In the wake of a rapturous response to the first trailer released this week, the film’s director Simon McQuoid spoke with IGN about the preview clip and offered more details about the feature.
It’s confirmed the film’s Sub-Zero (aka. Bi-Han) serves as the film’s primary villain. That’s one of the reasons the game series’ two differing versions of the way Jackson “Jax” Briggs (Mehcad Brooks) lost his arms were ignored for a new origin story in the new film with Sub-Zero being the cause. Turns out it’s entirely for narrative reasons:
“In this film, we needed to drive a few certain characters and narratives, and so given that [Jax losing his arms] had been done a couple of different ways in the past, we felt we had a bit of license to do that again here. We’ve really tried to be very truthful and true to the canon where we can be, but every now and again, we might deviate slightly where we felt that it was okay to do so.”
One big change will be his rival, the character of Scorpion/Hanzo Hasashi. No longer a ghoulish figure like the previous film, here he is a proper samurai character with veteran actor Hiroyuki Sanada in the role and was “incredibly helpful” in getting the Japanese history right on this character:
“We really wanted to be very true to his heritage and make it feel very genuine. That’s really why it was born out of this touch of samurai about it. Obviously, there’s been many, many versions of Scorpion’s costume and how he looks, but out of authenticity came this version of Scorpion that kind of felt real, but also felt very powerful. [Scorpion’s costume] needed to have the armour plating with the detail in it and had a sort of dignity and elegance about it, which matched his character from the beginning.”
McQuoid also wanted the characters of Scorpion and Sub-Zero to be defined by more than just their powers:
“Joe Taslim did an amazing job [as Sub-Zero.] He represented Indonesia for judo, so the guy is an athlete and he shows it, and the presence he brought to that character was just extraordinary. And [Scorpion actor] Hiroyuki Sanada is a very, very gifted swordsman and athlete in his own ways. The physicality between these two guys was quite extraordinary to watch. Just years and years of experience and ability to do these moves were kind of all baked into them.”
“Mortal Kombat” is set to release in theatres and on HBO Max on April 16th.
