mortal Kombat tournament and condemning Earthrealm to eternal damnation.

Each combatant has their own personal motive for competing in the tournament. Liu Kang seeks revenge for the death of his younger brother, Chan, who was killed by tournament host Shang Tsung in battle, and Liu blames himself for not being there. Sonya is after crime lord Kano, who killed her partner. Cage has been targeted by the media as a fake, and is competing to prove otherwise.

Upon arriving at Shang Tsung's Island, Liu Kang sees and falls for Princess Kitana. Upon seeing this, Shang Tsung orders Reptile to keep a close eye on her.

Liu Kang defeats his first opponent, while Sonya finally gains revenge and kills Kano in battle. Meanwhile, Johnny Cage encounters Scorpion, who teleports Cage to his lair in the Netherealm where the two engage in a vicious battle, in which Cage eventually emerges victorious. Liu Kang engages in a brief duel with Kitana, who secretly offers him advice for his next battle. Liu Kang is later confronted by Sub-Zero, and cannot seem to defeat him, until he recalls Kitana's advice that allows him to emerge victorious.

Finally, Shang Tsung gives Goro, a huge, four-armed Shokan warrior, permission to enter the tournament, and he crushes every opponent in his path. Cage demands a fight with Goro, and quickly defeats him by knocking Goro off the side of a mountain. Shang Tsung then takes Sonya hostage, saying that the battle with Goro gives him the right to challenge, and he has chosen Sonya, knowing that it will be an easy win. Raiden tells the pair that Sonya herself cannot defeat Shang Tsung, but they are capable of doing so. He sends them to Outworld, staying behind because his powers are useless there.

Upon their arrival in Outworld, Liu Kang defeats Reptile in a brutal fight and he and Johnny Cage meet Kitana, who tells them of Outworld and of her past, and allies with the two, thus confirming Shang Tsung's suspicions about Kitana. The three disguise themselves as Outworld servants and infiltrate the castle tower where Sonya is being held captive. Shang Tsung tells Sonya that if she refuses to fight, Earthrealm will automatically forfeit Mortal Kombat. Liu, Kitana and Cage reveal themselves, and Kitana informs Shang Tsung that interfering with the tournament is treachery to the Emperor and will cause him to lose the keys to Earthrealm.

Shang Tsung challenges Cage, but Liu intervenes and challenges Tsung, who accepts. After a long and brutal fight, Shang Tsung morphs into Chan, Liu's brother, who claims that he forgives Liu for letting him die, but Liu is not fooled and finally acknowledges that he is not responsible for his death, accusing Shang Tsung of killing Chan. Tsung is killed when Liu shoots a fireball at him, causing him to fall from a balcony and plummet onto a floor of spikes. Upon his death, thousands of innocent souls that Shang Tsung took over the years are released, and Liu meets with Chan's spirit, who says that he will always be by his side until they are reunited in the afterlife.

The warriors return to Earthrealm, where a victory celebration is taking place at the Shaolin temples. However, the euphoria is cut short when Kahn suddenly appears, saying that he has come to take their souls. The final scene consists of Raiden confidently saying "I don't think so," as he and the warriors enter their fighting stances.

Cast

• Robin Shou as Liu Kang, a former Shaolin monk that enters the tournament to avenge his brother's death. Among those who auditioned for the role of were Jason Scott Lee, Russell Wong and Phillip Rhee^[3]. Robin Shou would later play the Street Fighter character Gen in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.

• Linden Ashby as Johnny Cage, a Hollywood superstar that enters the tournament to prove to the world that his skills are for real. Jean-Claude Van Damme turned down the role of Johnny Cage to star on Street Fighter. Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp were both considered for the role. Brandon Lee was originally cast, but died before production began. Linden Ashby trained in Karate and Tae Kwon Do specially for this film. Despite the intensity of the fight scenes coupled with the actors performing most of their own stunts, on-set injuries were surprisingly minimal; the only notable occurrence was a mildly bruised kidney suffered by Ashby while shooting Johnny Cage's fight scene with Scorpion.^[4] Although uncredited, some of Johnny Cage's fighting scenes were done by stuntman J.J. Perry.^[3]

• Bridgette Wilson as Sonya Blade, an agent of the law in hot pursuit of the criminal that killed her partner. Cameron Diaz was originally set to play Sonya, but she broke her wrist during a martial arts training prior to shooting and was replaced by Wilson, who was jokingly nicknamed "RoboBabe" during production by director Paul Anderson.^[4] Bridgette Wilson performed all her own stunts, up to and including the fight scenes, and refused to use a double.^[3]

• Christopher Lambert as Raiden, the God of Thunder and Protector of Earthrealm that guides the warriors on their journey. An enthusiastic gamer himself, Lambert also voiced Raiden in the French dubbed version of the film.^[3]

• Talisa Soto as Princess Kitana, the stepdaughter of the Emperor who decides to help the Earth warriors. Different from the games, she appears unmasked during the whole movie. Talisa Soto had previously worked with Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who played Shang Tsung, in the 1989 James Bond movie Licence to Kill, which also co-starred Grand L. Bush, who played Balrog (Street Fighter) in the Street Fighter movie.

• Trevor Goddard as Kano, a mercenary that join forces with Shang Tsung. Goddard's Australian interpretation of Kano was so well-received that Kano was retconned as Australian from his original American-Japanese in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and subsequent games.^[3]

• Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung, a powerful and greedy sorcerer, and the primary antagonist of the movie. Tagawa was the filmmakers' first and only choice for the role. He came to the audition in a costume, and read his lines while standing on a chair.^[4] Tsung was depicted as relatively younger in the film in order to avoid the excessive makeup that would have been required to duplicate his aged appearance from the original game.^[3]

• François Petit as Sub Zero, one of Shang Tsung's warriors. As his name implies, he possessed the ability to freeze. The rivalry between Sub-Zero and Scorpion is only quickly mentioned by Shang Tsung at the beggining of the movie. François Petit was the highest ranking martial artist on the set.^[3]

• Chris Casamassa as Scorpion, one of Shang Tsung's warriors. His trademark spear from the games was changed to a snake-like harpoon that shot from a slit in his palm. Casamassa was hired to work as a stunt ninja, but at the audition the producers were so impressed that he got the part of Scorpion.^[3] The character was voiced by Ed Boon, co-creator of the original Mortal Kombat.

• Keith Cooke as Reptile, a creature serving Shang Tsung. Reptile's lizard form was rendered with the use of computer-generated imagery, while the character's human form is portrayed by Keith Cooke^[5]. Originally not included in the movie, Reptile was added in response to focus groups being unimpressed with the original fights in the film.^[6] Actor Robin Shou and director Paul Anderson noted that neither knew what Reptile's lizard form would look like until after filming, making the pre-fight sequence difficult to shoot.^[7]

• Kevin Michael Richardson voices Goro, the undefeated Mortal Kombat champion. Director Paul Anderson had wanted Ron Livingston to play the role of Goro, but the prosthetics required to make him taller and add two arms were too expensive to justify.

• Gregory McKinney as Jax, Sonya's partner at the beggining of the movie. McKinney served in the United States Air Force Presidential Honor Guard and in law enforcement before breaking into acting. He died of a brain aneurysm on April 12, 1998.

• Frank Welker voices Shao Kahn, the Emperor of Outworld. Welker also provided vocal effects for Goro and Reptile. The voice Welker gave Shao Kahn is almost identical to Welker's Dr. Claw voice on Inspector Gadget.^[3]

• Steven Ho played Chan Kang, Liu Kang's younger brother who is killed by Shang Tsung. Ho was a former national Karate champion who performed stuntwork for Donatello in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.^[8]

Sandy Helberg is briefly seen in the beginning of the film as the director of Johnny Cage's latest movie, while Peter Jason appears as Master Boyd. Kenneth Edwards played Cage's friend Art Lean (a character who doesn't appear in the games created exclusively for the film). Lloyd Kino appears as Liu Kang's grandfather.

Marketing

A novelization of the movie by Martin Delrio was released through Tor Books. In 1995, several months before the movie's release, Threshold released a tie-in animated film on VHS and Laserdisc, Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins. It featured traditional animation, motion capture and CGI to explain the origins behind some of the movie's main characters. The video also featured a fifteen-minute behind-the scenes documentary of the theatrical release. The sets used for the film were digitized for use in The Journey Begins.^[3]

Box office and critical reception

Mortal Kombat opened on August 18, 1995, and cruised into the top box-office spot with $23 million,^[9] 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. MK enjoyed a three-week stay at number one, grossed roughly $70 million in the U.S., and earned an estimated $122 million worldwide,^[2] while the soundtrack went platinum in less than two weeks. MK was also the first major success for a video game-movie adaptation, following the critical and financial disappointments of Super Mario Bros., Double Dragon, and Street Fighter.

The film received mixed reviews from critics, Gene Siskel gave it a "thumbs up" rating on Siskel & Ebert^[1]. Rotten Tomatoes^[10] rates it at 24% out of 21 reviews and Metacritic^[11] gives it a 58/100 rating. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "a martial arts action-adventure with wondrous special effects and witty production design [that] effectively combines supernatural terror, a mythical slay-the-dragon, save-the-princess odyssey and even a spiritual quest for self-knowledge."^[12] Bruce Diones of The New Yorker wrote that the film "starts out promisingly: the actors look sinewy and primed for action, and the effects are convincing. But soon the movie falls flat under an uninspired good-versus-evil plot and pathetically simple-minded dialogue."^[13]

Behind the scenes

Development

Scripted but not filmed was a scene where Shang Tsung allowed the heroes a night to bury Art Lean and mourn his loss. They buried him in the Garden of Statues, underneath the statue of Kung Lao; this is the only place where Kung Lao appears in any of the movies, although he is quickly mentioned by Shang Tsung in the film. Also scripted but not filmed was a battle between Sonya and Jade, another of Shang Tsung's servents. The stunt ninjas were also planned to be Tarkatan warriors like Baraka, but this idea was canceled and they became ninja warriors.^[3]

Production

• 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.^[4]
• Shooting locations in Thailand were accessible only by boat, so cast, crew and equipment had to be transported on long canoe-like vessels. Producer 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.^[4] 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.^[4]
• The film was originally supposed to end just after Rayden tells Liu Kang and company: "I've gotta tell you something, you guys did great." But a new ending was re-shot and incorporated into the final film, which is when The Emperor Shao Kahn suddenly appears and says, "You weak, pathetic fools, I've come for your souls!" To which Rayden replies, "I don't think so." And he and the others prepare for battle.^[3]

Soundtrack

• Three songs from Chicago-based group Stabbing Westward (a favorite band of MK co-creator John Tobias at the time) were included in the movie, but were omitted from the soundtrack. The songs were "Lost", "Lies", and "Can't Happen Here", all of which appear on the album Ungod.
• Goro's theme is a rendition of the band Napalm Death's song "Twist the Knife (Slowly)", except it is played three modulations higher than the standard.^{[citation needed]}
• A music video was created for the KMFDM single "Juke Joint Jezebel" and featured clips of fight scenes from the movie, but it was pulled by MTV due to complaints about its violent content.
• Mortal Kombat was nominated for the Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA Golden Reel Award. It won the BMI Film & TV Awards BMI Film Music Award.^[14]

Mortal Kombat II references

Although the movie was primarily based on the first game, there are several notable elements that were incorporated from Mortal Kombat II.

• Jax and Kitana were introduced in the second game, where Reptile's reptilian nature was also first demonstrated; he was only seen in human form in the first MK.
• Johnny Cage drops an autographed picture of himself near Scorpion's remains after their battle, which references his autograph Friendship move.
• When Reptile assumes his human form, a voice can be heard announcing "Reptile". This is the voice of Shao Kahn, and was sampled directly from Mortal Kombat II.
• Liu Kang uses his Bicycle Kick in his match with Reptile which was first introduced in MKII.
• The Shadow Priests, seen before the final battle, were first seen in MKII as part of one of the backgrounds.
• Outworld was seen in the movie but was never mentioned in the first game.
• Shao Kahn is seen in the final scene of the movie, but was not even referenced in the first game.
• Shang Tsung doesn't regain his youthful appearance until the second game.

Remake

Warner Brothers will produce the remake of the film^[15] and the project is currently in work, the storybook will be written by Oren Uziel.^[16]

Before they do though, the studio is going to have to fight off a legal challenge from previous owners Threshold Entertainment. The Wrap is reporting that the production company has filed a suit against Warner Brothers, claiming the studio has frozen them out of developing the video game adaption. Threshold were the original development partner with Midway on the 1995 film and in 2006 signed a deal to make another movie. Midway went bankrupt last year however, and Warners swooped for the rights to MK. However Threshold has insisted that federal bankruptcy proceedings upheld the agreements it had signed with Midway and passed over to WB.

The studio's recent announcement was presumably the final straw for Threshold, who are now seeking damages.

References

External links

• Mortal Kombat at the Internet Movie Database
• Mortal Kombat at Allmovie
• Mortal Kombat at Rotten Tomatoes