Mortal Kombat (2021 film)

Mortal Kombat is a 2021 martial arts fantasy film based on the video-game series created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. The film serves as a reboot of the Mortal Kombat film series and is the third installment in the franchise. Directed by Simon McQuoid from a screenplay by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham, it stars Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Max Huang, Joe Taslim, and Hiroyuki Sanada. The film follows Cole Young, a washed-up mixed martial arts fighter who is unaware of his hidden lineage or why the assassin Sub-Zero is hunting him down. Concerned for the safety of his family, he seeks out a clique of fighters that were chosen to defend Earthrealm against Outworld.

Following the critical and commercial failure of Mortal Kombat Annihilation (1997), a third Mortal Kombat film languished in development hell for a period of nearly two decades. In late 2010, Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema began developing a new film, with Kevin Tancharoen serving as director from a script written by Oren Uziel in the wake of their short film Mortal Kombat: Rebirth (2010). James Wan was announced as a producer in August 2015 and McQuoid was hired as director in November 2016. Production took place at Adelaide Studios in Adelaide and at other locations in South Australia. Principal photography occurred from September to December 2019.

Mortal Kombat was released internationally on April 8, 2021, and in the United States on April 23, simultaneously in theaters in Dolby Cinema, IMAX, and 4DX formats and on the streaming service HBO Max. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the performances, production values, action sequences, and faithfulness to the source material as compared to the previous films, but criticized its screenplay and exposition. The film grossed over $84 million against a $55 million production budget and became HBO Max's most successful film launch to date.

A sequel, Mortal Kombat II, is scheduled to be released on May 8, 2026, with Jeremy Slater set to write the screenplay and McQuoid returning as director.

Plot

In Japan in 1617, assassins led by Bi-Han assault the estate of Hanzo Hasashi's clan and murder everyone, including Hanzo's family. After killing the attackers, Hanzo fights Bi-Han but succumbs to his wounds and dies, his soul condemned to the Netherrealm. Raiden, god of Thunder, later takes Hanzo's surviving infant daughter to safety.

In 2021, the realm of Outworld has defeated Earthrealm in nine tournaments known as "Mortal Kombat". The rules state that if Earthrealm loses a tenth one, it will be conquered by Outworld. An ancient prophecy states that the "blood of Hanzo Hasashi" will unite a new generation of Earthrealm's champions to prevent Outworld's victory. Sorcerer and Outworlder Shang Tsung sends his warriors to preemptively eliminate Earthrealm's champions, identified by a dragon mark, before the tenth tournament begins.

MMA fighter Cole Young and his family are attacked by Bi-Han, who now calls himself Sub-Zero. Special Forces Major Jackson "Jax" Briggs rescues the Youngs, directing them to find his partner, Sonya Blade. Jax stays to battle Sub-Zero but loses his arms in the process.

Cole goes to Sonya's hideout, where she is interrogating a captive Australian mercenary named Kano. Jax and Sonya have been investigating Mortal Kombat's existence. They are attacked by Shang Tsung's assassin, Syzoth, who Kano kills with Cole and Sonya's help. They travel to Raiden's temple and meet Earthrealm champions Liu Kang and Kung Lao and Raiden himself, who is critical of the newcomers. They also find Jax, whom Raiden rescued and fitted with a set of mechanical arms. Shang Tsung attempts to attack the temple but is stopped when Raiden shields it from intrusion. Cole and Kano train with Liu Kang and Kung Lao to unlock their "arcana", a power unique to all dragon mark bearers.

During an argument, Kano awakens his arcana, granting him the ability to shoot lasers from his scarred eye, much to his delight. Meanwhile, Cole is unable to awaken his arcana. Disappointed, Raiden sends Cole back to his family, revealing that he is a descendant of Hasashi. Shang Tsung gathers his warriors, including Kano's former ally, Kabal, to attack the temple. Kabal convinces Kano to defect and sabotage the shield. During the fray, Jax awakens his arcana, granting him superhuman strength and upgraded arms. Concurrently, the Youngs are attacked by Goro. Cole rouses his arcana, gaining a suit of armor that can absorb kinetic energy from physical attacks and a set of tonfas, and kills Goro before helping repel the attack on the temple. As Raiden teleports the Earthrealm fighters to the Void, a safe space between realms, Sub-Zero attempts to stop Cole. However, Kung Lao saves Cole from Sub-Zero and has his soul taken by Shang Tsung.

Cole proposes a plan to force Outworld's champions into single combat with them before neutralizing Sub-Zero together. Agreeing with the plan, Raiden gives Cole Hanzo's kunai, which still has Hanzo's blood on it. Raiden transports Cole and his allies to their targets. While defeating Outworld's champions, Sonya kills Kano and acquires his dragon mark, gaining the ability to fire energy blasts from her arms. Sub-Zero abducts Cole's family to lure him into a one-on-one fight. Overpowered, Cole uses the kunai and drains the blood from it, releasing Hanzo as the vengeful specter, Scorpion. Recognizing Cole as his descendant, Scorpion helps him kill Sub-Zero and free his family. Thanking Cole for freeing him and requesting that he take care of the Hasashi bloodline, Scorpion departs as Raiden, the other champions, and Shang Tsung arrive.

Shang Tsung threatens to bring armies instead of individual fighters next time they meet. Raiden banishes him, declaring his intention to train new warriors for the next tournament and assigning his current champions to recruit them. Cole then departs to Los Angeles to search for martial arts movie star Johnny Cage.

Cast

Production

Development

In 1997, Robin Shou's original Mortal Kombat contract was a three-picture deal, and Threshold Entertainment's production on a second sequel was initially scheduled to commence shortly after the release of Annihilation, but it was shelved due to Annihilation's poor reception and disappointing box-office performance. Attempts to produce a third film since then were stuck in development hell with numerous script rewrites and storyline, cast, and crew changes. A November 2001 poll on the official Mortal Kombat website hosted by Threshold asked fans which characters they believed would die in the third movie. The 2005 destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina greatly affected one of the film's planned shooting locations. In June 2009, a bankruptcy court lawsuit saw Lawrence Kasanoff suing Midway Games while mentioning that a third film was in the works. Warner Bros. Pictures (which became the parent of New Line Cinema in 2008, after over a decade of both operating as separate divisions of Time Warner) ended up purchasing most of Midway's assets, including Mortal Kombat.

In 2010, director Kevin Tancharoen released an eight-minute short film titled Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, made as a pitch to Warner Bros. Pictures of a reboot of the Mortal Kombat film franchise. In September 2011, New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. announced that Tancharoen was hired to direct a new feature-length film from a screenplay by Mortal Kombat: Rebirth writer Oren Uziel, with the intention of aiming for an R rating. Shooting was expected to begin in March 2012 with a budget projected at between $40–50 million and a release date of 2013. However, the project was ultimately delayed due to budget constraints, and Tancharoen began working on the second season of the web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy until problems with the film had been sorted out, but he quit the film production in October 2013.

James Wan signed on as the film's producer in August 2015. Simon McQuoid was hired as director in November 2016, marking his feature directorial debut, with Greg Russo writing the script. McQuoid had turned down the offer initially, but ultimately signed on after reading Russo's script. Russo tweeted in February 2019 that the film's script was complete. In May 2019, it was announced that the film had entered pre-production and would be shot in South Australia, with a release date of March 5, 2021. Russo tweeted in July 2019 that the film would indeed have an R rating and that the games' Fatalities would "finally be on the big screen".

In April 2021, McQuoid revealed that the film came "quite close to the line" of getting an NC-17 rating by the Motion Picture Association, saying in full, "What we had to be a bit careful of was... you can get to NC-17 territory pretty quick. It's different in a video game when it's not real human beings. When you move this across to reality, a different set of things start to happen in your mind, and you get rated slightly differently. So there were certain things that are in the game that would mean the film would be unreleasable. And none of us wanted that. … So we were balancing that stuff all the time. And there's some stuff that you will see that really gets quite close to the line because we didn't want people to go, 'Meh. Seemed kind of lame.'" Ultimately, after some edits, the film received its intended R rating.