Mortal combat is back! Cinema has been around for 120 years, and during that time, filmmakers explored a multitude of ways to kill people. But has anyone ever turned someone’s arm into ice and then pulled the frozen blood from that destroyed arm and then stabbed it with their own frozen blood? I mean, maybe, but probably not.
Killing people in new and inventive ways is definitely where Mortal combat put your creative juices. Fittingly, the hero of the film is an MMA fighter. Who better to represent Earth in an intergalactic confrontation to the death than a human dedicated to finding new and inventive ways to emerge victorious in our planet’s version of the same thing?
Josh Lawson plays MMA fighter Kano. Is he a guy with a birthmark, or is that a supernatural call? Oh man, it looks like it’s the second one!
Of course, it’s time to start the tournament and start killing people –with panache. The look of the film is quite elegant, which makes sense given the commercial background of director Simon McQuoid. He directed campaigns for PlayStation, Beats by Dre, Range Rover and Halo. Mortal combat is his first feature.
Also in the mix is Lewis Tan, the choreographer and stuntman who, apparently, is required by law to participate in all martial arts films and TV shows. His role was kept secret, but the fact that he was part of Mortal combat it’s a good sign for your fight scenes.
The main action film Hiroyuki Sanada is also on board, as Scorpion, and Sub-Zero is played by Joe Taslim. Taslim started in The Raid: Redemption (2011) and has a serious history of martial arts. Although he has experience in a variety of practices, he ended up specializing in judo, becoming a professional athlete and winning many gold medals from 1997-2009 in the Indonesian National Championship and the Asian Championship.
This reboot certainly has a lot of talent on board to create impressive fighting scenes, it will be interesting to see how it will be used.
The Warner Bros. film. will hit theaters and will be broadcast exclusively on HBO Max on April 16.