With an epic fantasy world filled with ninja warriors, killer cyborgs and magical monsters, Mortal Kombat provides a lot of creative possibilities. For director Simon McQuoid, he wanted the new film to provide an expansive canvas to accommodate as much he as he could.
In translating the fan-favorite video game franchise back to the big screen for the first time in nearly 25 years, McQuoid saw an opportunity for the medium to elevate the familiar elements from the games. This extended to everything from the soundtrack to the familiar characters and visual language of the action sequences.
"It all came from looking at opportunities to elevate everything: That's the music, it's how the characters are introduced, it's the way it looks, it's the expansive nature of the scenes and the fights themselves," McQuoid tells CBR. "It's a matter of making the landscape and scope of it feel very large, then you can do a bit of a mongrel, dirty fight -- like the Sonja/Kano fight, which is one my favorite fights in the whole film -- and it sits in there okay because there's an expansive nature to the whole thing. It's all about balancing and getting all those ingredients right. Rather than thinking we've got to do the types of fights that are in superhero movies, we didn't really. I wanted to feel like its own unique flavor but it still have an epicness to it. It was really just about building that whole recipe together."
These narrative sensibilities are apparent right from the opening scene as Mortal Kombat's prologue features Sub-Zero attacking Hanzo Hasashi -- the eventual Scorpion -- and his family with his rival ninja clan in feudal Japan. And with fights ranging from graceful martial arts battles to grueling, claustrophobic brawls, Mortal Kombat is poised to respect the source material while maintaining a sense of grounded grit.
Directed by Simon McQuoid and produced by James Wan, Mortal Kombat stars Lewis Tan as Cole Young, Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Josh Lawson as Kano, Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden, Mehcad Brooks as Jackson "Jax" Bridges, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Joe Taslim as Bi-Han and Sub-Zero, Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi and Scorpion, Max Huang as Kung Lao, Sisi Stringer as Mileena, Matilda Kimber as Emily Young and Laura Brent as Allison Young. The film arrives in theaters and on HBO Max April 23.