Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
Mortal Kombat is widely regarded as one of the only videogame to movie transitions that worked.
The movie stars Robin Shou (Beverley Hills Ninja) as Liu Kang, Christopher Lambert (Highlander) as Rayden and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Kickboxer 2) as Shang Tsung.
The movie begins with the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung fighting Chan Kang (Steven Ho – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) in an ancient temple; the brutal Tsung easily crushes Chan and steals his soul.
It is at this point that we learn that this has actually been a nightmare, Liu Kang’s nightmare. He goes to the temple, where he was formerly a member, to find out what really happened to Chan. While there, he encounters Rayden, the God of Lightning, it turns out that it is Liu Kang’s destiny to take part in the Mortal Kombat tournament to represent the temple.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, a special forces team led by Sonya Blade(Bridgette Wilson – Last Action Hero)has tracked notorious murderer Kano(Trevor Goddard – Deep Rising) to a rock club, it is there that we learn Kano has made a deal with the evil Tsung to trick Sonya into following him onto the ship to Shang Tsung’s Island.
In LA, Action Superstar Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby – Wyatt Earp) has been accused of being a fake, so when his trainer offers him the chance to prove himself by entering a martial arts tournament, he jumps at the chance.
It is only after he leaves that his master turns out to be Shang Tsung, who has the ability to shape shift.
With all of these martial arts warriors gathered on the ship, Rayden informs them about the tournament they are about to take part in. Mortal Kombat is a tournament held every 1000 years, designed to stop the evil forces of the outworld invading our ‘Earth Realm’, only if they win 10 tournaments in a row, can they invade the Earth Realm. Unfortunately for our protagonists, the Outworlders have won the tournament 9 times in a row, and to save the World, they must defeat the reining champion Prince Goro.
On the ship we also meet Shang Tsung’s two Ninja guards, Scorpion (Chris Casamassa – China O’Brien 2) and Sub Zero (Francois Petit – Cannes Man). Scorpion has a living creature that he can launch from his hand, and Sub Zero has the ability to generate ice and freeze objects.
Johnny also befriends another Earth Realm fighter named Art (Kenneth Edwards – Robin Hood the Movie), Art re-assures Johnny that no one could fake the moves he pulls on camera, and Johnny repays the compliment by saying he has seen Art fight before, and he was impressive.
When they reach the island, they find a mystical place where the buildings go up well into the clouds and the islands has very few buildings. There is a feast to welcome to warriors, Sub Zero freezing and shattering one of the many random Ninjas interrupts this.
The Earth warriors also encounter princess the mysterious Kitana (Talisa Soto – Licence to Kill) for the first time, and Shang Tsung tells his underling Reptile to make sure she does not team up with the Earth Realmers.
While exploring the island, the Kang and co. stumble across a room in which the four-armed behemoth Goro(Kevin Michael Richardson – BASEketball) is dining with Kano, Shang Tsung instructs Goro that he should be careful about Liu Kang as he is the descendant of Earth’s last champion Kung Lao.
During the course of the tournament, Liu has to face the deadly Sub-Zero,Johnny must tackle Scorpion, Sonya gets her chance with Kano and Art gets the short straw and has to face up to Goro.
With all of the heroes apart from Art coming out on top, Johnny challenges Goro , the Shokan thinks he can crush Cage but learns different in a battle to the death. Enraged, Shang Tsung kidnaps Sonya and takes her to his home in Outoworld. Rayden cannot follow, but Johnny and Liu set of to rescue their friend and try to save humanity, but how will they fare in the mysterious realm of the Outworld?
Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat, so Mortal Kombat the movie doesn’t exactly follow the game’s story. Scorpion and Sub Zero do not work for Shang Tsung, and Scorpion is meant to kill his rival, Rayden should take part,Kano is not meant to die,Kitana should not come in until Mortal Kombat 2 and Liu Kang should BEAT Goro, not kill him. Finally, the makers of Mortal Kombat did to Shang Tsung what the makers of Streetfighter: The Ultimate Battle and such films were slaughtered for: they changed the character.
BUT I forgive it for all of those, there really wasn’t enough time to elaborate on the Scorpion/Sub Zero thing, and besides, they needed someone cool for the Earth realmers to battle.
Kano and Goro dieing at the hands of Sonya and Cage was to actually give them something to do in the movie, instead of having Liu Kang do all the work.
Kitana’s inclusion simply helps flesh out some elements of the story and gives Liu a love interest.
Rayden not taking part is quite simple, in the games, by the time the movie came out Rayden was a chummy leader figure to the humans, having him fight would mean he would have to fight them.
And for the changing Shang from a feeble old man who has to morph to be any use to a hard as nails younger man? For gods sake! It Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa , a man who can be both a great evil guy, and fight well. Besides, Shang got younger in the games anyway.
What the movie does take exactly from the games is the atmosphere. If you read my review of the game, you will see me rave about the atmosphere of the game, and the movie captures it perfectly. The game wanted to be a sort of fantasy Enter The Dragon rip-off, so the movie was a fantasy Enter The Dragon rip-off.
The special effects are pretty decent, although the CG Reptile is pretty dire, but for 1995 it isn’t bad.Liu Kang’s fireball finish is impressive, as is Shang Tsung’s soul stealer. Rayden’s lightning is slightly crap though. And while he isn’t terrible, I felt they could have done Goro better.The sets inside the palace thing on the island remind me of one of those really impressive walk through themed sections of theme parks, but the Outoworld is suitably barren and imposing.
The acting is rundown like this.
Robin Shou is pretty good as Liu Kang, Liu was never oozing with character, but Robin does a good job of injecting some into him. His banter with Johnny also works quite well.
Linden Ashby is great as Johnny Cage. While Cage was supposed to be Van Damme, Asbhy gives him a totally different character, a sort of cool cat who is incredibly insecure about the whole being a fake allegations. He makes Cage likeable, whereas some actors would have went overboard and simply made Cage an overconfident tosser.
Bridgette Wilson is pretty effective as Sonya. She doesn’t really do much and can’t fight as well as Shou or Ashby, but she is gorgeous which kind of makes up for it.
Talisa Soto is much the same, her role is minimal, but she is stunning while on screen and delivers her lines to a decent degree.
Christopher Lambert seems to be having a hoot playing Rayden, but why he chose to give him a sore throat I don’t know, whenever he speaks in the games he is quite imposing. Why he was chosen to play Rayden is anyone’s guess. He wouldn’t have been anywhere near the top of my list of potential thunder gods.
And Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is brilliant as Shang Tsung, as if there was any doubt; the man has got playing a dick down to a T.
The movie has pretty cool music. It isn’t the kind of music I would sit and listen to (even though I own the soundtrack) but it is pretty nifty watching them fight to it.
Personally, I think Mortal Kombat the movie is great laugh. You get the feeling it wasn’t taken deadly serious by the makers, because it has a fun cheesy feel to it.
Some of the fights are great, favourites being Cage vs. Scorpion, Liu Kang vs. Shang Tsung and Cage vs. Goro.
The things I didn’t like about the movie mainly revolved around my favourite character from the games, Scorpion. They changed his spear to a living creature thing, and it gets broken before we ever get to see him catch someone with it.
I also disliked how both Cage and Kang used weapons of some sort to defeat the Ninja’s, I would rather have seen them use fatalities from the games. Speaking of that, Cage doesn’t do his patented Shadow Kick, which I find slightly disappointing. The lack of locales from the game also slightly disappointed me. Not including the famous pit was scandalous, although its spikes do make an appearance in the last battle.
The worst thing about it, that almost spoiled it was the ending, the movie has a cliff-hanger , which means you have to see the absolutely diabolical sequel to find out what happens.
All this aside, Mortal Kombat is an extremely fun, if cheesy martial arts movie. Fans of the game should see it just to see live action takes of some of their favourite character fighting. People who like cheesy martial arts movies should also check it out.
Just to note, fights featured:
Shang Tsung vs Chan Kang
Liu Kang vs. Bo Fighter (Hakim Alston – U.S Seals 2)
Liu Kang vs. Sub Zero
Liu Kang vs. Reptile (Keith Cooke – China O’Brien)
Johnny Cage vs. Scorpion
Johnny Cage vs. Goro
Sonya Blade vs. Kano
Goro vs. Art Lean
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