Transcript note: This transcript is based on the original working script. It may contain production notes, draft wording, spelling mistakes or other material that differs from the finished video - these scripts were meant to be spoken, not read.

[Mortal Kombat yell]

I mean, how else was I going to start this one?

[ahem]

Mortal Kombat

a movie - released in 1995, based on a game series that had only been around since ’92.

We were already two games deep and a third ready to land in the arcade to coincide with the film

Hype levels were high for this one

Mortal Kombat was controversial,

It was violent,

and it was everywhere.

The first games had been an arcade smash.

Digitised actors added a touch of realism compared to other fighting games at the time,

Mortal Kombat wasn’t the first to go this route, but this was the best attempt so far

The gore was over the top

You could end your match with "fatalities",

short bursts of super violent sequences to humiliate your opponent

They’d become a favourite pastime of, well, almost everyone.

And the kids loved it.

Of course, meant parents hated it.

They took one look at the fatalities and they would freak out.

There weren’t the only ones, soon politicians would pile on,

There were hearings in the US Senate,

not just because of Mortal Kombat but other games like Night Trap and to a lesser extent games like Doom as well -

But make no mistake,

Mortal Kombat was one of the major ones to cause the call for action.

And, before long we had video game age ratings.

That’s the short version - there’s a whole history lesson out there if you want it,

but you don’t need me for that.

What you do need is what happened when Hollywood smelled the hype and said:

yeah, let’s make a movie out of that.

The game itself didn’t give you much story,

just a few screens to read on the attract mode -

And, who really does that anyway?

Times have changed and now the story has been retconned and tangled into something beyond most people's comprehension, but back then?

It was simple.

Earthrealm, Outworld,

A sorcerer called Shang Tsung who’s been exiled to Earthrealm,

a fighting tournament called Mortal Kombat.

If Shang Tsung’s side wins ten in a row, Outworld takes over Earth.

He’s already won nine, thanks to his four-armed champion Goro

and we join the action at number ten.

Earth has to send in it’s best warriors to stop him, or it’s, well -

well, it's not good.

The story is straightforward enough - and the movie sticks pretty close to that setup.

To tell the story properly – and in a way that makes send on screen – the movie takes most inspiration from the first game, but brings in some ideas from the second as well

Given the timing of the movie, that makes sense and, easy to forgive

Especially with some of the atrocities that had been done to previous video game adaptions

So, who do we have defending our collective honour?

Liu Kang

Ex-Shaolin monk, out to avenge his brother’s death and, y’know, save humanity while he’s at it.

Played by Robin Shou.

In the original game, there was no brother subplot - he was just the chosen one.

But that fact, and the film ties him more directly to…

Raiden

God of Thunder, protector of Earthrealm.

Christopher Lambert in the film, with that gravelly laugh.

Pretty much the same character in the game, just with a differently spelled “Rayden” in the credits because… 90s.

Johnny Cage

Hollywood action star in both game and film

In the film brought to us by, Linden Ashby - not exactly a big name at the time,

there’s an irony there somewhere.

Game and movie both have him entering the tournament to prove he’s not a fraud.

Fun fact for you - the character was based on Jean-Claude Van Damme, who was busy playing Guile in Street Fighter.

Sonya Blade

Bridgette Wilson for this one.

In the game, Sonya is forced into the tournament by Shang Tsung.

In the movie, she’s chasing Kano for killing her partner.

Either way - Special Forces with a chip on her shoulder.

Not a million miles apart.

Kitana

Not in the first game, she’s one of the ones pulled in from Mortal Kombat II.

In the games, she’s Shao Kahn’s assassin; in the film, Talisa Soto plays her as more of a double agent, secretly helping Earth’s fighters.

That pretty much has the Heroes part sorted, so, who are they trying to stop?

Well.

Kano

Trevor Goddard plays him, in the game he’s a mercenary, here he’s tied more tightly to Sonya’s story.

Which works fine and means the film doesn’t have to drown itself in irrelevant lore, and they’d actually retcon his story later to fit more with this version anyway.

Scorpion & Sub-Zero

I’ll lump these together, because, well… Everyone does.

In the film, both are under Shang Tsung’s control

and we don’t learn much about them other than that.

Sub Zero is played by François Petit and Scorpion is Chris Casamassa

In the games, Sub-Zero has his own reasons for entering the Tournament,

while Scorpion is there for revenge - a spectre brought back from the dead with one goal: kill Sub-Zero.

They’ve both got their signature moves -

Scorpion’s spear,

Sub-Zero’s ice

and fans were happy.

Just to slide in another fun fact for you -

Scorpion’s “Get over here!” is voiced by one of the game’s creators, Ed Boon himself,.

Reptile

In the games, he was unlocked with double flawless conditions.

In the film, he’s a CGI lizard Ninja servant until he suddenly isn’t

Weird choice, but hey, he’s there and when he is, he’s portrayed by Keith Cooke

Goro

The four-armed sub-boss. Harder to carry over from a digitised sprite in the arcade, but they pulled it off with a huge animatronic puppet built by ADI, and a team of puppeteers.

Looks impressive, moves awkwardly - very 90s, but, fun.

Shang Tsung

Played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

Younger in the film than his wizened game counterpart,

but when you’re a shape-shifting sorcerer, age doesn’t really matter.

And honestly?

He steals every scene he’s in.

Shao Kahn even pops up right at the end as a CG effect, but that’s more fan service than anything else.

So - The film itself…

Well - Just the year before, we’d had Street Fighter with Jean Claude Van Damme -

and let’s just say it didn’t exactly set the bar high.

I’ve done a whole video on that if you want to check it out.

Where Street Fighter went campy and chaotic,

Mortal Kombat went simple and stuck to the tournament story people expected.

And it worked.

The plot is basically “heroes travel to a magic island and fight for the fate of the world.”

Raiden does his cryptic mentor routine,

Shang Tsung schemes,

the good guys punch and kick their way through it.

again, just like the source material -

its simple, but it’s honest.

Director Paul W.S. Anderson was a newcomer.

He didn’t know much about martial arts films,

he leaned on the experienced actors and the stunt team,

and the choreography holds up surprisingly well.

The budget?

About $18 million - small even then, New Line Cinema where the ones to bank roll it, the same studio that had brought A Nightmare on Elm Street to the party so they knew the score.

The rating?

PG-13,

which meant toning down the gore and fatalities - Not great news for the fans, but they did what they could.

The producers fought the censors constantly about this but could only do so much.

They’d have to fight for the soundtrack as well -

Which, is kind of odd in hindsight, given that the tune is probably still in your head after hearing the start of this video,

The studio wanted rock, but the filmmakers pushed through the now-iconic techno theme.

I guess we know who was right.

The track in question is called Techno Syndrome and was released by Belgian Group The Immortals, just in case you didn’t know

In the end, it’d go platinum, outlive the film, and still slaps today.

It will never not be the theme to Mortal Kombat

It was even updated with a new remix by Benjamin Wallfisch when they rebooted the film series in 2021,

teaser bars underscored the end of the first trailer

And let me tell, goosebumps were held by all when it started to kick in.

[Mortal Kombat yell, again]

I’ll link it below so you don’t have to search for it afterwards.

The film?

Well.

Critics mostly hated it - low budget effects,

cheesy acting,

thin plot.

Pretty standard for other game to movie adaptations at the time, but it made Mortal Kombat an easy target.

Audiences?

Different story.

Mortal Kombat made around $122 million worldwide on that $18m budget.

That my friends, is something nobody can argue with.

And if they do, they’re wrong.

Gamers loved it then, and time’s been very kind to it

I think it's fair to say it's pretty much a cult film now.

Even some of the critics have admitted they judged it too harshly.

Today it’s still one of the few game movies people look back on fondly,

And I’ll admit to having used this as a bit of a comfort film from time to time.

I’m not going to sit here and convince you that it’s the best film ever made, it's not

but what I will say is that in the game to movie niche - It’s pretty damn close.

Mortal Kombat the movie is a rare beast,

it's a film that lives up to and honours its source material.

Even the changes that were made actually made sense to the point that some of it made it into the games lore later on down the line.

This is what is supposed to be about

I can't help but feel some kind of retrospective pride that those involved in making the game stuck to their guns.

It's actually a bit weird that Paul W. S. Anderson made this and the Resident Evil movies considering how far they strayed.

But, that's another video.

The legacy of the film is still felt today, the actors even came back for some DLC in Mortal Kombat 11 where Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Linden Ashby, Robin Shou, and Bridgette Wilson reprised roles as skins and or voices.

It however, peaked early.

Obviously with so much money on the table a sequel was quickly green lit, and then in 1997 we got Mortal Kombat Annihilation -

And then we immediately wished we hadn't.

It wasn't good.

It's hard to say what went wrong, really.

Paul WS Anderson couldn't return to direct again, some of the cast members couldn't either and instead of waiting they recast.

But, I’ll tell you about that another time..

The film didn’t just get a sequel -

Mortal Kombat had already started to sprawl into other media.

First up was Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins in 1995, a straight-to-VHS animated tie-in released alongside the movie.

On paper it was a prequel, giving you Raiden narrating the backstory of the tournament.

In practice?

It’s remembered more for clunky hand-drawn animation and some very early CGI fight scenes that…

haven’t aged well.

It ended up bundled on later VHS and DVD releases, so plenty of fans discovered it whether they wanted to or not.

In 1996 came Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm -

a Saturday morning cartoon that took all the violence out and turned the cast into a superhero task force.

It only lasted one season, which is probably about as much as anyone needed,

but it kept the brand alive.

I mean - I don’t.. Yeah… They’ll make a Saturday morning cartoon out of anything won’t they?

And in 1998, Mortal Kombat: Conquest hit TV - a live-action prequel series set centuries before the games, following the original Kung Lao.

It leaned hard on leather costumes, soap-opera melodrama, and low-budget martial arts.

Again, it was cancelled after one season, but it has a certain cult oddity status now.

Obviously - None of these set the world on fire, but they did keep Mortal Kombat in the spotlight

And, if nothing else, they can at least make us smile when we look back at them now.

The games themselves have thrived, they still remain popular today.

The series never went away.

We got spin-offs like Mythologies: Sub-Zero - which, let’s be honest, was rough -

and Special Forces, which somehow managed to be worse.

There was Shaolin Monks in 2005, a co-op beat ’em up that people seem to remember fondly.

The mainline games pushed into 3D with Mortal Kombat 4 and the PlayStation 2 era, gone were the digitised characters from this point on.

The series floundered for a while, but in 2011 Mortal Kombat 9 was released and things began to kick into place again

Nine would reboot the series somewhat, it brought it back to 2D fighting, and doubled down on fan-service.

From there, the games really got back into their groove.

As recently as 2023 we saw a big reboot for the series, the confusingly titled Mortal Kombat 1

It reset the series with a brand new timeline, and more than muddied the waters - BUT - proved there was life in the old Goro yet.

On top of that, Mortal Kombat was the launchpad for NetherRealm’s other big fighting games.

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe in 2008 laid the groundwork, and that spun out into the Injustice series -

which proved you could make a superhero fighter with an actual story mode people cared about.

Through all of that, Mortal Kombat’s managed to stay relevant when a lot of its rivals faded, the fact that it still stands tall today after all it’s been through is a testament in itself

The fatalities got bigger, the rosters stranger, the stories messier -

but the core idea never changed: ridiculous characters beating the life out of each other in the most over-the-top way possible.

The film series has seen a reboot as well, the first of a new series started in 2021 with a bigger and better budget than ever before.

So, yeah. That's Mortal Kombat, one of the very few game to movie adaptations that work - Well, the one in 1995 at least.

I probably won't get to say that too often, so savour it while you can.

And that's that.

Time to get out of here while the going is good.

[get over here]

Or, not.

If you've enjoyed this look back then press that Like button to let me know,

maybe even subscribe so you won't miss the next video while you are there.

And even if you don't, I'll be here with another video soon.

Anyways,

I've been Paul and this has been Pixels, Popcorn.

Thanks for watching.

[Mortal Kombat yell]