Mortal Kombat (1995)
“Mortal Kombat”, the video game, started in 1991 when game programmer Ed Boon and artist John Tobias sought to create a fighting game featuring a digitized Jean Claude Van Damme, specifically related to his 1988 film, Bloodsport. They crafted digital images of friends performing martial arts moves into a computer, altering them to represent a variety of interdimensional warriors with unique attributes, fighting styles, and backstories. The Bloodsport licensing fell through but they continued making their game, drawing influence from other martial arts films they enjoyed. Johnny Cage was based on Van Damme, while characters and design aesthetic came from like Big Trouble in Little China or Tsui Hark flicks The Swordsman and Zu Warriors. Feeling that fighting games like “Street Fighter II” lacked exciting victories, they concocted ultraviolent “fatalities” whereby successful fighters deliver nasty final blows to their opponents, like ripping out their skulls and spines, punching their heads off, or disintegrating their flesh.
They sold the game concept to Midway Manufacturing Company, which introduced it into arcades in 1992. The game skyrocketed to international success, earning over a billion dollars in revenue. more than any Hollywood blockbuster. Its popularity brought attention to the industry for its graphic violence. The congressional attention caused the gaming industry to pre-emptively devise a rating system showing the level of mature content found in home console games.
The film adaptation, originally entitled Mortal Kombat: The Movie, was developed by producer Larry Kasanoff for his newly formed production company (originally Amalgamated Widgets, then Threshold Productions) specializing in multimedia platforms for intellectual properties. Kasanoff recently resigned as president and co-founder (with James Cameron) of Lightstorm Entertainment, responsible for Terminator 2 and True Lies, for which he handled merchandising opportunities. One Lightstorm breakthrough was the “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” arcade game, released by Midway Games in October 1991 to record-breaking success.
In June of 1993, Kasanoff was talking to friends at Midway who told him they were about to release a game that was going to surpass the “T2” revenue record. Kasanoff decided he needed to see this game, flying out to Midway’s Chicago office to play a test model of “Mortal Kombat II.” As he played, Kasanoff saw more than just a game. MKII was a violent, bloody fighter with the premise of Enter the Dragon but the mythological feel of Star Wars. This had the potential to be a pop culture phenomenon. It could translate easily into movies, shows, comics, and more. Midway was skeptical of seeing their games tarnished like “Super Mario Bros.” by a substandard movie, Despite many naysayers who thought Kasanoff was throwing away his career for a game with negative media reputation, after three months of pursuit, he obtained the intellectual property rights to “Mortal Kombat” for a short duration.
Coordinating with Danny Simon’s The Licensing Group, Kasanoff orchestrated a synergistic cross-media blitz: movies, animation, comics, TV, stage shows, clothes, books, merchandise, and toys. The internet became the primary source for advertising because it was inexpensive and targeted the game’s primary demographic of males aged 13 to 25. Knowing that the game had received massive blowback from parents groups regarding its graphic violence, a major cleanup of the property’s reputation was needed to go mainstream. To do this, Kasanoff emphasized the first word in “Mortal Kombat”. The mortals were humans fighting to save Earth from inhuman fighters from another dimension. Given the evil alien nature of the enemies, the violence was entirely justified, making it acceptable family fare for movies, comics, and cartoons. Besides, while graphic violence was novel in video games, it was done to death in movies. It was better to give audiences great visuals and action choreography rather than dwelling on gore they’d be bored with.
Controversy aside, Kasanoff immediately received interest from four film studios wanting to make the Mortal Kombat movie adaptation. Among those, Kasanoff chose New Line Cinema because they were the only ones who actually knew what it was, Kasanoff also had a prior business relationship with their vice president of acquisitions, Ruth Vitale, who was president of Vestron Pictures while he worked as the head of production. New Line secured the rights, promising a budget of $16-18 million, the most for any movie they’d made to that date. Now they just needed a story concept.
Kevin Droney was an established TV writer working as the supervising producer for the TV show “Highlander”. Droney recently sold an unrelated spec script called Down Came a Blackbird to a movie producer who was shopping it around to various studios. Droney’s agent knew he had a passion for karate and sent his script to the “Mortal Kombat” creative team as a sample of his work. The team liked Droney’s writing and called him in to pitch what he’d do for a “Mortal Kombat” adaptation. Droney knew little about the game but asked his eleven-year-old son, who claimed it was just a bunch of guys kicking each other’s asses. He knew he’d have to get creative to build a story around that.
As Droney received background information he’d requested about the game, he visited an arcade to see the gameplay and noticed there seemed to be mythology behind it. Using his knowledge of myths, Droney came up with a plausible throughline for character arcs using the “reluctant hero” archetype. Of the fifteen writers the “Mortal Kombat” team saw, Droney was the only one who developed a viable story idea. He pitched it to New Line the following week and they hired his services. After coming up with a 45-page story treatment, New Line officially greenlit the movie.
After contemplating several prominent action directors, they decided they wanted a hipper, more energetic approach. British director Paul Anderson Anderson was sought on the strength of his ultraviolent but visually impressive low-budget film debut, Shopping, which found itself at New Line because they were seeking a distributor. New Line wasn’t interested in Shopping, but Anderson’s visual flair impressed the producers enough to call him in to discuss Mortal Kombat. Anderson didn’t have visual effects experience, so he took crammed through as many books as he could find to bluff his way into the job. In March of 1994, he was offered the job and the budget increased to $21 million.
Anderson was an avid gamer and was very enthusiastic about directing the adaptation of one of his favorite games. He knew that “Mortal Kombat” was a dumb story idea, so he’d emphasize characterizations to make it a fun experience. The best action films have characters that audiences identify with, so he wanted his heroes to be distinct and likable, casting actors that fit specific molds. Each hero should overcome personal fears and weaknesses to emerge victoriously.
Although movies based on video games had a poor reputation, Anderson wasn’t worried. Those other attempts were based on games that had no established film genre to build on. However, “Mortal Kombat” was based on martial arts action films and naturally lent itself to becoming a movie. Besides, Bonfire of the Vanities’ failure doesn’t mean book adaptations suck; Jurassic Park was a smash. Batman succeeded while Captain America never saw release. It’s all relative to the vision of the creators of those films, not the medium of their origin.
Meanwhile, Droney began expanding his story treatment into a screenplay, incorporating as many game elements as he could. He was mindful that a PG-13 rating was required by the licensing agreement, so he had to remove all gruesome “fatalities” and assure that only non-humans could be killed on-screen. Although the plot borrows heavily from the 1973 Bruce Lee flick Enter the Dragon, Droney had Star Wars in mind for its delivery, aiming at younger viewers like his son.
In Droney’s plot, the characters of Earth must battle for survival against evil forces that have enhanced powers within an alternate dimension called Outworld. Those forces can take dominion of Earth if they win ten straight interdimensional tournaments that occur every generation. We’re dropped into the story with them having won nine straight championships. Three mortals, a martial arts expert with a troubled past, Liu Kang, a cocky Hollywood action star named Johnny Cage, and a vengeful Special Forces soldier, Sonya Blade are fighters mentored by a god named Raiden as they are forced into a battle tournament to the death to save Earth from being taken over by evil forces. They’re taken to a remote island to battle evil sorcerer Shang’ Tsung and his minions: the palm projectile-flinging Scorpion, SubZero, who freezes anything he touches, Kano, a crime boss, and a Harryhausen-esque four-armed giant named Goro.
Anderson wanted to take an epic quest movie he loved as a kid into the style teens enjoyed today – Jason and the Argonauts with the cinematic look of The Crow or a John Woo flick. He wanted Mortal Kombat to look like no other film. Interiors would have the dark texture of European art-house cinema, with color combinations never seen before, and remote parts of Thailand could provide the breathtaking landscapes, nicely photographed by John R. Leonetti. Shooting in Thailand was difficult because of the oppressive heat, locales accessible only by boat, and the locals didn’t always know the most expedient way to set up a Hollywood production.
Visual effects were supervised by T2‘s Alison Savitch. There were also mechanical effects, including the flaky million-dollar animatronic hybrid puppet Goro, created by Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis of Amalgamated Dynamics. Goro required a man to wear the top half and up to 16 technicians to operate using rods that were digitally removed later. Two voice actors portrayed Goro, Kevin Michael Richardson for dialogue and Frank Welker for grunts and growls. All Goro scenes had to be done on set. If Goro malfunctioned frequently despite the best-skilled technicians available in Hollywood, they didn’t dare bring it to Thailand.
Casting began before the script was completed. Although their budget was tight, they wanted an international star to portray Lord Raiden, the god of thunder. They cycled through several actors who had gravitas but with a humorous attitude. Sean Connery and Danny Glover were considerations. Ultimately, they landed Connery’s Highlander costar Christopher Lambert. Lambert originally had no interest in a video game movie, but he screened Anderson’s Shopping and loved it. Although the script wasn’t there he liked they were going for a story with unique mythology and that he was playing a superpowered being and didn’t have to train physically. Because Lambert commanded a million-dollar price tag, the studio limited his shooting schedule. When Lambert found out they were going to only film him in close-ups in Los Angeles and use a body double for the Thailand scenes, he paid out of his pocket to go to Thailand to film his scenes and even paid for the wrap party.
For other roles, Anderson wanted actors who resembled the game’s characters that could handle the fight choreography and physical demands. The main actors underwent a two-month martial arts training with fight choreographer Pat Johnson prior to the production. Robin Shou was already a skilled martial artist and stuntman. He’d become disenchanted with the direction Hong Kong action flicks were headed and contemplated leaving the business, expanding his side job selling imported goods. On a business trip to the US, Shou’s agent informed him that New Line wanted actors for their Mortal Kombat adaptation that he should pursue. Shou hadn’t heard of the game, but sought out an arcade and became hooked. After seven auditions, the studio thought the handsome and charismatic Shou could be the next Bruce Lee and hired him over several other prominent Asian actors.
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa took the main villain role of the shape-shifting, soul-stealing sorcerer Shang Tsung because of his son’s obsession with the game, and his personal interest in the martial arts aspect. He played Shang over the top to make the bombastic dialogue work. His portrayal was so intense that children in Thailand would run away from him. New York-born Puerto Rican actress Talisa Soto plays the 10,000-year-old (yet still youthful) Princess Kitana.
Cameron Diaz was offered the Sonya Blade part based on the star potential and athleticism shown in dailies for another New Line feature The Mask. However, her involvement ended after breaking her wrist during training by hitting her karate instructor too hard on the head. To avoid wardrobe adjustments, they recast the role with someone Diaz’s height (5’9″), Kathleen McClellan, but she too was quickly injured. With only a few days before shooting beginning, they secured Bridgette Wilson (also 5’9″) immediately after she completed Billy Madison. Despite missing martial arts training, Wilson performed her own fights and stunts, training during lunch breaks or between scenes.
The actors improvised their personalities based on their character concepts. Lambert and Linden Ashby, hired for Johnny Cage after Van Damme had already signed on for Street Fighter because he auditioned with requisite likable cockiness, decide to spice up their characters with humor. Boon and Tobias didn’t like the jokey ad-libbing, voicing criticism about how certain characters, especially Raiden, should be deadly serious. Droney wasn’t a fan either. Years later at a party, Droney introduced Ashby to a girlfriend as, “the a-hole who ruined his script,” perhaps facetiously. because his ad-libbing caused dialogue issues for the other actors he had to fix. Despite his prior experience as a boxer, Ashby requested a stunt double thinking his fighting wasn’t convincing but they pushed him through as much as they could. Ashby downed Advil like candy from the daily physical pounding. Once he peed blood following a sharp kick to the kidney.
Shou temporarily left during the shoot after his mother’s death. He channeled the emotional grief of his mother’s passing during the scene involving his brother’s death. Shou fractured several ribs after landing against a pillar during a fight. He continued because he didn’t want production to stop on his account. He joked that in Hong Kong, a fight is ranked by how many ribs were broken during the making. Pat Johnson told them to keep acting if they get inadvertently hit or kicked because they rarely repeated a shot that looks real.
Anderson had a rude awakening shortly before filming. New Line needed money for other productions and cut $3 million from Mortal Kombat‘s budget. Kasanoff vehemently complained to unsympathetic New Line head Robert Shaye, who ranted unsympathetically about how much he hated the script and the movie. The cut forced reductions in the effects and fight sequences they relied on to make the picture work.
After assembling their first cut, test audience scores seemed promising, except for the noticeable budgetary limitations and some character nitpicks that turned off the game’s fans. The detractors complained that it looked cheap, lacked enough fighting, and the temp orchestral score was an ill fit. The gamers were annoyed fan-favorite character Scorpion lost his battle too easily. Sensing that they might have an international hit on their hands with some additional tweaking, New Line pushed the release date from spring 1995 to mid-August and coughed up an additional $10 million for reshoots, including money to bolster the visual effects, put together an energetic soundtrack, and add more fighting.
Pat Johnson was unavailable, so Anderson allowed Shou to choreograph two major action sequences: Johnny Cage taking on Scorpion and Liu Kang fighting Reptile, infusing his Hong Kong wushu cinema experience. Shou designed the multi-level aspects of Scorpion’s lair within an airplane hangar, with its bamboo and wrapped mummies taken from ancient Tibetan burial practices, where the higher your body, the closer to heaven you get.
George S. Clinton provided a rousing hybrid orchestral/techno score, while Anderson wanted a techno soundtrack to kick in for key sequences. They approached two record companies with the Electronic Dance Music idea; Sony wanted avant-garde artist Buckethead to provide the music (proposing a guitar duel with Eddie Van Halen), while Virgin wanted traditional pop acts like Janet Jackson. Anderson knew exactly who he wanted on his soundtrack, so he pursued the Electronic Dance Music artists he most enjoyed and release it on a smaller record label, TVT (Tee-Vee Tunes). That soundtrack proved an international success, scoring top ten album placement, eventually becoming the first Electronic Dance Music record to go platinum. It was so successful that it spawned a rare second soundtrack album, “More Mortal Kombat”).
No advance screenings for critics were planned. Kasanoff stated that good reviews would have little impact while bad reviews would have been costly. The gamble seems to have paid off because Mortal Kombat proved a huge success upon its release, ranking #1 at the US box office three weeks straight, taking $70 million domestic, and another $80 million internationally. In addition to the soundtrack, helping the marketing was a flood of multimedia tie-ins like the “Ultimate Guide to the Universe of Mortal Kombat” CD-ROM, a robust internet site, an animated video prequel (Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins), a live martial arts touring stage show, “Mortal Kombat: The Live Tour”, and the release of “Mortal Kombat 3” in arcades.
There are two ways to observe Mortal Kombat: as a video game film adaptation and as a standalone action vehicle. Fans of the video games will get the most mileage, as it showcases the characters and their signature moves, even if it avoids the trademark finishing blows. While not an objectively great film, Mortal Kombat faithfully recreates the game’s vibe much better than Street Fighter and, despite the limitations of a PG-13 presentation, it delivers the expected goods. For unfamiliar audiences, it’s pedestrian fare. Its plot lifts from Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon, only with more juvenile-minded characterizations, silly confrontations, and cheesy dialogue.
The movie has a cult following and some consider it the best video game adaptation ever made. I won’t go that far, as I think there are adaptations that stand up better for non-fans. However, for “Mortal Kombat” fanatics, it’s only a few spinal extractions away from cinematic bliss, capturing the look, sound, and visceral appeal of the video game.
Qwipster’s rating: C+
MPAA Rated: PG-13 for some scary images and violence
Running Time: 101 min.
Cast: Robin Shou, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Linden Ashby, Bridgette Wilson, Christopher Lambert, Talisa Soto, Trevor Goddard
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Screenplay: Kevin Droney