Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 3: we're back with part two of our discussion of the
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety five supernatural martial arts movie Mortal Kombat, adapted
Speaker 3: from the extremely popular, extremely violent video game franchise. Now,
Speaker 3: we did not intend for our discussion of this movie
Speaker 3: to end up spanning two separate episodes, but the breakup
Speaker 3: I think proved inevitable due to time constraints, especially because
Speaker 3: this movie loomed so large when we were kids. Unless
Speaker 3: we had a lot to say about it from personal recollection,
Speaker 3: I think we spent a lot of the last episode
Speaker 3: just conveying our emotions about Mortal Kombat from the time
Speaker 3: of childhood.
Speaker 2: That's right. I mean, it was almost it was almost
Speaker 2: kind of an identity you chose for yourself by being
Speaker 2: a Mortal Kombat fan. You know. It's not to say
Speaker 2: you couldn't also be a Street Fighter fan. That those
Speaker 2: games were great too, but yeah, there was something about
Speaker 2: the Mortal Kombat esthetic, the music, certainly that the fact
Speaker 2: that it's violence kind of got under the skin of
Speaker 2: many of the parental units. You know, it felt a
Speaker 2: little rebellious as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, now that you compare it to the
Speaker 3: other big fighting franchise of the time, I have to say,
Speaker 3: in retrospect, I think Street Fighter two is a better
Speaker 3: game than like whatever the equivalent Mortal Kombat two is,
Speaker 3: But ignoring the underlying mechanics, Mortal Kombat just had such
Speaker 3: an interesting skin stretched over it. When you when you
Speaker 3: were a child in the nineties, it was it seemed
Speaker 3: more dangerous and more fascinating for that reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it was it was fed by
Speaker 2: a lot of the more violent films. I mean, not
Speaker 2: all of them were super violent, and Big Trouble Little
Speaker 2: China is not grotesquely violent, but you know, there are
Speaker 2: aspects of all these different franchise is kind of mixed
Speaker 2: in to Mortal Kombat to give it its overall flavor.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, I thought we should do a brief refresher
Speaker 3: of the basics from part one before we get into
Speaker 3: the plot today. So Mortal Kombat began, for those who
Speaker 3: don't know, as a series of one on one side
Speaker 3: view fighting games for arcades and home consoles in the
Speaker 3: early nineteen nineties, and these games were extremely popular. They
Speaker 3: distinguished themselves, I think, with a mix of dark fantasy
Speaker 3: martial arts setting, fast paced action, and hyper violence. And
Speaker 3: as you were just saying, Rob, the violence in particular
Speaker 3: was like a cultural touch point. There was a backlash,
Speaker 3: kind of moral panic among many adults who were distressed
Speaker 3: to watch their kids carefully memorizing the button combination that
Speaker 3: you would have to enter to rip somebody's backbone out
Speaker 3: at the end of a match. And that game franchise
Speaker 3: has continued up until today. But the first movie was
Speaker 3: released in nineteen ninety five, directed by Paul W. S Anderson,
Speaker 3: who also made movies like Event, Horizon and the early
Speaker 3: Resident Evil films. The Mortal Kombat movie mostly follows the
Speaker 3: originally pretty thin plot of the game, which concerns a
Speaker 3: magical martial arts tournament ruled over by an evil sorcerer
Speaker 3: named Shang Sung, in which human fighters with names like
Speaker 3: lu Kang, Sonia Blade, and Johnny Cage they must win
Speaker 3: in order to defend humankind and Earth from an interdimensional menace,
Speaker 3: a sort of evil emperor from a place called Outworld,
Speaker 3: which is like another dimension. The movie fleshes out this
Speaker 3: plot with some clumsy yet enjoyable character development. And also
Speaker 3: I don't think I really mentioned this much last time,
Speaker 3: but I was thinking in between recording these two episodes
Speaker 3: about how the film significantly modifies and specifically lightens the
Speaker 3: tone established by the early video games. I think later
Speaker 3: games in the series had more irony, they wore the
Speaker 3: irony more, more outwardly, and they had more obvious tongue
Speaker 3: in cheek elements. But if you go back to this
Speaker 3: first game, it is grim, doomy, and hardcore. Would you
Speaker 3: agree with that, Rob.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with that, especially the first one,
Speaker 2: even the second one. The second one had the friendships
Speaker 2: in there, which were goofy, and I think, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of a fun jab at all of the haters
Speaker 2: based on the violence.
Speaker 3: But still wait, hold on, you should explain what the
Speaker 3: friendships are, Oh, people who don't know?
Speaker 2: All right, So, you know, you beat your opponent and
Speaker 2: then you get the directive finish him, and if you
Speaker 2: know the codes, you can do a fatality. But you
Speaker 2: can also, if the parameters are met, do a friendship,
Speaker 2: which instead of like brutally decapitating your opponent, does something like,
Speaker 2: you know, give them a cupcake. I don't know, that's
Speaker 2: not one to loon balloon Shensung would do one where
Speaker 2: he makes a rainbow with his hands. I think, say
Speaker 2: it's something nice. So that's pretty tongue in cheek. But
Speaker 2: for the part, like the rest of the vibe, the music,
Speaker 2: the look of Mortal Kombat too is very very doomy.
Speaker 3: Yes, so the movie has a decidedly more PG or
Speaker 3: PG thirteen quality. And while the movie is still very
Speaker 3: violent and has some scary fantasy elements. You know, it's
Speaker 3: got your four armed out world demon king, it's got
Speaker 3: vacuuming out people's souls and stuff. It definitely adds more
Speaker 3: of a spirit of humor and optimistic adventure in contrast
Speaker 3: to the game's spirit of fatalistic death sport. So it's
Speaker 3: more kind of haha, it's time to save the world,
Speaker 3: rather than you know, custom dictates that I now dismantle
Speaker 3: your body. And this lightning of the tone relative to
Speaker 3: the early games is absolutely present in the script, but
Speaker 3: I think it shows up especially in the performance of
Speaker 3: Christoph Lambert as the thunder god Raidan, who is I
Speaker 3: think it's fair to say a serious and even austere
Speaker 3: figure in the games is that right, rob.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, especially in some of the more recent games,
Speaker 2: overly serious, like I think, maybe not intentionally laughably serious,
Speaker 2: but there are a lot of memes about the recent
Speaker 2: games and Raydon saying things like I must consult the
Speaker 2: elder gods. You know, he's very serious.
Speaker 3: But in the movie it's completely different. Christoph Lambert as
Speaker 3: Rayden is like if a two D nineties sitcom character
Speaker 3: were played by Peter Loriie and yet still had catch
Speaker 3: phrases like I don't think so. He's about two seconds
Speaker 3: away from saying Earth rules Outworld drools for much of
Speaker 3: the film. But anyway, as I mentioned last time, this
Speaker 3: was my nine year old self's idea of a really
Speaker 3: good movie. I saw Mortal Kombat in the theaters, of course,
Speaker 3: I played the early games. I bought the VHS tape,
Speaker 3: and I watched it a bazillion times at home. I
Speaker 3: had the original motion picture soundtrack on CD. I listened
Speaker 3: to it a lot. I read the liner notes and
Speaker 3: the jewel case and all that. We devoted a significant
Speaker 3: chunk of the last episode just to talking about the CD,
Speaker 3: the soundtrack CD and the songs on it, which were
Speaker 3: a strange mix. Right. It had like Metal Industrial had
Speaker 3: these techno pump up tracks and with a lot of
Speaker 3: like audio samples from the video game and then ambient
Speaker 3: classics like Halcyon plus on and on by Orbital.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a weird one to revisit because you know,
Speaker 2: you go back, you listen to and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is a great track. I like this. Oh, I
Speaker 2: love this one, and then it's like, I don't like
Speaker 2: this one at all. It's a fun experience.
Speaker 3: So in the last episode, we talked about the cultural
Speaker 3: context from which this movie emerged. We talked about the connections,
Speaker 3: especially the cast, and some stuff about the music and
Speaker 3: the special effects, but we ran out of time before
Speaker 3: we could start getting into the plot, and today we're
Speaker 3: back to do the full plot breakdown. However, please bear
Speaker 3: with us because we now made these plot notes like
Speaker 3: a week ago. They're not as fresh in our minds
Speaker 3: as they were back then, So we may confuse ourselves
Speaker 3: here and there.
Speaker 2: We're going to do our best, but you know, in
Speaker 2: the spirit of the Olympics, having just finished, I want
Speaker 2: to I want to open up the spirit of competition here.
Speaker 2: We normally discourage gambling on this podcast, but for this
Speaker 2: one time, We're gonna allow you if you would like,
Speaker 2: please feel free to place your bets on who is
Speaker 2: going to win the Mortal Kombat tournament depicted in this movie.
Speaker 2: You may have forgotten how it turns out, or maybe
Speaker 2: you haven't seen it before, so you know, gamble responsibly.
Speaker 2: Who's your money on Joe?
Speaker 3: It would be wild if they don't let Kano win.
Speaker 2: Kno. I think he has a lot of strengths coming
Speaker 2: into this tournament. You know, he's got a he's got
Speaker 2: a knife, he's got a weapon.
Speaker 3: They let him. They let him bring weapons to matches
Speaker 3: where his opponent is unarmed. That seems unfair.
Speaker 2: He has the laser eye. I'm not sure if it
Speaker 2: does lasers in this film or not. So he did,
Speaker 2: but it's metal too, so he's got to put potential
Speaker 2: defense there. That's you know, I feel like I'd be
Speaker 2: foolish not to put my money behind Goro. He's the
Speaker 2: raining champ, extra arms so and can also shoot fireballs.
Speaker 3: It is is hard to describe the disappointment you're gonna feel.
Speaker 3: And the Goro's Got Gnard scene. Yeah, so oh, before
Speaker 3: the plot even begins, one thing we got to address
Speaker 3: this came up in part one is how relentlessly this
Speaker 3: movie uses like techno pump up music to get your
Speaker 3: blood going. Like it. It is very strong with the
Speaker 3: hype tracks on the soundtrack to to keep the momentum
Speaker 3: up and keep you feeling good and ready for the
Speaker 3: next scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that Mortal Kombat theme song by the Immortals
Speaker 2: one of the main things that you will remember from
Speaker 2: this movie if you haven't seen it in decades. They
Speaker 2: start playing it before the opening credits even roll, like
Speaker 2: you just all you see are the studio logos loading
Speaker 2: up and you're already hit with Mortal Kombat and you're
Speaker 2: you're the races.
Speaker 3: But also this techno track, as we were saying, it
Speaker 3: samples sounds from the video game, so like one of
Speaker 3: the snare triggers, and the beat is the fight grunt
Speaker 3: from the game where somebody's going ugh. It's the sound
Speaker 3: they make in the game when they get punched in
Speaker 3: the face. But it's using that as the.
Speaker 2: It's an infectious track.
Speaker 3: Strong choice. So the movie opens with a dream sequence.
Speaker 3: We pull up on a shot of a temple in Thailand.
Speaker 3: I think this is the Watt Frost see Sanfette Temple.
Speaker 3: I hope I'm pronouncing that close to right. It is actually,
Speaker 3: in reality, a beautiful location. Unfortunately, the opening shot that
Speaker 3: features this beautiful location looks terrible because they're like, I
Speaker 3: don't know exactly what the technique is here, but they're
Speaker 3: compositing in a dark, gloomy background that just does not
Speaker 3: match the foreground at all.
Speaker 2: I've actually been to this location. This is in a Utia,
Speaker 2: and I distinctly remember visiting here many many years ago.
Speaker 2: The heat was otherworldly and I had just consumed a
Speaker 2: tie red bull, which at the time I don't know
Speaker 2: it was very hot as well, but I think it
Speaker 2: had a different chemical composition. It seemed way stronger than
Speaker 2: any red bull I've ever had anywhere else. But it
Speaker 2: made for a very memorable experience, and the grounds are
Speaker 2: absolutely beautiful in real life.
Speaker 3: I bet that's a techno pump up track of its own. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but they get your bpms too. But so, yeah, we
Speaker 3: got this ominous dark sky in the background that just
Speaker 3: doesn't really match the temples in the foreground. It looks
Speaker 3: like color keyed in or something. Storm clouds are swirling
Speaker 3: and there are these deep droning chants playing, and the
Speaker 3: soundtrack and then we zoom in on a pair of
Speaker 3: men who face off against one another in the courtyard
Speaker 3: a courtyard of this temple. One is a young man
Speaker 3: wearing simple clothing. He's stressed like he might be a monk,
Speaker 3: and he looks frightened and in over his head. And
Speaker 3: the other the other actor here is Kerrie Hiroyuki Tagawa
Speaker 3: as our villain Shang Sung, the Evil Sorcerer. In this shot,
Speaker 3: he looks about nine feet tall compared to the young man.
Speaker 3: He's just gigantic. I don't know if he's actually all
Speaker 3: that huge of an actor, but I don't know. They
Speaker 3: use angles to make him look very imposing. He is
Speaker 3: dressed in a ridiculous outfit for hand to hand combat.
Speaker 3: We brought this up in the last episode. But he's
Speaker 3: wearing like a heavy calf length black leather coat. So he's,
Speaker 3: you know, gonna do some roundhouse kicks to defeat earth Realm.
Speaker 3: But he is just wrapped in twenty pounds of loose leather.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, this is very much rockstar Shensung right here.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the fight begins between these two and it
Speaker 3: is not much of a contest. Shensung annihilates this poor
Speaker 3: guy he beats him up, breaks his bones. At one point,
Speaker 3: he hits him with a brutal backhand, so you know,
Speaker 3: it's a kind of move that suggests he's he's treating
Speaker 3: him with contempt, not even treating him as a worthy opponent.
Speaker 3: Just give him the backhand. And then finally he stomps
Speaker 3: on this guy's back and breaks his spine. After this,
Speaker 3: Sheangsung holds the young man up and then looks straight
Speaker 3: into the camera and he says, your brother's soul is mine.
Speaker 3: You will be next. And then Shangsung's face turns into
Speaker 3: a putrid cgi skeleton and we speed zoom into his eyehole.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, there's some ambitious eye action in this movie
Speaker 2: concerning like the taking of souls.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he's saying, your brother's soul is mine, you
Speaker 3: will be next. Who is you? Well, it is Lou Kang,
Speaker 3: So Lu Kang we meet him next. He sits straight
Speaker 3: up in bed. He's having another nightmare, and he is
Speaker 3: in the wildest bedroom. It is just green, green, green green,
Speaker 3: Like I don't know what to compare.
Speaker 2: It to, Yeah, like listerine or really bad apps, and
Speaker 2: you know it's like that level, and it's just completely
Speaker 2: saturated in it. It's not like you have just some
Speaker 2: green highlights here and there and there. I'm just talking
Speaker 2: like absolutely green.
Speaker 3: It's like somebody heard us gushing about how much we
Speaker 3: love Mario Bava lights and then they tried to do
Speaker 3: Bava without understanding Bava. So it's not it's not these
Speaker 3: like interesting sort of zones of color like Vava uses.
Speaker 3: It's just green floor to ceiling in a way that
Speaker 3: I don't know. It doesn't work the way Bava does.
Speaker 2: I've read criticism, In fact, I think I've read mostly
Speaker 2: criticism of Glenn Danzig's Vertica movie as being Bava inspired
Speaker 2: but having like really poor use of gels. And I
Speaker 2: have to say, as boring and as cheap as that
Speaker 2: movie is, I don't think he gave us anything like
Speaker 2: this green room. It's just so like single note, it's
Speaker 2: just so overbearingly green. But I do also want to
Speaker 2: give Anderson credit because you also see some very green sequences,
Speaker 2: very green scenes, very green lighting and event horizon. But
Speaker 2: it's a lot more balanced by that point. It's a
Speaker 2: lot more nuanced. It doesn't feel like this. It doesn't
Speaker 2: feel like you're in a green aquarium full of jello.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So here this is lu Kang played by the
Speaker 3: actor and martial artist Robin Chu. Again, Lukang sits up
Speaker 3: in bed. He's having this nightmare. It's I don't know,
Speaker 3: did you get the impression he's having this nightmare a
Speaker 3: lot or is this the first time?
Speaker 2: Oh, it has to be a lot. I mean it's
Speaker 2: a recurring dress well, one would think, But then on
Speaker 2: the other hand, there is the idea that he is
Speaker 2: being dreen delivered actual information, right, so this is something
Speaker 2: we're about to find out, this is something that has happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he's sweaty, you know, from having a bad dream.
Speaker 3: He gets up out of his bed. He goes to
Speaker 3: his dresser, which this is no significance to anyone else,
Speaker 3: but he has a dresser that looks almost exactly like
Speaker 3: a dresser that I have in my house. We've got
Speaker 3: the same piece of furniture Lukang and I and he
Speaker 3: picks up off the dresser a Western Union telegram which
Speaker 3: says lu Kang brother dead, return home grandfather very terse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you pay pay by the word or
Speaker 2: the letter, right, so you could keep it short.
Speaker 3: So we don't learn much about lu Kang in this
Speaker 3: first scene where we meet him, except that he is
Speaker 3: very handsome and jacked, and he has bad dreams.
Speaker 2: Right, and he might be more jack for having those
Speaker 2: bad dreams, like they just keep you tight, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: waking up in a sweat all the time, burning calories.
Speaker 3: Yes. So next, what we cut to is a chiron
Speaker 3: telling us that we are in Hong Kong, and we
Speaker 3: open in some kind of dance club. The bass is
Speaker 3: thumping here. We're going to meet Sonia Blade and her
Speaker 3: partner Jacks, and they are wearing Special Forces outfits and kevlar.
Speaker 3: They're carrying huge shotguns that have flashlights fixed over the barrels,
Speaker 3: and they're running down this corridor full of television screens
Speaker 3: out onto the dance floor, spitting out lines in tactical speak.
Speaker 3: So Sonya's saying stuff like, let's go sixty seconds to
Speaker 3: target acquisition. Jacks, is the perimeter secure? And I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm just thinking, in what way could this location be secure?
Speaker 3: It's like a club full of hundreds of people dancing
Speaker 3: in the dark with strobe lights and they're still dancing.
Speaker 3: What does secure mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of them kind of attack them in kind
Speaker 2: of a mosh pity way, but most are not. Most
Speaker 2: seem to just be ravers or and or metal enthusiasts. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have so many questions about this ridiculous sequence, Like
Speaker 2: what exactly is their jurisdiction in Hong Kong, Yeah, the
Speaker 2: mid nineties at this club, What safety measures are in
Speaker 2: place concerning these clubgoers, if any? Yeah, indeed, what does
Speaker 2: it mean for this place to be secure? None of
Speaker 2: this makes sense?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, And this is definitely one of the
Speaker 3: most unintentionally funny scenes in the movie, coming right near
Speaker 3: the beginning. Just the dialogue is hilar too. There's some
Speaker 3: There's an exchange where Jaxa is like the perimeter's locked
Speaker 3: and Sonya says it better be. I want cano and
Speaker 3: he says, trust me Sonya, and she says, I trust
Speaker 3: one person on this planet. Jack's You're talking to.
Speaker 2: Her so tough. It's just so tough, tough.
Speaker 3: So they moved through the crowd and Sonya is just
Speaker 3: whacking Randos with her gun. Again, these are not criminals
Speaker 3: or like fighters or anything. There's just people dancing and
Speaker 3: she's just like beating them with a gun.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, here's where we meet another villain.
Speaker 2: Of the movie.
Speaker 3: Kano, Oh boy, Caano. He's up in some kind of
Speaker 3: office looking down over the dance floor, and he's not alone.
Speaker 3: He is with Shang Sung, who we saw from the dream.
Speaker 3: But Shangsung is here wearing the same clothes I think,
Speaker 3: the same same overcode he wore in the dream and
Speaker 3: all that. And he's sitting behind a desk and Cano is,
Speaker 3: you know, looking out over the over the dancers, and
Speaker 3: they're plotting together. Cano says, she's here right on time.
Speaker 3: You know, he's really playing up the accent. He says,
Speaker 3: I love punctuality in a woman, don't you, mister Shang Sung?
Speaker 3: And then Keno turns his head so we see his
Speaker 3: metal face plate with the red terminator eye. This is
Speaker 3: never explained in the movie that. I don't think they
Speaker 3: say anything about it, do they? They just show it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's no explanation. I honestly can't even remember
Speaker 2: the exact explanation in the game, like maybe Sonya like
Speaker 2: took his eye out or something in a fight. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure. Is he a cyborg? Is it just a
Speaker 2: thing that clatches over his head? I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we learned from this scene that Shang Sung
Speaker 3: is using the criminal gang sort of gang lord Kano
Speaker 3: to lure Sonia Blade to his island for a tournament,
Speaker 3: and Shangsung is adamant she must be at the tournament.
Speaker 3: It is of utmost importance. But they don't explain why,
Speaker 3: why her? Why does she need to be there? Don't know,
Speaker 3: but we learned that Kano has recently murdered her partner.
Speaker 3: Her I think they're saying, like work partner, not romantic partner.
Speaker 2: Okay, so some sort of pre Jack's partner.
Speaker 3: Yes, her work partner, and now Kano is the bait
Speaker 3: that will bring her to the island.
Speaker 2: Because I think basically in the games, it's like Sonia
Speaker 2: is there after Kno, Kano is there because this is
Speaker 2: just the kind of scene that guys like Kano pop
Speaker 2: up in and that's all there is to it.
Speaker 3: He just wants to win the tournament and make the
Speaker 3: tournament even worse. Yeah, Okay, we got to meet our
Speaker 3: next good human fighter character, and that is Johnny Cage.
Speaker 3: So this scene begins with a kind of fake out.
Speaker 3: We see the actor Lindon Ashby walk into i don't know,
Speaker 3: like a big airplane hangar type building and you know,
Speaker 3: these big doors open up and let in the light
Speaker 3: from la outside, and we see him walk in. He's
Speaker 3: very cool. He's dressed in a suit, I think, and
Speaker 3: he's got sunglasses on. Goes into the big empty hangar
Speaker 3: and there is what do you call this vibe of
Speaker 3: It's like eighties and nineties movies that have guys in
Speaker 3: double breasted suits that are hand to hand martial arts
Speaker 3: fighters and they have weapons and they're standing around a
Speaker 3: limo with a briefcase.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what you call this, but yeah,
Speaker 2: you sort of stereotypical suited bodyguards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hugo boss kottah. Yeah. So you've got these guys
Speaker 3: like they stand there in a row, and the one
Speaker 3: has got like an extendable baton, and another one's got
Speaker 3: a shock stick and so forth. And this guy walks
Speaker 3: up to the fight and he says his catchphrase. He says,
Speaker 3: let's dance. And the way he kind of whispers it
Speaker 3: makes me think, oh, they're going for a bit of
Speaker 3: a Steven Siegall thing, there, aren't they with the whisper voice.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So he beats all these guys up, but then
Speaker 3: he's facing off against the last one still stand. He
Speaker 3: kicks him, and then the guy just stands there staring
Speaker 3: at him, and he says to the guy with exasperation,
Speaker 3: this is the part where you fall down. And so
Speaker 3: then the guy kind of launches himself onto the floor.
Speaker 3: Linda Ashby turns around and says, where do you get
Speaker 3: these guys? So it turns out it was all a
Speaker 3: fake out. They are shooting a movie scene. This was
Speaker 3: not a real fight. And Johnny Cage is we learn,
Speaker 3: a martial arts movie star like Jean Claude van dam
Speaker 3: but the tabloids are saying he's a fake, he's a phony.
Speaker 3: He could not really kung fu his way out of
Speaker 3: a paper bag, and these rumors are apparently damaging his career.
Speaker 3: Now this raises a question. I didn't research this before
Speaker 3: we came in, but has there ever been a major
Speaker 3: martial arts movie star whose career was severely hurt to
Speaker 3: buy allegations that they couldn't really fight in the real world.
Speaker 3: There are allegations like that about certain movie stars, but
Speaker 3: I feel like they tend to be already washed up
Speaker 3: by the time that is a major meme about them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, it's it's it's always a weird.
Speaker 2: I always find it kind of strange when we get
Speaker 2: into not we as in you and me, but we
Speaker 2: as as a as a culture or some cultures get
Speaker 2: into conversations about like if if a particular actor is
Speaker 2: tough enough or or a musician is tough enough. Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes based on them like losing legit fights
Speaker 2: or getting punched out or you know, signing up for
Speaker 2: a boxing or an mm a thing.
Speaker 3: Why the actors their performers.
Speaker 2: I mean, the really damaging things you sometimes hear about
Speaker 2: action stars are about them being of course unprofessional in
Speaker 2: one way or another, or unsafe when it comes to
Speaker 2: you know, fight choreography and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, being like aggressive with with stunt stunt workers and
Speaker 3: stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean we can all if you if you
Speaker 2: follow any kind of combat sports, you can name the
Speaker 2: individuals that are legit tough and can legit win fights.
Speaker 2: You don't necessarily want to see them starring in their
Speaker 2: own Sure, there are different skill sets involved. Everyone can do,
Speaker 2: you know, their own thing. Sometimes those skills line up
Speaker 2: and you have somebody who can do both. But generally
Speaker 2: I'm happy to you know, keep them in two different buckets.
Speaker 3: I guess I just feel like if I watch a
Speaker 3: martial arts movie and the main character is great and
Speaker 3: I find out the actor who portrayed them is not
Speaker 3: actually a fighter in real life, that has no effect
Speaker 3: on my Like, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, but I don't know. They're kind of leaning
Speaker 2: into some sort of like a k fabe idea here,
Speaker 2: I guess. So, all right, we're to believe that Johnny
Speaker 2: Cage has some issues with how he's being perceived, and
Speaker 2: it would be great if he could improve how the
Speaker 2: public perceives him in regards to real fights. So why
Speaker 2: not join a super deadly, super secret death elimination tournament.
Speaker 2: Sounds like a great career move exactly.
Speaker 3: So he meets up on the movie set with an
Speaker 3: old teacher of his, a guy named Master Boyd. Who
Speaker 3: is the actor playing this guy.
Speaker 2: This is Peter Jason, who's a bunch of John Carpenter
Speaker 2: films and all tons of other films, very recognizable character actor.
Speaker 3: He's got long hair and a beard. He's almost got
Speaker 3: kind of a Jeff Bridge's Duty vibe in the scene,
Speaker 3: except he's supposed to be a great martial arts teacher.
Speaker 3: And he informs Johnny that there is a way for
Speaker 3: him to restore his credibility, to put these rumors to
Speaker 3: rest rob It's exactly as you were saying. There is
Speaker 3: a once in a generation fight to the death martial
Speaker 3: arts tournament called Mortal Kombat being held in secret on
Speaker 3: an island off Hong Kong. And so his teacher says,
Speaker 3: get on a boat at a specific time and place,
Speaker 3: go to the tournament, win it, and the press will
Speaker 3: stop saying you're a fraud. This has got to be
Speaker 3: one of the worst like PR plans I've ever heard of.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, in fact, I'm kind of surprised nobody has.
Speaker 2: Maybe somebody has done this up as a complete comedy.
Speaker 2: This would, I think be a great theme for a flick.
Speaker 2: Have a more comedically problematic martial arts actor. And then
Speaker 2: they do this. They enter a super secret, single elimination
Speaker 2: death tournament in order to fix their PR problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh dude, actually no, here, it's coming to my
Speaker 3: mind now. So it's like written by Armando Ayanucci, but
Speaker 3: it's about the real Steven Segal going to a Mortal
Speaker 3: Kombat type tournament.
Speaker 2: Because what's the best case scenario here He returns having
Speaker 2: murdered multiple people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, and then another funny thing is that after
Speaker 3: Johnny Cage leaves there's nobody around. We just see Master
Speaker 3: Boyd walking around in this airplane hangar, and then he
Speaker 3: just morphs into Shang Sung himself. So it wasn't even
Speaker 3: Master Boyd. He was never there, it was Shang Sung.
Speaker 2: He's a trickster.
Speaker 3: Okay. So the next scene we're back to lu Kang. Here,
Speaker 3: we have Lukang arriving by riverboat at a place that
Speaker 3: we're told is the Temple of Light China. Again, I
Speaker 3: think this is probably a Thai temple.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I'm almost certain this is a Thai temple,
Speaker 2: but we're told it's a Chinese temple. And then we
Speaker 2: have Christophe Lambert stroll in as a video game god
Speaker 2: based on a Japanese thunder deity. So culturally we're all
Speaker 2: over the place here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But when Lukang, so we got to get there
Speaker 3: in a second, Lukang is greeted by an assembly of
Speaker 3: monks in red robes, including his grandfather, who is some
Speaker 3: kind of authority figure for this organization that the movie
Speaker 3: calls the Order of Light. So I think the backstory
Speaker 3: is that lu Kang and his brother Chan were trained
Speaker 3: in kung Fu by the Order of Light, and they
Speaker 3: were brought up to defend the realm of Earth in
Speaker 3: the tournament of Mortal Kombat. So the lore of the
Speaker 3: tournament and the lore of the movie is already owned
Speaker 3: to lu Kang. He was brought up in it. He
Speaker 3: was always taught this. But lu Kang rejected and ran
Speaker 3: away from his destiny and went to America. So he
Speaker 3: became a skeptic, and now he believes the whole premise
Speaker 3: is nonsense. So in his absence, his brother Chan took
Speaker 3: his place as the designated heir to fight in the tournament,
Speaker 3: and Chan fought in the last tournament. He was killed
Speaker 3: in the fighting, and the monks found his body on
Speaker 3: the grounds of the temple.
Speaker 2: And so that is why lu Kang has received this
Speaker 2: call to adventure, or I guess telegram to adventure. Hey,
Speaker 2: you need to come back in come back into this
Speaker 2: underworld because only you can defeat this monstrous threat we're facing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we need you for one last mission. That was
Speaker 3: a long time ago. General. But so Lukang tells his
Speaker 3: grandfather about the dream he had, and this is interpreted
Speaker 3: as a sign. The dream means that he is now
Speaker 3: once again the chosen one to defend humankind at the
Speaker 3: Tournament of Mortal Kombat. Lukang is skeptical of this stuff
Speaker 3: about the dream and the magic. He says he does
Speaker 3: want to represent the Order of Light at the tournament,
Speaker 3: but only because the man who killed his brother will
Speaker 3: be there and he wants revenge. So for him at
Speaker 3: the beginning, it's just a revenge story. Now Here is
Speaker 3: where Christoph Lambert comes in. We see an old man
Speaker 3: dressed in tattered robes and a large straw hat that
Speaker 3: hides his face, and as he wanders in through the
Speaker 3: temple grounds, the Monk's bow in his presence, and the
Speaker 3: grandfather says to Lukang that this is Lord Raydan. But
Speaker 3: Lukang's not buying it. He says, get up, grandfather, this
Speaker 3: is a simple beggar. But then Rayden sort of proves
Speaker 3: his identity by flipping Lukang on his back and making
Speaker 3: electricity shoot out of his eyeballs. We get some cute
Speaker 3: dialogue here, like Lukang is mouthing off to Raydin and
Speaker 3: the grandfather says, spare him, Lord Raydon, American life has
Speaker 3: enfeebled his mind too much television, And then Raydon makes
Speaker 3: some cutting comments about lu Kang Thing's personal failures. He
Speaker 3: says that you know you ran away from the temple
Speaker 3: not because you didn't believe it, but because you couldn't
Speaker 3: accept responsibility for protecting earth. And then Lukang says to him,
Speaker 3: if you are Lord Raydon, why did you let Chan die?
Speaker 3: Why didn't you protect him? Raidn's comeback? Why didn't you?
Speaker 3: It's like nonsensical because Lukang is not omnipotent and had
Speaker 3: no idea what was going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there, though, I guess to Rayden's point, like he
Speaker 2: isn't either, right. I mean he may see more and
Speaker 2: know more and move around a lot easier than mortals,
Speaker 2: but I mean he's not like a Judeo Christian god
Speaker 2: or anything.
Speaker 3: Okay, limited great power god. Yeah, anyway, this whole scene
Speaker 3: ends with Lukang. He tells off Raidin and he's like,
Speaker 3: I don't need you, and he tells his grandfather that
Speaker 3: he's going to the tournament to get revenge, whether he
Speaker 3: gets consent from them or not. And then once again
Speaker 3: some really good hype music here. As we watch lu
Speaker 3: Kang stride away from the temple, there are rhythmic bells
Speaker 3: and heavy drums, and this part I felt really hyped up.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, good hide machine on this one.
Speaker 3: Now, the next scene is another one of my favorites
Speaker 3: in the movie is the scene of the boat arriving
Speaker 3: at the dock in Hong Kong and then departing for
Speaker 3: the tournament. So first we have Johnny Cage arriving in
Speaker 3: a limo and he asks Lukang to carry his luggage
Speaker 3: for him. Lukang takes one of his suitcases and throws
Speaker 3: it in the water, and then we get more of
Speaker 3: the kind of cutesy lines where Johnny Cage is like, wow,
Speaker 3: good thing, I didn't ask him to park the car.
Speaker 3: But here Johnny Cage runs into an old acquaintance named
Speaker 3: Art Lean that remember in the last episode we were
Speaker 3: talking about I think there is a piece of music
Speaker 3: called like arts theme or something. Oh no over Art, yes,
Speaker 3: and so we were discussing, now that's not the word art.
Speaker 3: There's a character named Art and a character with a
Speaker 3: quite unfortunate fate later in the film. So you know,
Speaker 3: they they catch up, they've seen each other fight before.
Speaker 3: You know, there's mutual respect there. But then they are
Speaker 3: interrupted when this hilarious boat rolls in. It's like the
Speaker 3: boat that It's like the boat that King Arthur and
Speaker 3: Betevere ride at the end of Monty Python and the
Speaker 3: Holy Grail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my instant thought was that it looked like a
Speaker 2: hell Raiser parade float. Like it's just got that much,
Speaker 2: you know, fake smoke going on. It just it looks goofy.
Speaker 2: It's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Also, Sonya Blade and her partner Jack's are here.
Speaker 3: We learned that they were tipped off by one of
Speaker 3: Kano's associates at the Hong Kong Techno Metal Club and
Speaker 3: she chases she like sees Kano getting onto the boat,
Speaker 3: and she runs off through the fog to get on
Speaker 3: the boat herself and her partner like yells at her, Sonya,
Speaker 3: don't get on that thing. I would not advise anyone
Speaker 3: to get on that thing. But anyway, you know, here's
Speaker 3: here on the boat is where we finally assemble our
Speaker 3: three main heroes. Johnny Cage for the first third of
Speaker 3: the movie is carrying like eight different pieces of luggage
Speaker 3: and he's so he's struggling with all that stuff and
Speaker 3: he has a head on collision with Sonya. Sonya reacts
Speaker 3: by putting a pistol against his chin, and she demands
Speaker 3: to know where Cano is. Obviously, Johnny Cage is not
Speaker 3: clued in. But this moment is the beginning of a
Speaker 3: very prominent dynamic in the character relations throughout the film,
Speaker 3: which is hate flirting. This is where Johnny Cage and
Speaker 3: Sonya Blade will spend a lot of time just kind
Speaker 3: of like insulting and taking shots at each other and
Speaker 3: making two D comments at each other before their romantic
Speaker 3: subplot fully blossoms. So Sonya is how would you describe it?
Speaker 3: She is very on mission. She's like, she's like, doesn't
Speaker 3: have time to be nice to anybody. She's like, out
Speaker 3: of my way, I gotta find Cano. And so she
Speaker 3: ends up going below decks to look for Kno and
Speaker 3: there runs into our our wonderful sorcerer Shang Sung. Johnny
Speaker 3: Cage and Lukang follow her down to help her out,
Speaker 3: but she's very indignant. She does not want their help,
Speaker 3: she does not need their help. She did not ask
Speaker 3: for their help, and this is one of the crucial
Speaker 3: features of her character that she learns she must overcome
Speaker 3: in the end.
Speaker 2: It's very blue below decks too. I want to I
Speaker 2: want to add that the blue gels were out in force.
Speaker 2: It's not as over the top as that green bedroom
Speaker 2: of Lu Kang.
Speaker 3: Though there's a lot of blue going on in multiple
Speaker 3: places here. I think it's blue once they get back
Speaker 3: up on deck later also, uh, but so they're they're
Speaker 3: down below decks. And then Shangsung invites in his two
Speaker 3: Ninja warriors. He says these Oscorpion and sub Zero the
Speaker 3: deadliest of enemies, but slaves under my power.
Speaker 2: And this is this is an important point though, because
Speaker 2: in the game, and I think even by this point,
Speaker 2: certainly by two and three, this is well established. Scorpion
Speaker 2: and sub Zero have a very intense dynamic where Scorpion
Speaker 2: is a vengeful revenant and sub Zero or at least different.
Speaker 2: They're different, they're different people who get the name sub Zero.
Speaker 2: But the original sub Zero is the person who killed
Speaker 2: Scorpion's family, and so it's actually well, it's pretty well
Speaker 2: established in the lore again by this point, but this
Speaker 2: movie just makes them be the miscellaneous demon demon bodyguards
Speaker 2: or demon soldiers of Shanks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is weird that they're on the same team
Speaker 3: in this movie, and I think they're trying to do
Speaker 3: a quick. You know, one sentence retcon of that by
Speaker 3: just saying, yeah, they are enemies, but I've magically ensorceled them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and these are the two characters that are often,
Speaker 2: especially in Scorpions case, are generally on the box art
Speaker 2: for the game. Maybe that kind of more developed with
Speaker 2: later games, but yeah, these two are really the star
Speaker 2: of the franchise. And I think that I haven't seen
Speaker 2: the latest Mortal Kombat film, but it's my understanding that
Speaker 2: that is very much reflected in the picture, in the
Speaker 2: way that they cast these roles into the way they're
Speaker 2: present it.
Speaker 3: Now, Rob, maybe you know more about the games than
Speaker 3: me and can answer this. I have long interpreted the
Speaker 3: popularity of characters like Scorpion, sub Zero, Reptile, and so
Speaker 3: forth in these games to be a sort of efficiency
Speaker 3: or cost cutting move, because they are the same animation
Speaker 3: with just different colors of the outer ninja, where like
Speaker 3: the animation could be exactly the same.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly right. Especially in these early games. You
Speaker 2: know they were doing motion capture. It's more than just
Speaker 2: motion capture though, because they were I don't remember the
Speaker 2: exact video game production terminology, but they're like filming actors.
Speaker 2: In actual costumes, but then they can change that. They
Speaker 2: can swap the colors out, and that way you only
Speaker 2: have to have one actor in there to do all
Speaker 2: of the ninjas. You may get some alternate takes, different
Speaker 2: moves or different sort of stances, and certainly fatalities, but
Speaker 2: less work. You don't have to completely start from scratch
Speaker 2: on your next character.
Speaker 3: Yeah, seems like kin the same character Sprite, except blue
Speaker 3: for sub Zero, yellow for Scorpion, and green for Reptile.
Speaker 2: So it is kind of interesting that some of the
Speaker 2: most iconic, most developed and fan favorite characters in the
Speaker 2: game are the interchangeable ninjas. Yeah, be it these male
Speaker 2: ninjas or the female warriors we get in MK two
Speaker 2: and beyond, like Katana and of course Melina.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So sub Zero comes up to Sonia and
Speaker 3: he like grabs the end of her gun and freezes
Speaker 3: the barrel off, so now Sonia she doesn't have her
Speaker 3: weapons anymore. Scorpion he holds up his hand and some
Speaker 3: kind of weird CGI creature with a beak and a
Speaker 3: tongue pokes out of his palm. This does tie into
Speaker 3: something in the games. In the games, one of the
Speaker 3: special moves of Scorpion character is that he would throw
Speaker 3: a spear that's attached to a rope that would hit you,
Speaker 3: and then he could pull you over to him in
Speaker 3: a stunned state and uppercut you or whatever, and he
Speaker 3: would say get over here or maybe just come here.
Speaker 3: In the game, would they say. I think they said
Speaker 3: get over here in the movie, But in the movie
Speaker 3: they changed that like spear on a rope into a
Speaker 3: living snakelike creature. That's a choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is definitely worth pointing out. Yeah, Scorpion in
Speaker 2: the Games is More is generally depicted as having a
Speaker 2: traditional ninja weapon, a kunai rope dart, and then often
Speaker 2: a ninja sword. And I remember really digging the way
Speaker 2: they embellished the weapon in this film back when it
Speaker 2: came out. Yeah, not a ninja weapon, but a weird
Speaker 2: snake creature that shoots out of Scorpion's palm and climbs
Speaker 2: out of it out of the slit in his palm.
Speaker 2: I loved it, and I was often disappointed that they
Speaker 2: didn't incorporate that into the games and make it cannon.
Speaker 2: But man, upon revisiting this film, I have to say,
Speaker 2: these cgi effects do not hold up. No it's a
Speaker 2: fun concept and I still enjoy all these scenes with
Speaker 2: Scorpion in them. He has one of the best fights,
Speaker 2: if not the best fight in the picture coming up.
Speaker 2: But who does this CGI? Did not age one?
Speaker 3: I agree, it is not good. I think it's not
Speaker 3: quite as bad as the Reptile CGI, but it's bad.
Speaker 2: All The Reptile CGI is the worst.
Speaker 3: Okay, But here we're in the We're in the belly
Speaker 3: of the boat, this weird, creaky boat, and the Ninjas
Speaker 3: are about to kill our heroes. So what's gonna happen?
Speaker 3: How are they done?
Speaker 2: For?
Speaker 3: No, they are saved by divine intervention. Lord Raydon appears
Speaker 3: Christoph Lambert like. He shoots down into the hold of
Speaker 3: the boat in some ball of energy form and then
Speaker 3: he zaps both of the Ninjas into submission.
Speaker 2: And the CGI here is also horrible. Raiden's lightning powers
Speaker 2: in the game were clearly inspired by the lightning character
Speaker 2: in Big Trouble in Little China. And those are those
Speaker 2: effects which are in Big Trouble a Little China. Amazing great, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they absolutely hold up today. I used to watch him
Speaker 2: in slow motion when I was a kid, So in
Speaker 2: this film, Raidin uses cgi bursts of blue and orange fire,
Speaker 2: and it's just absolutely hideous.
Speaker 3: He says something like, your sideshow freaks attack my fighters
Speaker 3: before the tournament. This is cheating, and Sheng Sung just
Speaker 3: he's very smooth and he just promises, oh, it won't
Speaker 3: happen again, Lord Raidin, but he reminds Raidin that once
Speaker 3: they reach the island, Raidin will have no power. So
Speaker 3: I think the lore is that here Raydon is serving
Speaker 3: a kind of referee role, like he can't fight in
Speaker 3: the tournament himself, but he is allowed to intervene to
Speaker 3: keep things fair according to the rules of the tournament
Speaker 3: endorsed by the Emperor, which include the provision that you
Speaker 3: can't have random supernatural ninjas kill all the Earth Fighters
Speaker 3: before you even get to the tournament. I don't know
Speaker 3: why the Emperor endorses these rules or thinks he needs
Speaker 3: to play fair. Do you understand that?
Speaker 2: No, especially what we know about the Emperor and come
Speaker 2: to know about him later, It's like, I don't know
Speaker 2: why he's so lawful evil in all of this. There
Speaker 2: just must be some like you know, he's playing by
Speaker 2: rules set by other supernatural entities, like he has to
Speaker 2: play by the rules you know, exploit them been the
Speaker 2: rules where he can, but he still has to make
Speaker 2: use of them to conquer other realms.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So anyway, this early sneak attack by Shingsong is averted,
Speaker 3: and our heroes sort of follow Raydon up onto the
Speaker 3: surface of the boat to get a scene with just
Speaker 3: a huge lore dump. We're going to get a bunch
Speaker 3: of exposition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Cage has a whole bit here ranting about the
Speaker 2: supernatural after the introduction of sub Zero and Scorpion that
Speaker 2: it reminds me a lot of that wonderful line that
Speaker 2: we had in the movie The Eliminators that we watched
Speaker 2: the whole We've got robots, we've got cavemen, we've got
Speaker 2: kung fu. Is this some kind of comic book? And
Speaker 2: in this Cage is saying, we got a guy with
Speaker 2: things coming out of his hands, we got another guy
Speaker 2: who freez this stuff, and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's actually to call back to a movie we've
Speaker 3: brought up several times in today's episode. It reminds me
Speaker 3: of Jack Burton's line in Big Trouble in Little China
Speaker 3: when he's like, we've got guys flying around on wires,
Speaker 3: cutting everybody to shreds there's a guy standing there with
Speaker 3: light coming out of his mouth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, solid connection.
Speaker 3: But interestingly, by this point, even though he starts the
Speaker 3: movie very much in skeptical refusing the call mode, Lukang
Speaker 3: quickly transitions back into believing everything. He's just like, this
Speaker 3: is Lord Raydon, that he is the god of thunder
Speaker 3: and lightning. Sonia isn't quite there yet. She's saying I think.
Speaker 3: She literally says, come on, there must be a rational
Speaker 3: explanation for all this, And then we get Raydon doing
Speaker 3: one of the first of many kind of motivational PEP
Speaker 3: talks that he gives our heroes throughout the movie. He
Speaker 3: is kind of a life coach in a way. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so he comes in and our heroes he says, listen,
Speaker 3: what you're about to face is more important than He
Speaker 3: turns to Cage and he says, your ego. He turns
Speaker 3: to Sonya and he says your enemy. And he turns
Speaker 3: to Lukang and says, or your quest for revenge. You
Speaker 3: are about to embark on a secret mission. You have
Speaker 3: been chosen to defend the realm of Earth in a
Speaker 3: tournament called Mortal Combat. Sonya asks, well, who are they
Speaker 3: going to defend it from? And Lord Raydon explains. He says,
Speaker 3: your world is but one of many realms. One of
Speaker 3: them is a forsaken land called Outworld, ruled by an
Speaker 3: immortal who has crowned himself Emperor. Now he seeks a
Speaker 3: new world to conquer an enslave. Now, Johnny Cage, I think,
Speaker 3: asks a reasonable question. If he's so powerful, why doesn't
Speaker 3: he just come and take our world? Now, Lord Raidin says,
Speaker 3: there are rules. These are the rules we were just
Speaker 3: talking about. To enter the realm of Earth. Rayden says,
Speaker 3: the Emperor's demon sorcerer Shansung has to win ten straight
Speaker 3: victories in mortal combat, and they have one nine in
Speaker 3: a row. This is the tenth tournament, so it's down
Speaker 3: to the wire now.
Speaker 2: You know, I guess maybe the elder gods put this
Speaker 2: system in place because they realize, well, not every world,
Speaker 2: every realm is going to be able to muster up
Speaker 2: an army to combat shal Kan's army. But maybe you
Speaker 2: could get together, like five really good fighters, you know enough,
Speaker 2: compete in a tournament, and maybe that makes things a
Speaker 2: bit more fair.
Speaker 3: Now, sometime later in this conversation, we get several exchanges
Speaker 3: that are extensively clipped in both the trailer and all
Speaker 3: of the techno tracks the feature of this movie, like
Speaker 3: that part where Sonya is like, a handful of people
Speaker 3: in a leaky boat are going to save the world,
Speaker 3: and Raydon says exactly. But he's very you know, Raidn's
Speaker 3: very positive on Mortal Kombat. He's like, think about it, guys.
Speaker 3: You know, Mortal Kombat is not about death but life. Yeah.
Speaker 3: For some reason, when he says that, I believe it.
Speaker 2: This is exactly what I'm sure a lot of eleven
Speaker 2: and twelve years to tell their parents. This game isn't
Speaker 2: about death, mom and dad. This is actually it's about life.
Speaker 2: This is it's mortal combat. It's about individual exceptionalism and
Speaker 2: about living your life to the max. Don't focus on
Speaker 2: the death. I think you're a little shortsighted.
Speaker 3: Here, and it's about saving the world. Come on, don't
Speaker 3: you want to save the world? Raydon tells that at
Speaker 3: the end of this whole conversation, he says, I'll try
Speaker 3: to do my Christalf Lambert voice. He says, the fate
Speaker 3: of billions depends upon you.
Speaker 2: Sorry, did he really do the laugh? At that point?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he does.
Speaker 2: I know he does it in the film. I just
Speaker 2: can't remember where he throws it in.
Speaker 3: Oh he chuckles like that several times.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: But then two different characters tell us that it has begun. Remember,
Speaker 3: Rayn's like, it has begun. And then Shang Sung is
Speaker 3: standing there at the edge of the boat and he's like,
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's reaching up to a bunch of
Speaker 3: ghosts running around in the air, and he goes, it
Speaker 3: has begun.
Speaker 2: And yet the crazy thing is that it has not
Speaker 2: begun yet. No, they have not even arrived. It's like,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't say this in the last third of your
Speaker 2: flight going to your vacation destination, right, you would say
Speaker 2: it has begun. Like it's a weird time to choose
Speaker 2: to say that.
Speaker 3: They're in the middle of the ocean.
Speaker 2: It has not begun international waters. Maybe.
Speaker 3: So the next thing that happens in the movie is
Speaker 3: the arrival at the island. It is a beautiful location.
Speaker 3: They filmed this at one of those Thai islands with
Speaker 3: the steep rock walls rising straight out of the ocean,
Speaker 3: those very conical, high rising Thi Thai islands. So they're beautiful.
Speaker 3: There are a number of just yuck yucks about Johnny
Speaker 3: Cage fussing over his excessive amount of fancy luggage, more
Speaker 3: hate flirting between him and Sonia. The fighters have to
Speaker 3: climb a mountain on this mysterious island to reach a
Speaker 3: temple above the clouds where the opening ceremonies of the
Speaker 3: tournament are going to take place. And inside inside this
Speaker 3: temple it's like a cave with torches, sta statues of
Speaker 3: monster gladiators in a very orange glow everywhere. Oh and
Speaker 3: when they arrive at the temple, there is one of
Speaker 3: the few lines in the movie that actually made me
Speaker 3: laugh as intended on adult viewing, which is Johnny Cage
Speaker 3: like looking at the like the monster gladiators and the torches,
Speaker 3: and he's like, gee, I wonder what the bathrooms are like.
Speaker 3: It's a good line, makes you wonder, Yeah, what are
Speaker 3: they like? I guess I would think you just get
Speaker 3: a bucket.
Speaker 2: Well, you do have that level in MK two that's
Speaker 2: like the sewer. I guess it's that you just go
Speaker 2: out onto that little walkway and Papa squad.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: Also in the scene, lu Kang first runs into Princess Katana.
Speaker 3: She is the character who is kind of the mysterious
Speaker 3: person with ambiguous loyalties, who is a denizen of outworld,
Speaker 3: but she seems to possibly be interested in helping the
Speaker 3: residents of Earth. And she's sitting under an umbrella just
Speaker 3: giving very important looks. Oh but right after this we
Speaker 3: get one of the worst things. So Shang Sung walks
Speaker 3: up and he says, Princess Katana, she is our most
Speaker 3: dangerous adversary. Watch over her, Reptile, keep her away from
Speaker 3: these humans. And you think, reptile, who's he talking to?
Speaker 3: But nearby him there is a monster statue, one of
Speaker 3: the mini monster statues, and this one turns from a
Speaker 3: statue into living cgi and it looks like the coloration
Speaker 3: on this reptilian monster looks like the old packaging of
Speaker 3: a tube of life Saver's candy, you know what I'm
Speaker 3: talking about. Yeah, Yeah, And then it turns in. It
Speaker 3: turns invisible like the predator, and then scurries away. Reptile
Speaker 3: looks so awful.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember this being a little heartbreaking to watch
Speaker 2: when I watched this film for the first time, because
Speaker 2: Reptile was always one of my favorites. You know, he's
Speaker 2: a green ninja that underneath his mask a reptilian creature
Speaker 2: that spits acid and turns invisible. He's awesome, and then,
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, look what they have done to him here.
Speaker 3: So everybody goes to a feast here. There's like a
Speaker 3: meal to inaugurate the tournament. They don't let you get
Speaker 3: a good look at the food, unfortunately, Shan, I'm really
Speaker 3: bummed out. We will get a look at some of
Speaker 3: the food in the subsequent scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we don't get much dining here. They almost
Speaker 2: immediately flip the tables to make rooms for combat. Like
Speaker 2: it seems like this would be a great place to
Speaker 2: have a little bit more exposition going on, you know,
Speaker 2: do it George R. Martin style? What would George R.
Speaker 2: Martin's Mortal Kombat consist of. It would be this big
Speaker 2: feast going on for about fifteen minutes exactly.
Speaker 3: We'd get to hear what hear and see what the
Speaker 3: food is like, and they would explain more of what's
Speaker 3: going on. Instead, he serves them all this food, and
Speaker 3: then right after the food is served, these shirtless muscled warriors,
Speaker 3: many of them are. They're really greased up and shiny
Speaker 3: or sweaty, with these long loose red head coverings. I
Speaker 3: don't if that is a particular type of head covering
Speaker 3: in the real world. It looks I would kind of
Speaker 3: assume not. It looks just kind of like a huge
Speaker 3: sock over their heads with holes for the eyes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are some later scenes where I think some
Speaker 2: of these guys are not wearing the hood over their head,
Speaker 2: and they should have because some of these extras are
Speaker 2: a little bit too like jacked up, you know, a
Speaker 2: little bit too distracting in the background with wild facial expressions.
Speaker 3: But Shangsung gives a speech here, so he's got the
Speaker 3: muscle guys standing around, and he gives a speech where
Speaker 3: he says, welcome. You are here to compete in mortal combat.
Speaker 3: Tomorrow morning the great combat begins. Some of you will
Speaker 3: even have the distinct honor and pleasure to face Prince Goro,
Speaker 3: our reigning champion. You were all witnesses to one of
Speaker 3: the greatest turning points in the history of your planet.
Speaker 3: Treasure these moments as if they were your last, and
Speaker 3: now for a taste of things to come. That last
Speaker 3: line is sampled in some of the music on the soundtrack.
Speaker 3: And here are the muscle goons. This is the part
Speaker 3: where they run in and flip the feast tables over.
Speaker 3: They throw all the food on the floor, and it's
Speaker 3: time for an exhibition match, the first fight of Mini.
Speaker 3: So one of the muscle goons must fight sub Zero.
Speaker 3: So the shirtless guy does a bunch of shadow boxing,
Speaker 3: and then he starts running at sub Zero, who's just
Speaker 3: standing at the other side of the room, sort of
Speaker 3: sucking in a ball of cold into the palm of
Speaker 3: his hand, and as he jumps into the air to
Speaker 3: kick at sub Zero, sub Zero throws the ball and
Speaker 3: freezes the guy solid, causing him to shatter all over
Speaker 3: the floor.
Speaker 2: I remember loving this moment back when the original film
Speaker 2: came out, and it holds up pretty well. You know,
Speaker 2: some criticisms of the CGI aside, this is a good
Speaker 2: use of mid nineties CGI.
Speaker 3: It's not a fight though sub Zero.
Speaker 2: He Indiana Jones in right here is what.
Speaker 3: Happens exactly, but with ice. And then I think Schnsung
Speaker 3: says lawless victory, which is a line from the video
Speaker 3: game when one player defeats another one without taking a
Speaker 3: single punch. Right after this, there's a sequence with our
Speaker 3: heroes doing a bunch of sneaking around. Our three main
Speaker 3: heroes are running in and out of tunnels looking for Shangsung.
Speaker 3: There's plenty of banter and hate flirting along the way,
Speaker 3: but unknown to them, they are being watched. And here
Speaker 3: we do get some kind of scary scenes. There's like
Speaker 3: a scene where we see this huge three fingered hand
Speaker 3: sort of stroking across the inside of these stone cage
Speaker 3: bars as a creature with a deep rumbling voice is
Speaker 3: clearly watching our heroes as they're sneaking around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this is of course Goro's hand. This is
Speaker 2: the best he'll look the entire film, but it is
Speaker 2: legitimately creepy in a nice moment, I think. Not too
Speaker 2: long after this, we get a tease of Goro's shadow,
Speaker 2: which also looks great, and you're like, I can't wait
Speaker 2: to see what they've done here. I can't wait to
Speaker 2: see how Goro looks.
Speaker 3: But they turn it into a comedy moment where Johnny
Speaker 3: Cage says to Sonya, He's like, you go ahead, Sonya,
Speaker 3: find out what that was. We'll wait here, so you know, haha.
Speaker 3: But then we get a scene between Goro and Cano,
Speaker 3: which is one of my favorite scenes in the film.
Speaker 2: It really feels like something's missing here because we had
Speaker 2: like the teas, the teas and then full reveal. Here's
Speaker 2: just Goro having a conversation with Kano.
Speaker 3: You would think they would unveil him gradually, like in
Speaker 3: a fight scene or something, but no, we just get
Speaker 3: a good old look at him in this scene, and
Speaker 3: he is hideous. But Cano and Goro are hanging out
Speaker 3: while Cano is just eating food. He's eating this big
Speaker 3: greasy turkey leg. He's got a bucket of wine. The
Speaker 3: turkey leg is just squirting juice everywhere. For people who
Speaker 3: aren't familiar, should we take a moment to physically described Goro? What?
Speaker 3: What does he look like? Here?
Speaker 2: His what's his species? Is a shoken I believe if
Speaker 2: I'm remember incorrectly, four armed entity, like an ogre with
Speaker 2: four arms. The arm placement does not make a lot
Speaker 2: of sense. It's always a challenge to try and imagine
Speaker 2: what this skeleton looks like under here. And yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: he's he's he's he's very cool looking in the video
Speaker 2: game where he has a stop motion entity. In this
Speaker 2: he is, you know, admirably. He is a fully practical effect,
Speaker 2: a mix of suit performance and you know, puppetry animatronics,
Speaker 2: but it just as we discussed in the last episode,
Speaker 2: it doesn't quite cut it, especially in a scene like
Speaker 2: this where they're really trying to make him as life
Speaker 2: like as possible as he is having a conversation with
Speaker 2: a live actor. It's not a fight. He's not ripping
Speaker 2: someone in half. He is. They're doing the best, you know,
Speaker 2: they could. You make him a living entity who is
Speaker 2: expressing his own like desires and motivations here, and I
Speaker 2: think they just they bit off more than they could
Speaker 2: chew because it doesn't quite work.
Speaker 3: But Goro in the scene, the emotion they're trying to
Speaker 3: convey is that he is getting very annoyed at Kno
Speaker 3: disrespecting his royal his royal line. I guess so Keno's like,
Speaker 3: oh you some kind of royalty, and Goro's like, I
Speaker 3: am Goro. I'm the general of the armies of out
Speaker 3: world and the prince of the subterranean realm of Shokan.
Speaker 3: And then Keano is like subterranean underground, so he's not
Speaker 3: he's not showing proper respect. And you get the sense
Speaker 3: that Goro maybe wants to just like you know, eat
Speaker 3: cano here or something. But it doesn't quite happen because
Speaker 3: Shensung walks in, and you know, Shensung comes in and explains,
Speaker 3: you know, he says, look, actually Cano is great. He
Speaker 3: can teach us a lot about Earth because look at him.
Speaker 3: You know, there's nothing special about him. He's not especially dignified,
Speaker 3: he has no manners, he's not really all that smart
Speaker 3: or you know, nothing good about him. Yet in the
Speaker 3: realm of Earth, men like him can amass great wealth,
Speaker 3: almost god like power. And then Keno says, yeah, I'd
Speaker 3: like to get back to my amassing as soon as possible,
Speaker 3: if you don't mind. So when do I get paid?
Speaker 3: And here it is again revealed that Cano. Before he
Speaker 3: can take his money and go home, Keno has to
Speaker 3: fight Sonia Blade in the tournament, but he is not
Speaker 3: to harm her, only to humiliate her because Shangsung has
Speaker 3: very important plans for her later in the contest.
Speaker 2: All right, we'll see what that consists of. Oh.
Speaker 3: Also in the scene, I think we hear our heroes expressing.
Speaker 3: The heroes overhear the villains expressing worry about lu Kang.
Speaker 3: They're concerned about him, they have to be careful about him,
Speaker 3: and they're they're you know, the heroes are like, what's
Speaker 3: so special about Lukang? Why him? But they're also concerned
Speaker 3: about Princess Katan. They say she is the Emperor of
Speaker 3: out World's daughter, and they're afraid she might intervene to
Speaker 3: help the fighters from the realm of Earth, so they
Speaker 3: have to be vigilant. Now there's a bunch more sneaking around.
Speaker 3: There is one encounter of our heroes with Reptile where
Speaker 3: reptile is invisible in a room, and it's like that
Speaker 3: scene in Predator. You know, we're only one of the
Speaker 3: guys sees it. Lu Kang apparently sees Reptile when nobody
Speaker 3: else does, or at least walks up to you know,
Speaker 3: he senses something and he like walks up to a
Speaker 3: void in the wall, and then Reptile suddenly comes out
Speaker 3: of invisibility, vomits a bunch of poison in Lukang's face,
Speaker 3: and then runs away. After that, the heroes come into
Speaker 3: Shangsung's feast room, and here we get the first real
Speaker 3: big fight. Actually, this is the fight where our heroes
Speaker 3: have to confront these muscle guys with the head coverings,
Speaker 3: and they do quite well.
Speaker 2: But then of course Rayden shows up and he does
Speaker 2: a slow clap it's so great, and we get another
Speaker 2: one of his I don't think so.
Speaker 3: That's right, I don't think so. And then Raydon leads
Speaker 3: our heroes to safety. We get more lectures from Raydon.
Speaker 3: Here he says, you know, to fight Shang Sung, you've
Speaker 3: got to fight face not just one, but a legion
Speaker 3: of enemies, because his power comes from the souls of
Speaker 3: those he has defeated in the past. So you're sort
Speaker 3: of fighting everyone. Shang Sung is ever beaten.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: The next morning, the main action of the movie begins,
Speaker 3: and from here the movie turns much more into just
Speaker 3: a sequence of fight scenes that that sounds like that
Speaker 3: could get a little monotonous, and I don't know, maybe
Speaker 3: you could say that it does. But the movie does
Speaker 3: better with it than you might expect, I think, because
Speaker 3: it doesn't let any of them go on too long.
Speaker 3: They're all there's a pretty rapid pace of developments, and
Speaker 3: most of the fights are pretty.
Speaker 2: Quick, right right. And the one in particular that I'm
Speaker 2: thinking of that does go on a bit long has
Speaker 2: a lot of variety in it, and it is just
Speaker 2: it is exciting from beginning to end.
Speaker 3: That's right. So the first fight we get to see
Speaker 3: the next morning is taking sort of on a I
Speaker 3: think it's on a beach outside back on the ground
Speaker 3: level of the island. Shang Sung kind of sits in
Speaker 3: a peacock throne overlooking all of the battles. He's like
Speaker 3: the referee or observer or something. And this is a
Speaker 3: fight where lu Kang has to face off against another
Speaker 3: human fighter. They've got a match with Bo Staves, so
Speaker 3: like nobody's fighting Goro yet. I think it starts with
Speaker 3: like the Earth realm fighters just fighting each other. I
Speaker 3: don't think we ever learned that the name of the
Speaker 3: guy Lukang is fighting here. But Lukang fights honorably and
Speaker 3: he wins. But there's a twist because after Lukang's opponent
Speaker 3: is defeated, Shehang Sung walks up to the guy and
Speaker 3: he reaches out and he sucks his soul out of
Speaker 3: his flesh. He says, your soul is mine, sucks the
Speaker 3: soul out, and then says fatality. Now that's not really
Speaker 3: how it worked in the game. Was it like the
Speaker 3: fatality was done by the fighter, not by Shehang Sung?
Speaker 2: Correct? Yes, so, and it gets clear that Shangsung's not
Speaker 2: playing fair here at all, Like, what do you mean
Speaker 2: taking the souls of guys you didn't even beat. That
Speaker 2: contradicts what Raydin just said.
Speaker 3: Next fight is Sonia Blade versus Kano. Okay, this has
Speaker 3: been coming a while. This is the Vendetta fight. We
Speaker 3: alluded to this earlier, but here in this at the
Speaker 3: beginning of this fight, Kano whips out a knife and
Speaker 3: brags about how he used it to kill her partner.
Speaker 3: Then he attacks her with it, and it's like, what
Speaker 3: he's allowed to do that? That's I don't know. Is
Speaker 3: this a tournament.
Speaker 2: It's a tournament legal.
Speaker 3: Okay, But Sonya just whoops him like she she does
Speaker 3: a move that her character in the game does where
Speaker 3: she stands on her hands and then grabs the dude
Speaker 3: by his neck with her ankles, slams him on the ground,
Speaker 3: and then does a kind of ground grapple with her
Speaker 3: calves around his neck. And now Kano's like, uh oh,
Speaker 3: I didn't expect it to go this way. He starts
Speaker 3: begging for mercy. Here, Shangsung does what he does in
Speaker 3: the game. Shangsung calls out to Sonya and says finish
Speaker 3: him and Kano, can you imagine what pun is coming?
Speaker 3: Cano says, come on, Sonya, give me a break, and
Speaker 3: she says okay and cracks his neck.
Speaker 2: All right, So, on one level, I was amused by
Speaker 2: and done with Kano at this point, so I wasn't
Speaker 2: sad that we weren't getting more Cano in the rest
Speaker 2: of the picture. But on the other hand, it is
Speaker 2: weird that we set Sonya up as a character whose
Speaker 2: only identity is her quest for revenge and she achieves
Speaker 2: full revenge like less than half into the picture. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then this is not one of those movies where
Speaker 2: the remainder of the picture is going to be like
Speaker 2: grappling with the guilt of vengeance or the ramifications of vengeance,
Speaker 2: the self destructive nature of vengeance. No, it's just kind
Speaker 2: of like, oh, that was her only reason to be
Speaker 2: around or do anything. Now we just have to just
Speaker 2: change her role in the narrative completely. Now she has
Speaker 2: to be damsel in distress.
Speaker 3: Now she turns into don't you dare do this to
Speaker 3: protect me? Johnny Cage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's it's a little bit clunky.
Speaker 3: So the next fight in the movie is Johnny Cage
Speaker 3: the movie star versus scorpion. I think this is as
Speaker 3: you alluded to. I think this is the longest fight
Speaker 3: in the movie probably, well maybe with the exception of
Speaker 3: the final fight between Lukeng and Shang Song, but this
Speaker 3: is the longest. But it's got a lot of variety,
Speaker 3: like changes locations midway through, and I think this one's
Speaker 3: pretty solid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this one absolutely holds up. Yeah, it's long,
Speaker 2: but the action choreography is tremendous. You believe all the hits.
Speaker 2: They even have some nice like supernatural wire moments in
Speaker 2: there that work really well. We get a change in location,
Speaker 2: it gets hellish, and both characters really feel like their
Speaker 2: video game personas here.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I like the location where they begin. It's like
Speaker 3: an orchard with these rows and rows of perfectly lined up,
Speaker 3: evenly spaced trees. I don't know what kind of trees
Speaker 3: they are, but it's a it's a kind of eerie
Speaker 3: setting because of the the combination of naturalness and unnaturalness
Speaker 3: about it. So I like that. And Johnny Cage uses
Speaker 3: one of the trees. He uses it to disable the
Speaker 3: the I don't know, the snake coming out of the
Speaker 3: hand weapon because he like dodges out of the way
Speaker 3: at the last second, and the snake slams into a
Speaker 3: tree and so so yeah, it's a pretty good fight.
Speaker 3: And also it does involve Scorpion trying to use his
Speaker 3: finishing move from the game where he takes his mask off,
Speaker 3: reveals his head as a skull, and then breathes fire
Speaker 3: on his opponent, but Johnny Cage outwits him by holding
Speaker 3: up a shield to shield himself from the flames and
Speaker 3: then using the edge of the shield to slice the
Speaker 3: Yellow Ninja open. And I don't know, just like a
Speaker 3: bunch of guts and weird stuff comes out, and then
Speaker 3: Scorpion explodes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this takes place I guess in Hell, I
Speaker 2: don't or some sort of hell. We don't know how
Speaker 2: Cage gets back from hell to reality, but he does it.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's not a literal hell. It's just like a
Speaker 2: basement of the Mortal Kombat Temple facilities here.
Speaker 3: Now, there was a part here that really confused me
Speaker 3: when I was a kid. So Scorpion, once he's defeated,
Speaker 3: he explodes, and then we see a photograph that is
Speaker 3: a photo of Johnny Cage like falling to the ground
Speaker 3: from the debris of the explosion and as ash is
Speaker 3: raining down all around and it's the photo of Johnny
Speaker 3: Cage is autographed and says to my greatest fan, Johnny Cage, xoxo,
Speaker 3: And I was like, what does that mean? I think
Speaker 3: I interpreted this when I was a kid, as in
Speaker 3: life before becoming an undead, skeletal ninja, Scorpion was a
Speaker 3: fan of Johnny Cage's movies and got an autographed photo
Speaker 3: and then became an undead ninja and just happened to
Speaker 3: have this souvenir on him.
Speaker 2: Well, I like the logic of that, but yeah, I
Speaker 2: think it's just Cage being cheeky. But the alternate interpret
Speaker 2: that you've shared here, it would lead to some interesting
Speaker 2: lore if this were the case.
Speaker 3: Okay, next fight they show us is lu Kang versus Katana.
Speaker 3: Shang Sung says they have to fight. It's clear that
Speaker 3: Katana is very powerful, but she's holding back. She doesn't
Speaker 3: want to hurt lu Kang. Instead, in this match, every
Speaker 3: time she grapples Lukang to a halt, she sort of
Speaker 3: whispers advice in his ear in these little increments, and
Speaker 3: she eventually tells him to win your next fight, use
Speaker 3: the element, which brings life.
Speaker 2: You know, this is not a good fight, This is
Speaker 2: not a fight you enjoy like watching so much, But
Speaker 2: it's about developing the plot and I think it also
Speaker 2: it's key when we talk about why this doesn't get
Speaker 2: boring having fight after fight after fight, is because they're
Speaker 2: pacing it out appropriately here where we have a big
Speaker 2: showcase battle between Scorpion and Johnny Cage and then a
Speaker 2: little battle that serves a different purpose entirely, and then
Speaker 2: we move on to maybe another flashier battle.
Speaker 3: That's right. So the next fight on the agenda is
Speaker 3: another one of the big demon Ninja fights. This is
Speaker 3: Lukang versus sub Zero, who again has freezing powers, and
Speaker 3: we saw earlier sub Zero froze an opponent so that
Speaker 3: he just froze solid and shattered on the floor. This
Speaker 3: is also a pretty good fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, solid fight, great set. I think this one has
Speaker 2: a really nice set, excellent lighting, solid fatality as well.
Speaker 3: There's one moment in this fight that really stuck with
Speaker 3: me when I was younger, which is the moment where
Speaker 3: sub Zero I think, kicks Lukang on the chin. I
Speaker 3: recall that really seeming like it would hurt, Like there's
Speaker 3: a scene like this in Raiders of the Lost Ark
Speaker 3: when Harrison Ford gets hit on the chin with a
Speaker 3: mirror that's flipping around. Yeah, I don't know, that's gross
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 2: I mean that's the mark of great action of filmmaking
Speaker 2: and great stunt work when you can feel those hits
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But so anyway, it's a good fight. In the beginning,
Speaker 3: they trade blows for a while. Sub Zero is clearly
Speaker 3: prepared to freeze Lukang solid he's gathered bring the sort
Speaker 3: of CGI snow into the palm of his hand. The
Speaker 3: magic is swirling around, and Lukang's like, how can I
Speaker 3: beat that? But then he remembers Katana's advice, and I
Speaker 3: think we even see her at the other end of
Speaker 3: the room, like making eyes at him, and he's like,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, what is the element that brings life?
Speaker 3: It's water. So he gets a bucket of water and
Speaker 3: he heaves it into sub Zero's sphere of cold and
Speaker 3: it forms a spike spike of ice that pins the
Speaker 3: evil ninja to the wall. Now, at this point in
Speaker 3: the story, Shangsong has had enough. He's let the humans
Speaker 3: win enough. It's time to deploy Prince Goro, who nobody
Speaker 3: can defeat, and then there's like a montage of Goro
Speaker 3: destroying most of the human fighters in the tournament. This
Speaker 3: leads up to the scene of Goro versus Art Lean,
Speaker 3: the guy we met earlier who you know, who had
Speaker 3: some previous experience with Johnny Cage, and so we see
Speaker 3: this whole fight. Goro gets a like a WWE style
Speaker 3: entrance where the door's open and everybody but he's cheering
Speaker 3: for him. And why are all these human fighters in
Speaker 3: the audience cheering for Goro?
Speaker 2: They like strength, they love the champion.
Speaker 3: He's here to destroy their Earth realm, but they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you fight him.
Speaker 2: This scene is where Goro looks the best. I have
Speaker 2: to say. He still doesn't look tremendous, but he looks
Speaker 2: a lot better in action here against Art.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right now. Art Lene does okay. Initially, he
Speaker 3: gets some punches in by being faster than Goro, but
Speaker 3: Goro's just too big and he eventually grabs Art's fists
Speaker 3: with his two lower arms and then just beats him
Speaker 3: with his upper arms, and finally Goro finishes him with
Speaker 3: a with a horrible strike. And I remember the scene
Speaker 3: being kind of like scary and sad when I was
Speaker 3: a kid. And then Sheen Sung absorbs Art Lene's soul
Speaker 3: into his eyeball, and then for some reason, Sonya screams no,
Speaker 3: but it's not even suggested that she knows Art.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why doesn't Johnny Cage scream know he's the one
Speaker 3: who knows him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would make a lot more sense because ultimately,
Speaker 2: like that's the role Art has. Here is the kind
Speaker 2: of role we see in a lot of these martial
Speaker 2: arts tournament films where we have the kind of like
Speaker 2: sacrificial friend of the hero who gets beat up and
Speaker 2: or killed by the big bad in the tournament.
Speaker 3: So after this we get you know, your dark Knight
Speaker 3: of the Soul scenes where the characters are grappling with
Speaker 3: their fears and limitations and Rayden is sort of coaching
Speaker 3: them through being the life coach. Yet again, you know,
Speaker 3: he talks to lu Kang about his fears and his
Speaker 3: destiny and the how despair is the most dangerous fear
Speaker 3: of all. Lu Kang ends up sitting on a beach,
Speaker 3: flashing back to his dream about Chan. And then this
Speaker 3: is also the scene where we get Sonya and Johnny
Speaker 3: Cage arguing about whether John Cage should challenge Goro, and
Speaker 3: he's like, I'm gonna have to do it, and she says,
Speaker 3: don't you dare do this to protect me Johnny Cage
Speaker 3: and he says, trust me, I've got a plan. So okay,
Speaker 3: I'm curious what's his plan? How's he going to defeat
Speaker 3: this huge thing with four arms? So the next fight
Speaker 3: is Johnny Cage versus Goro, and Johnny Cage goes to Shangsung.
Speaker 3: He's like, all right, I'm ready. I'm ready to fight Goro.
Speaker 3: Shang Sung says, foolish but brave. Raydon tries to intervene
Speaker 3: to stop this, but it's too late. A deal's a deal.
Speaker 3: He can't stop it. So the Cage versus Goro fight.
Speaker 3: What do you think? When I was a kid, I
Speaker 3: loved this fight because it I would say, largely because
Speaker 3: it features a prominent groin punch, which I found hilarious
Speaker 3: when I was younger, and then also because it's got
Speaker 3: It's got a cliff, and I love a fight at
Speaker 3: the edge of a cliff. That's just classic action movie gold.
Speaker 2: My feelings about it were a bit different. I thought
Speaker 2: that the the nard punch just made Gore looks stupid,
Speaker 2: and I was like, no, I mean said, the Goro
Speaker 2: is supposed to be tough. We've just built him up
Speaker 2: as tough, and now you've made him look foolish. And
Speaker 2: then there's I feel like there's very little action between
Speaker 2: these two characters. It's not much of a fight. And
Speaker 2: then Johnny Cage kind of like trips him off a
Speaker 2: cliff and he falls into a into an idealer or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so the fight begins with Oh. At the
Speaker 3: beginning of the fight, Goro's like gloating, and he takes
Speaker 3: Johnny Cage's sunglasses out of his pocket or maybe off
Speaker 3: of his face and smashes them and Johnny Cage doesn't
Speaker 3: like that, but he says his line again you remember
Speaker 3: from the beginning when he goes Let's dance, So he
Speaker 3: says that, but then he does the splits. He drops
Speaker 3: to the ground and punches Goro in the crotch, and
Speaker 3: then Raydon, who is standing there observing the fight, does
Speaker 3: a nineteen nineties yes Goro. Of course, he howls in
Speaker 3: pain and rage. The movie really wallows in the Goro
Speaker 3: groin pain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think a bit too much, but I
Speaker 2: guess you know, the kids probably loved it, and it
Speaker 2: to be clear, it is a move from the video game,
Speaker 2: so they had to include it.
Speaker 3: Does Johnny Kitch do a shadow kick in the movie
Speaker 3: that was in the video game? Also, I think maybe
Speaker 3: he does want to get Scorpion.
Speaker 2: Possibly. Yeah, I don't remember it happening, but that would
Speaker 2: have been the place for it.
Speaker 3: Oh. We we just got a note from guest producer
Speaker 3: Chandler Mays that yes, he did do a shadow kick,
Speaker 3: and that is when Scorpion sucks Johnny Cage into hell.
Speaker 2: All right, there we go.
Speaker 3: Okay, But anyway, so at the end of the fight, yeah,
Speaker 3: Johnny Cage ends up kicking Goro off of the side
Speaker 3: of a mountain to his death, and Goro's like hanging
Speaker 3: there on the cliff and Johnny Cage we get a
Speaker 3: call back to his earlier line. This is the part
Speaker 3: where you fall down and Goro falls. So, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I thought this fight was great when I was younger, Rob,
Speaker 3: I can kind of see now what you're saying about
Speaker 3: the limitations of it maybe not being one of the
Speaker 3: better ones.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, I don't know. The art
Speaker 2: Goro fight was pretty good, but we've already established there
Speaker 2: are limitations to what you can do with this goal effect.
Speaker 2: So maybe that was just ultimately asking too much for
Speaker 2: there to be another big, drawn out fight with this
Speaker 2: creature in it.
Speaker 3: That's right, And so here we get the transition to
Speaker 3: the final act where Shengsung he invokes one of his
Speaker 3: one of the rules of the tournament. He executes his
Speaker 3: right to challenge any of the Earth Warriors for the
Speaker 3: final fight of the tournament, and he grabs Sonia blade
Speaker 3: and drags her, screaming through the portal to outworld, where
Speaker 3: Raydon has no power and Raydon himself cannot go there.
Speaker 3: But Johnny Cage and Lukang they're like, hey, we've got
Speaker 3: to rescue Sonya, so they run through the portal. They
Speaker 3: first asked Raydon. They're like, okay, well he's going to
Speaker 3: challenge her to the final fight. Can she beat him?
Speaker 3: And Raydon is like no, Rayden does not have confidence
Speaker 3: in Sonya.
Speaker 2: So I mean, this would make it seem like, lookay,
Speaker 2: one of my theories that I may have established earlier
Speaker 2: is that it seemed to me that they're going for
Speaker 2: a whole Sheansung wants to marry Sonia Blade vibe here.
Speaker 2: But I guess the other way of looking at it
Speaker 2: is he wanted Sonya Blade to enter the tournament because
Speaker 2: she would be easy enough to beat an Outworld.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I thought it was.
Speaker 2: But that's a weird choice too, because then it's like
Speaker 2: Sonia Blade's weakness is her reason for being in the tournament,
Speaker 2: and it seems like you're doing a disservice to your
Speaker 2: character there. I mean, she's like, we've spent a fair
Speaker 2: amount of time talking about how how fearsome she is,
Speaker 2: and now she's just a damsel in distress. So again,
Speaker 2: I find this transformation of her character an overall use
Speaker 2: of her character a little clunky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not a high point of the plotting here. So anyway,
Speaker 3: Lukaying and Johnny Cage they got to help her, So
Speaker 3: they go to Outworld. Outworld looks like a set from
Speaker 3: Escape from La Yeah, just you know, flaming garbage cans everywhere.
Speaker 3: It's very post apocalyptic. They're flaming garbage cans everywhere. You
Speaker 3: would expect it, so in I would have expected Outworld
Speaker 3: to look a little bit more fantasy and a little
Speaker 3: bit less like post apocalyptic Earth setting.
Speaker 2: Well, there is one. I think they're mostly inspired by
Speaker 2: a particular fighting level in Mortal Kombat too. It's like
Speaker 2: the Outland setting and it does look like some sort
Speaker 2: of like a blue and purple ruin, so I guess
Speaker 2: they're going for that vibe. But yeah, they could have
Speaker 2: gone into more fantasy direction. I think they're supposed to
Speaker 2: be more fantasy, like more fantastic places within outworld and
Speaker 2: palaces and so forth.
Speaker 3: Now, before they get to Schngsung's palace, there is one
Speaker 3: more fight, which is Lu Kang versus Reptile, which is
Speaker 3: pretty good but weird. It's a weird setup for a fight,
Speaker 3: but I like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one, it's completely bonkers, rather unexplained, but I
Speaker 2: love it. It's like a bonus match. You didn't think
Speaker 2: you were going to get to see Reptile fight. And
Speaker 2: at this point, again, you know love Reptile in the games.
Speaker 2: Then he was reduced to this awful CGI character. But
Speaker 2: luckily Lou Lukang throws or kicks him into a statue
Speaker 2: which like absorbs him, right and then and then Reptile
Speaker 2: becomes a humanoid ninja for this battle.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right, the CGI lizard is absorbed into the
Speaker 3: void in the stomach of a sort of monster statue,
Speaker 3: and that turns into the humanoid ninja form.
Speaker 2: Right, and and he doesn't look great here. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna not gonna lie. Reptile looks a lot cooler in
Speaker 2: that TV spot for MK two that I talked about
Speaker 2: in the first episode, but he looks way better than
Speaker 2: that cgi Grimlin creature. So I remember being rather pleased
Speaker 2: with it. And fortunately what we get here is a
Speaker 2: really solid.
Speaker 3: Vite Yeah, and it ends with a special move from
Speaker 3: the video games, not for Mortal Kombat one, but from
Speaker 3: Mortal Kombat two, which is Lukang's bicycle kick, which is
Speaker 3: where he flies through the air repeatedly kicking you back
Speaker 3: and forth with both legs while advancing through the air.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, solid, solid move.
Speaker 3: Oh and then final it ends with Reptile reverting back
Speaker 3: to like lizard form and Lukang just sort of does
Speaker 3: a bug stomp on him. So that's the end of that,
Speaker 3: And then they meet Princess Katana again. She's like, well done,
Speaker 3: you are finally learning Lukang, but so they of course
Speaker 3: after this Katana, Johnny Cage and Lukang, they go up
Speaker 3: to Shensung's palace and they're gonna have to challenge Shensung
Speaker 3: to get Sonya back. Princess Katana prepares Lukang. She's like,
Speaker 3: you will face when you face Shangsung, there are gonna
Speaker 3: be three challenges. First, you must face your enemy, then
Speaker 3: you must face yourself. Then you must face your worst fear.
Speaker 3: So they go on up to the tower. To the tower,
Speaker 3: Shengsung has Sonya, He's like dressed her up in a
Speaker 3: Zena warrior princess outfit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He is trying to get her to agree to his
Speaker 3: challenge of Mortal Kombat, but she won't. He's saying, you
Speaker 3: have to fight me in Mortal Kombat or Earth will forfeit.
Speaker 3: And he's not telling her the rules correctly. Those are
Speaker 3: not the rules. She doesn't have to accept. But he
Speaker 3: is lying to her about the rules, and she says,
Speaker 3: I'm not playing your game. My friends will come for me.
Speaker 3: So it seems Sonya has overcome her personal anxiety of
Speaker 3: not wanting to accept help from anyone. Now She's like,
Speaker 3: my friends are gonna come help, and then they like
Speaker 3: suddenly she says that, and then a couple of the
Speaker 3: monks standing at the edge of the room. They like
Speaker 3: throw off their hoods and they go they're already here. Oh,
Speaker 3: and it is our heroes. They snuck in disguised as
Speaker 3: guys in hoods. And then we get the final fight. Shangsung,
Speaker 3: I think, initially tries to challenge Johnny Cage. He's like, okay, okay,
Speaker 3: I'll fight you, but Lu Kang says, no, you'll fight me,
Speaker 3: and so Shangsung says, I accept and once again, pretty
Speaker 3: solid fight at the end of the movie here with
Speaker 3: multiple phases. Shangsung has a bunch of tricks up his
Speaker 3: sleeve that he brings out, and each trick sort of
Speaker 3: varies the texture of the fight, so it keeps throwing
Speaker 3: in these changes to keep it entry.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so it's it's well paced and has drama
Speaker 2: to it. It certainly builds on character development that we've
Speaker 2: had regarding Lou Kang, So yeah, it delivers with action
Speaker 2: and drama.
Speaker 3: We you know, we were told earlier that that Changsung
Speaker 3: has absorbed the souls of thousands of warriors who fought
Speaker 3: before everyone he's ever defeated in the past, so to
Speaker 3: defeat him, you have to defeat all of them, and
Speaker 3: at one point he does like resurrect these dead warriors
Speaker 3: to fight lu Kang, and I like all these different
Speaker 3: warriors Lukang has to fight. I think one of them
Speaker 3: is like a samurai, and then.
Speaker 2: One of them is definitely Gerald Okamura. We've talked. We've
Speaker 2: mentioned on the show before because he was often an
Speaker 2: extra or a background actor or sometimes more prominent in
Speaker 2: your like more of your action B movies, but he's
Speaker 2: in tons of martial arts movies from this time period.
Speaker 2: I think it's still popping up.
Speaker 3: In things now. At another point in the fight, so
Speaker 3: I think that's the facier enemy part. At some point
Speaker 3: he has to face himself. I think, I don't know,
Speaker 3: just oh, I've forgotten this. Now Shangsung he turns into
Speaker 3: Lukang or he I don't know. He confronts him with something.
Speaker 3: But finally Shangsung turns into Lukang's brother, and he like
Speaker 3: turns around and he morphs and then he is Chan
Speaker 3: and he says to Lukang, Raiden sent me to help you.
Speaker 3: But why would Lukang fall for this? He just saw
Speaker 3: him transformed. He didn't even like disappear and come back.
Speaker 3: He's just standing right there and then became his brother,
Speaker 3: so he's like trying to undermine Lukang's confidence as suddenly
Speaker 3: spikes start poking up out of the floor, and I
Speaker 3: like how when the close up of us seeing the
Speaker 3: spikes come out, you can see them like piercing through
Speaker 3: the glitter covered paper covering on the floor. That's the
Speaker 3: symbol from the Mortal Kombat games with the swirling dragon.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then finally lu Kang has a you know, he
Speaker 3: learns a lesson that there's a very like individualistic message
Speaker 3: at the end of the movie. Lu Kang's great triumph
Speaker 3: is that he learns every man is responsible for his
Speaker 3: own destiny. And then he finally defeats Shangsung by shooting
Speaker 3: a fireball out of his hands that is something that
Speaker 3: he does in the game, and Shangsung falls into the
Speaker 3: spikes below, and then lu Kang himself says, flawless victory.
Speaker 3: I don't think that's in character.
Speaker 2: No, No, he took some damage in this battle as well,
Speaker 2: so I don't think it's accurate either.
Speaker 3: Neither accurate nor in character for Lukang. I don't know
Speaker 3: why he says that. I think they just really had
Speaker 3: to get the game not in there. So with the
Speaker 3: big bad defeated lights shoot out of the out World
Speaker 3: tower and the souls of the Damned are freed from
Speaker 3: Shangsung's grip, including Chan.
Speaker 2: And Gerald Olkamier. We see him floating the bud.
Speaker 3: They all fly off into the sky, and then we
Speaker 3: get a wonderful coda where that track by Orbital starts
Speaker 3: playing as the heroes are all back on Earth. They're
Speaker 3: outside the temple we saw earlier, and they're all hugging
Speaker 3: it out and everybody's happy. They're like children running with
Speaker 3: these streamers and stuff, and we get the bump bump
Speaker 3: bump bum bu bump bump. You know it's it's that
Speaker 3: field good Orbital track, and it seems like everything's gonna
Speaker 3: be okay, but somehow you almost know they're setting it
Speaker 3: up for a twist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because then like basically we get this again CGI
Speaker 2: that has not aged well. Suddenly, like the sky erupts
Speaker 2: and there is like this monstrous version of Shao Khan,
Speaker 2: the Emperor of out World, who does does not look
Speaker 2: very good here. They kind of like put a lot
Speaker 2: of demon makeup on his face, like they decided to
Speaker 2: spice up his look a bit, and it doesn't quite work.
Speaker 2: But I guess the silhouette is right, the helmet is right.
Speaker 2: So you fans of the of the video games know
Speaker 2: who this is.
Speaker 3: But he's the size of a Kaiju. He's gigantic. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and he says he pops out of the temple and
Speaker 3: he says, you weak, pathetic fools, I've come for your souls.
Speaker 3: And what's the last line in the movie Rayden's catchphrase,
Speaker 3: He goes, I don't think so.
Speaker 2: So they set up the sequel, which of course will
Speaker 2: be Mortal Kombat Annihilation, in which Brian Thompson is going
Speaker 2: to play Shallcan with a more traditional look. But I
Speaker 2: can't speak to it beyond that because I never actually
Speaker 2: watched Mortal Combat Annihilation. That's the story for a lot
Speaker 2: of people, because Mortal Combat Annihilation would not be a
Speaker 2: success at the box office and would kind of like
Speaker 2: kill off the Moral Kombat feature film venture for some time.
Speaker 2: Though there would be additional like I think there was
Speaker 2: a TV show in the nineties that came after this
Speaker 2: that looked pretty bad. I would occasionally catch part of it,
Speaker 2: but maybe it has its fans. And then there would
Speaker 2: be additional like web installments of of later shows and
Speaker 2: some of those were pretty good eventually leading back up
Speaker 2: to the resurrection of Mortal Kombat Motion Pictures.
Speaker 3: So we do an Annihilation next week.
Speaker 2: No, not next week. Maybe we'll come back to it
Speaker 2: if people want it. I mean, it has an interesting
Speaker 2: cast and more, you know, iconic characters, you know, recreated
Speaker 2: two varying degrees of success on the screen.
Speaker 3: I recall that the characters in that movie travel around
Speaker 3: the world through tunnels that go through the center of
Speaker 3: the earth by like rolling in these American gladiator balls.
Speaker 3: Oh really wow? Yeah, well that sounds interesting. That's good
Speaker 3: transportation infrastructure. All right. Does that do it for Mortal Kombat?
Speaker 2: I think it does. I think after two episodes we
Speaker 2: have we have finished it. So we'll go ahead and
Speaker 2: shut the book on this tournament. But we'll remind everyone
Speaker 2: out there that stuff to blow your mind is primarily
Speaker 2: as signs and culture podcasts. But on Fridays we set
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns and we just talk about a
Speaker 2: weird film here on Weird House Cinema. If you want
Speaker 2: to see a list of all the movies we've covered
Speaker 2: over the years, the best place to go for that
Speaker 2: is to head on over to Letterbox dot com. That's
Speaker 2: l E T E R B O x D dot com.
Speaker 2: You will find us there. Our username is weird House
Speaker 2: and we have a list of all the films. Look
Speaker 2: at them, you know, sort them by genre or decade.
Speaker 2: It's pretty fun to play around with. Oh and if
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Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway,
Speaker 3: and a huge thanks to our guest producer today, Chandler Mays.
Speaker 3: Thanks for sitting in with us. Chandler. If you would
Speaker 3: like to get in touch with us on this episode
Speaker 3: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 3: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 3: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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