Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Mortal Kombat (1995), Part 1

In this classic Weirdhouse Cinema two-parter, Rob and Joe enter the arena to discuss the 1995 video game adaptation “Mortal Kombat,” directed by Paul W. S. Anderson and featuring show favorite Christopher Lambert as Lord Rayden. (originally published 8/9/2024)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. This is Rob Lamb,
and I have a fun one here for you today.
This one originally published 8-9-2024. This is our look, or
this is part one of our look, at Mortal Kombat
from 1995. This is a film that we, yes, had
two episodes worth of thoughts about. So this is an

(00:25):
ideal week for us to re-air this one because this
is a buffer week for us. We are not traveling.
We are not off from school and so forth. That
usually happens halfway through October. This year, we decided, hey,
let's go ahead and take that week off in September,
and then we can just plow ahead through October, put

(00:47):
out more October Halloween content. So this week is going
to be a week of, I think, some high-quality reruns,
and it looks like we'll probably have an omnibus episode
of The Monster Fact on Wednesday. So please enjoy Mortal
Kombat Part 1, and you can tune in Friday for
the second half.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema...
We are talking about the 1995 supernatural martial arts film
Mortal Kombat, adapted from the incredibly popular 90s video game franchise.
The movie directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, starring a very
interesting cast that we'll get into as we go. Most notably,

(01:43):
show favorite Christoph Lambert as some kind of god of thunder.
First thing I got to say about Mortal Kombat is
that this is nine-year-old Joe McCormick's idea of a really
good movie. I had the original Mortal Kombat game on
Super Nintendo before the movie came out. So, of course,
I was extremely pumped for it. I think I was

(02:07):
like the target demo of this movie. I was male,
8 to 12 years old, obsessed with karate and ready
to accept anything. mid-90s CGI as a legitimate visual art form.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Super Nintendo, so you had the version of the home
Mortal Kombat that didn't have blood.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
No, it's all sweat or sand coming off of people.
Like you'd punch somebody and something flies off of their head,
but it's like tan in color.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
But you did have, as I recall, a superior, in
my opinion, Sub-Zero fatality. Because in the arcade version and
in the Sega Genesis version that I had, he did
like the spine rip, like Predator. That's pretty good. I mean,
that's a great one, but it's not very ice themed.
And I really liked the theme of the ninja with
all this ice magic. And so the Super NES version

(02:54):
of the Fatality was freeze them solid and then shatter them,
which I thought was really, it's classier and it's more
befitting of an ice ninja.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Oh, yeah, I see what you're saying. This may be
a case where some, I don't know the real reasoning here,
but it may be a case where a censorship impulse
actually produced a better artistic choice overall.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
So, yeah, anyway, so I was excited for this movie.
I saw it in the theater, I think probably with
my dad. I owned a copy of it on VHS,
and I don't know if you recall, Rob, but in
the 90s, VHS tapes were expensive. You, like, had to
really want a movie on tape to justify saving up
to get it. I was trying to do a little math,
and I think it's, you know, now you can go

(03:37):
get a Blu-ray for, like, 15 or 20 bucks, but
they were essentially like 20 or 25 bucks for a
VHS tape in the 90s, which is like $ 40 to
$ 50 today.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, but then you knew once you bought this film
on VHS, you were good to go. You would never
have to buy this movie again.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
I know VHS purists out there would agree with that
without the tiniest shred of irony, I'm sure. But as
it worked out, like, yeah, these movies you bought on VHS,
you ended up buying them again on DVD, then buying
them again on Blu-ray, and then... because you can't find
your Blu-ray, you buy it again as a digital purchase.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
And then buy it again on VHS off eBay many
years later.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, come back around to the nostalgia.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
So I watched this tape many, many times. I acted
out the scenes. I not only had the VHS, I
had the Mortal Kombat original motion picture soundtrack on CD,
which was something I did a number of times as
a kid. Rob, have we ever talked about whether you
did this too? When I liked a movie... I wanted
to own the soundtrack and not just to own it,

(04:40):
but actually like listen to the CD over and over.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Oh yeah, I absolutely did this. I definitely had the
Mortal Kombat original motion picture soundtrack, had it up there
on the shelf, probably beside my soundtrack to the crow. Um,
let's see, goodness, what were another big ones? I mean,
obviously Pulp Fiction was in the mix, uh, but I
would go for stuff like, uh, one of my earliest, uh,

(05:04):
cassette purchases actually. was a cassette that had all the
James Bond theme songs on there, but not official versions.
They were all like some sort of horrible cover, like
instrumental cover.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
A kids-bop version of Goldfinger.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Almost. It wasn't aimed exclusively at children, but it was
something like some off-brand Bond compilation that I got at
Walmart on cassette. So yeah, I was very much in
this boat. If I loved the film, I wanted to
read it, in novel form, and I wanted to listen
to it in audio format.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Well, we had that in common. So, yeah, I got
into soundtracks, in fact, way before I actually appreciated the
album by an artist music format. And I did this
with other movies, too, that were less in the weird
house zone now. Like, I remember I really loved the
soundtrack CD to the original Brian De Palma Mission Impossible

(05:55):
movie from 96.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
I don't know that soundtrack at all.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
It had like the cranberries and stuff on it, but
I think actually my favorite tracks on it were just
the mission impossible theme itself. It's like the theme, you know,
the soundtrack to sneaking around the house. Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
It's a great theme song.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
But anyway, like many, elementary school kids in the 90s
I was a real Mortal Kombat head from the game
to the movie to the soundtrack it was a lifestyle
which is curious because after this I really did not
keep up with Mortal Kombat at all like I played
Mortal Kombat 2 and 3 on the arcade cabinets with
my friends which I think were both out before this

(06:33):
movie came out so I think right yeah but since
then there have been, I don't know how many, like
37 games, new movies, TV series, a bunch of expanded
mythology and lore, and I'm not really familiar with any
of it. I've sort of seen it at a distance.
I know the new games have characters like Jason Voorhees
and Superman in them. I'm not quite sure what's going
on with that. And yeah, so I really did not

(06:57):
keep up with Mortal Kombat, despite how into it I
was for a brief period of time.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
I think I've kept up with it pretty well. I
wasn't really playing video games when 4 came out. That
was the 3D one that I don't think has probably
hasn't aged all that well. Whereas 1 and 2 and 3,
those are still great today. You can still play those
and they're still a blast. And then I got into,
I think, all the major installments of the franchise since 4,

(07:23):
with the exception of the most recent one, because I
don't have the hardware to run it. Otherwise, I'd probably
have played it by now. But I think it's going
to be even harder to understand because they decided it's
time to factor in the multiverse for this one. I
don't know if I have the time and mental energy
these days to handle that level of Mortal Kombat.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
But do they do like a reality gem, like in-game
explanation for why characters from other franchises are in the game?

Speaker 1 (07:52):
In the games that I've played, generally the outside characters
are not involved in the story at all. So they're
kind of external to story mode.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Bonus content.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, but then if you beat the game with those characters,
they'll generally find a clever way to explain to you
why Leatherface just won the Mortal Kombat tournament. You know,
things like that, which they do a pretty good job of,
so I'll give them credit. But I would say that
this is something I'll hammer home again later, is that
these early Mortal Kombat games, they did not have a

(08:24):
true story mode like a lot of video games today.
They had an intro that would play on the arcade cabinets,
There'd be a very short epilogue for your character that
you beat arcade mode with. And that was it. The
rest was just you filling in the blanks based on
the cool sounds and sights and moves and the individual

(08:46):
aspects of these different characters. It wasn't all spelled out
to you. And I think that's one of the appeals
of Mortal Kombat is that it was enthralling and it
was captivating. But it didn't give you like beat by beat,
like who all these characters were really supposed to be
and what all their motivations were. And you got to
sort of dream up the rest.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
I think that's exactly right. That might be surprising because
on the surface, these games are like the content that's
there is mostly pretty dumb and quite violent. But they
do stimulate a lot of imagination when you're a kid.
Like you get to kind of make up a story
as you go along.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Speaking of the violence, I do want to throw in
that I'm going to sound like an old person here.
but the games are just way too violent now. The
fatalities are now just unwatchable. They're traumatizing to behold. The
most recent games I've played in the Mortal Kombat series,
I'll just intentionally not do fatalities because it's just too much.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
It's like Saw territory.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, it's just too much. But I don't know. That's
just me. Evidently, they're still popular. But the games are
still fun. Oh, sorry.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
I forgot one more thing I did engage with, which
is I've seen the sequel to the movie we're talking
about today, which is. Mortal Kombat Annihilation from 1997, which
has strong So Bad It's Good energy. It's a movie
in which Christoph Lambert would not return to reprise his
role and had to be replaced by Dexter's dad.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Ah, yes, yes. I did not see Mortal Kombat Annihilation,
but I am familiar with it due to its reputation.
So my memory is a little hazy on exactly what
my expectations were for this film when it came out.
Like the brief timeline that we've alluded to is first
Mortal Kombat game hit arcades in 92. And then the
excellent sequel, Mortal Kombat 2, came out in 1993, which

(10:36):
just looking at that, that's just crazy turn turnaround time
by today's standards, right?

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
And so I was all the way in on MK2
by the time this film came out. I played it
like at the local Walmart until one day they turned
the blood off and everyone was upset by that, which
was the day Kurt Cobain died, I believe. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Strange. Yeah. But is there like a physical switch on
the cabinet? It was like blood on, blood off.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
No, no, we checked. We thought of that. We're like, well,
we got to find the switch. We got to turn
it back on. But I guess it's inside the cabinet. Yeah.
And if the local parents group, you know, pressures the
store owner, they'll change it. But anyway, so and then, yeah,
MK2 had come out on Sega Genesis. I played it there.
And then MK3 came out April of 95, ahead of
this film's August 18th, 1995 theatrical release. And yeah, MK3

(11:30):
was pretty awesome, too. So by this point in the franchise,
we were three games deep in an ever-expanding lore. We
had this story about an interdimensional world martial arts tournament
that was determining the fate of the world. And I
would have been 16 at the time, so I was
old enough to be a little opinionated about movie adaptations

(11:52):
of video games, but I think also optimistic enough to
think that a video game adaptation of Mortal Kombat was
a good idea.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Well, you know, that impulse might not have been totally
misguided because you could see little inklings. And Rob, you
were sharing before we started recording this, you shared a
link to some of the TV spots advertising the games themselves,
like advertising the Mortal Kombat 2 cabinet and stuff. And
they're awesome commercials. Like, they got incredible atmosphere.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah, there was a TV commercial for MK2 for the
console editions, and it was amazing. You can still find
it on YouTube and stuff, but I was doing some digging.
They filmed it at Shepperton Studios, and Bob Keen's Image
Imagination Group did the makeup, This is a group that
had worked on the Hellraiser films, Lord of Illusions, Life Force.

(12:40):
So it looks really sharp and there are aspects of
it that look better than what we see in this picture.
But I remember I remember like videotaping that commercial and
like rewatching it and thinking like, yeah, yeah, this this
could work.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Wait, how did you did you just like happen to
get it while taping something else or? Did you intend
to tape the commercial?

Speaker 1 (13:02):
It was probably both. I was taping something, and either
I wasn't taking out the commercials, because, you know, whatever
I was watching and taping was probably in the same
demographic as MK2 console edition. Yeah, yeah. All right, so
we've provided a fair amount of the basics here regarding
Mortal Kombat. Joe, what's your elevator pitch for Mortal Kombat,

(13:25):
the movie from 1995?

Speaker 3 (13:27):
Some random fighters from around the world are invited to
participate in a martial arts tournament that it turns out
will determine the fate of our cosmos and whether our
souls are to be eaten by monsters from another dimension.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
It's interesting that we're talking about this during the Summer Olympics,
which is about international competitors coming together to compete. And
to a very limited extent, that's the story of Mortal
Kombat as well.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, it's kind of like if the Olympics were only
combat sports, And several of the competitors were from another
dimension and they had four arms and were giant. And
in order to win the Olympics, you had to beat
those things, the monsters from another dimension. And if you
lost the Olympics against them 10 times in a row,
something will come and eat your soul. Okay.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
That's kind of the plot of, of, of what is it?
Monster jam? Wait, what is it?

Speaker 3 (14:20):
Space jam.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Space jam. That's basically the plot of space jam, right?

Speaker 3 (14:23):
It's close. Yeah. Speaking of we've, just been talking about
it as if, you know, it's common knowledge. Probably a
lot of people know what's going on with Mortal Kombat,
the video game. But for people who aren't familiar, should
we very briefly describe Mortal Kombat in terms of gameplay, setting,
and story?

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Okay, so the original Mortal Kombat is a side-view, one-on-one
fighting game in which players could select from a list
of seven playable characters and face off against either each other.
So you fight against your friends. Or you could fight
against the computer playing some other character. And there was
a sort of a story mode, as you alluded to earlier,
but there wasn't really much of a story to it. Instead,

(15:02):
that just means you sequentially face off against all of
the other characters in the game, one after another. And
then at the end of that, there are a couple
of different boss fights.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, that's right. You just basically go up a ladder
with solo fights against the computer. There's some test your
mites in there where you karate break things in half.
There'd be a mirror match, some endurance matches, especially in
that first one, they had to make the most out
of a limited roster. And then you would fight the
two bosses.

Speaker 4 (15:30):
Right.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
And so the seven playable characters are Liu Kang, who
is kind of the canonical hero of the video game series.
He is portrayed as a practitioner of sort of classic
Kung Fu. He's a Shaolin warrior, and he's the good guy.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Very Bruce Lee-esque, clearly inspired by Bruce Lee.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yes, there are two ninjas that look identical except a
swapped color palette on their outfits. One is the ninja
Sub-Zero who has ice powers and the other is the
ninja Scorpion who can throw a spear on a rope
that grabs you and pulls you over to him. And
that's his like special move. And he says, come here

(16:10):
when he does that. And then also he can take
his mask off and breathe fire on you.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, he's like an infernal revenant, I guess you'd say.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
There is Sonya Blade, a special forces operative who is
at the tournament chasing after a criminal who's another one
of the players named Kano. Kano happens to be the Terminator.
Like half of his face is the Terminator. It's metal
with a red eye. But I don't know if canonically
he is robot beyond that metal part of his face.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
I think it's supposed to be just like a cybernetic
replacement for his eye, but it also is a weapon
that shoots a laser beam. At least in later games
it shoots a laser beam.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
That's right. So you got the sort of the cop
and the criminal. I think in the later games, there
is more straightforwardly even than Sonya Blade, a character who's
just like a cop who just has like police equipment.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yes. Striker is the cop that shows up in MK3.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
That's a strange choice. I'm just in a tournament here,
but I have my like police belt.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Anyway.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Um, uh, there's also two more characters in the first game.
There is Johnny Cage. You can play as he's a
movie star, like a martial arts movie star based, I
think on Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
And then he does the, uh, the split punch, right? Right.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
He does the splits and punches. Yeah. Goes down splits
and punches, uh, in the groin area, which plays into
the movie we're about to talk about. And then finally,
there is Raiden, who is a god. It seems kind
of unfair that a god gets to face off against
all of the other human fighters, but he is a
god who has electricity powers.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, the name very loosely based on the Japanese thunder deity, Raiden.
And also the character is very clearly inspired by the
lightning-empowered member of the Three Storms in Big Trouble in
Little China. John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China is
is an obvious strong influence on Mortal Kombat.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yes, on this character in the game, but also on
the way Raiden is portrayed by Christopher Lambert in the movie. Now,
just a couple of other things to mention from the
game that'll play into the film. As we've alluded to,

(18:20):
all the characters have their own different special moves, like
they can all punch and kick and jump, But then
they've got these special moves that you would enact by
entering a different series of buttons in the game. So
like Liu Kang can shoot a fireball and he can
do a flying kick and Kano can throw a knife
and he can like turn into a ball and fly
across the screen. Sub-Zero can shoot ice and so forth.

(18:43):
One thing that kind of separates Mortal Kombat and I
think perhaps justifiably drew the ire of some like parents
who are watching their kids play this game. is that
the game is not just about physical fighting, but it
is explicitly a fight to the death. And at the
end of a fight, there is a voice that comes
on when one side has been defeated and tells the

(19:05):
victorious party to finish him, I guess meaning kill him,
which then you can do one of your fatalities, which
is a special move, for example, where the scorpion, the
yellow ninja, he pulls his mask off and breathes fire
on the other person.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, it reduces you to a skeleton, which then crumbles
to the ground. These were a huge hit. You're looking
up these special moves and the special fatality inputs, perhaps
bringing them to the arcade with you on a little
sheet of paper, folded up page from a magazine.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
That's learning how to do research. It's an important skill.
And then, of course, you had your non-playable villains in
the game. One of them is Goro, who's this big,
scary guy who's huge, and he has four arms instead
of two. He will factor into the movie. And then
there is Shang Tsung, the big bad of Mortal Kombat,
who was an evil sorcerer who could shapeshift into the

(20:00):
form of any other fighter in the game.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, and this character was clearly inspired, at least to
some degree, by the character of Lo Pan in Big
Trouble in Little China.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah. Now, should we put this in the context of
any other movies based on video games? We have done
on Weird House the 1993 Super Mario Brothers movie, which
I still maintain is one of the weirdest movies we've
done on the show and one of the weirdest movies
I have ever seen. Mortal Kombat, the movie, is a

(20:30):
pretty strange cultural artifact, but as an adaptation of its
source material, I think it's a lot more straightforward than
Super Mario Brothers. Like, So the game is about a
weird supernatural martial arts tournament where people around the world
come to fight to the death. The movie's about that too.
Super Mario Brothers instead veers way, way off into its

(20:52):
own Dennis Hopper mud bath and just, I don't know,
it introduces a lot of its own stuff and all
that stuff is quite unexpected.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, Super Mario Brothers as a motion picture doesn't write
itself to the same degree that Mortal Kombat does.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
And I think to some degree that's because the Mortal
Kombat game premise, I would assume, it seems quite clear,
it is based on movies of a certain type. Movies
like Enter the Dragon, but there are a lot of
movies with this basic premise that it's like a destination
martial arts tournament that is ruled over by some kind
of evil king or sorcerer.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, yeah. So it's a pretty simple structure to sort
of aspire to there. And then at least in the game,
your mind kind of fills in the blanks. And then
not to say it's, I think it is a challenge
for the screenwriter. And I think you see that in
this film, like there are certain story points that have
to be created and nourished in order to make this

(21:48):
work on any level as a picture about characters. And
they go for it. And I think it mostly works.
But I can imagine some people, some like fans of
the film, and maybe even I thought this to some extent,
like wondering like, why do we care about this character?
It's like, well, you've got to have these things. We
can't just be, one fight after another. That's what the
video game is. This is a movie. It needs to

(22:10):
tell some sort of story.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
Yeah. I'm kind of of two minds about that stuff
because I think a lot of the character development in
the movie is on, on its face laughable, but at
the same time, it works pretty well as a plot
glue that just helps chain one scene into the next
and keeps the movie moving.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
And I think that's mainly where it succeeds because to
be clear, there's not a lot of character development to
go around in this picture. Some characters don't get it
at all.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
Yeah. So yeah, maybe that leads into some of my
summary thoughts upon revisiting Mortal Kombat this time. I think
for the most part, you could say, you could certainly
make the case that the scripting is not great. It's
strangely heavy on these 2D little banter exchanges between our heroes,
a lot of hate flirting. But at the same time,

(22:58):
there are quite a few memorable lines that, And I
think that is mostly due to qualities of delivery, which
brings us to the question of acting. I think the
acting in the movie is quite a mixed bag. There
are a couple of velvety rich villain performances, one in
particular that really stands out, which are accompanied by a

(23:19):
fine Christophe Lambert pairing. But a lot of the other
actors are just sort of treading water and they're like,
what is going on in this movie? I don't know.
We're just getting through this scene. But that's what you'd
often expect from a martial arts movie. However, despite some
of the limitations of the script and the acting, this
movie is not boring. It has lots of zippy energy,

(23:40):
and it's just fun the whole way. It really maintains
a strong sense of momentum, I think due to some
choices about editing, a pretty good discipline about not letting
any of the fights or really any of the scenes
at all go on too long. It just keeps moving,
and it really uses music to great effect. to keep
the energy up and keep a feeling of forward motion.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Also, I'll say that the martial arts scenes are on
the whole a lot better than I expected them to
be when coming back to this. The fights mostly convey
some amount of drama. Long-time listeners will be familiar with
my gripe about action scenes, but for newcomers, if you
want to hear it briefly, I think action scenes are
often quite boring in movies because there's really no drama

(24:26):
to them. There's like No meaningful exchange of power. No
genuine fear for the character's fate. Nothing is revealed about
the characters. No questions are asked or answered. There's no
effect on the broader story. They're often just an interlude
where we take a break from the story to watch
some violence happen. But great action scenes transcend this by

(24:47):
containing drama within them. And you know what? I think
Mortal Kombat does a reasonably good job at making the
fights dramatic.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Absolutely. I think most all of the fights hold up
really well. They tell a story. That's always been my
key way of thinking about it. A lot of films,
especially Western films, if they engage in some fights, it'll
just be like some moves. You'll see some moves. You'll
get a vibe of fighting, but you don't get the

(25:15):
sense of there being a story there, a story where
there are obstacles to overcome. There's conflict. There are stakes there.
There are little callbacks and so forth, like a great
cinematic fight is going to have all of these elements
and you can become lost in its own inner drama.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
I think that's exactly right. Another thing about this movie, stylistically,
it is extremely 1990s. I think if you were to
like be teaching a film class about the conventions of
popular filmmaking during the 90s and you're making a viewing
list for that class, this movie should be on it.
It strongly reflects that. that music video influenced style that

(25:53):
was dominant in blockbuster films of the time.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
Absolutely. And so it's really kind of a minor miracle
that the fight scenes are so good, because when I
think about that music video style, I can instantly turn
my head to various examples. I'm not going to call
them out here, but various examples where you have that
kind of music video vibe to the fight sequences where
it is all vibe and it is not about telling

(26:17):
a story.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
It's just stuff happening. It's just loud noises, flashes of things.
You can't tell where anybody is or what's going on
or why it matters. But this movie, yeah, mostly not
like that. The fight scenes are well choreographed and well filmed.
Thumbs up to that. Special effects, also a mixed bag,
but leaning toward the negative, I would say. The standout

(26:39):
element is... some truly egregious CGI. I think we've called
out this movie before on the show as a nadir
of CGI in big budget movies. The technology was not
ready to be used the way it is used in
this movie.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
I don't think I'd seen this film since the 90s.
So I was I was prepared for the CGI to
be rough, but it was worse than I remembered it. Like,
I remember being excited for the CGI in this film
and thinking it was pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
It seemed great at the time.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
Yeah, it seemed amazing at the time. Now it looks very,
very liquid television in the worst ways. And I say
that as someone who loved liquid television at the time
on MTV. But then the other thing is I expected
to be really excited about the film's practical effects, namely
the Goro effects. And this didn't hit the right notes
for me either.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah, well, let's get into that in a bit.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
Okay, we'll come back to Goro. But let's go ahead
at this point, let's go ahead and listen to a
little bit of the trailer audio for Mortal Kombat. I'm
almost certain we're going to hear just a little snippet
of that Mortal Kombat theme song.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
In each of us, there burns the fury of a warrior.
In every generation, a few are chosen to prove it.
One of you three will decide the outcome of the tournament.
Three strangers. will travel to the mystical realm of Outworld

(28:10):
to defend our people against Shang Tsung. You will die.
And his forces of darkness. In an ancient tournament, one
more victory.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Your soul is mine.

Speaker 4 (28:28):
And our world is theirs.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
No! You can't run from me, Shang!

Speaker 3 (28:54):
I don't need to run!

Speaker 1 (29:24):
All right. If you're wondering at this point, where can
I watch Mortal Kombat, the 1995 cinematic treatment? Well, it
is widely available in pretty much all formats, including various
franchise bundles. I streamed it on max but i also
realized i own a digital copy that i received as
some sort of an xbox bonus for one of the

(29:45):
you know the the the recent games like i don't
know 10 or 12 or something maybe 11 i don't
know the 10th 11th or 12th game one of them
they were like here have the 95 film version as
well for free just.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
A download code or something Yeah, yeah, you.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Just got it through like the Xbox film download thing.
So I watched it on Macs. I don't think that
there is a definitive special edition or anything here. So
this is very much a case of watch it wherever
is least painful for you, I guess.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
I watched it by getting into a time machine made
by the Tubular Corporation and going back to 1995 to
my local Cineplex.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
There you go. Maybe the effects are better if you
see it in the 90s, you know, like not only
in terms of expectations, but in terms of like picture quality.
All right, let's talk about the people who made this film.
We mentioned that the director is, of course, Paul W.S. Anderson,

(30:43):
born 1965, English director and writer and producer who started
out in TV writing for the British crime series L.C.I.D.,
starring Alfred Molina, at least in the first couple of seasons.
I think someone else came in to lead it after that.
But Anderson made a big splash as a director after
this with the violent crime drama Shopping in 94, which

(31:04):
he also wrote. I have not seen it, but it
features an excellent cast, including the feature film debut of
Jude Law. And it features an extremely stacked soundtrack featuring
such acts as Stereo MCs, Salt-N-Pepa, EMF, and Utah Saints.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Oh, Utah Saints are on this soundtrack.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
They've got some really good hype music in there.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
So it is worth noting, yeah, that Paul W.S. Anderson
clearly put a lot of stock in the soundtrack to
these pictures that he was involved in. And he brings
a lot of, I think, enthusiasm, especially for electronic music
of the time period.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
So Mortal Kombat was his follow-up to the success of Shopping,
which was a big commercial hit. Even Roger Ebert admitted
that it was better than expected. And he would follow
this up with 1997's Event Horizon, a film that certainly
wears its inspirations on its sleeves. But this was a
huge favorite of mine upon its release. And it's still

(32:04):
one that I come back to now and again. I'm
probably overdue to revisit it and see how I feel
about it at my current age.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
You know, I just recently put on Event Horizon sort
of in the background while I was doing something else
and tuned in for a few scenes here and here
and there. And I'm going to say, I think I
feel about it similar to how I feel about Mortal Kombat,
which is that it's hard to say like it's a
good movie, but it really does have its charms.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, it has a great cast. It has some great sets,
great look in many ways. And the score was a
collaboration between Michael Kamen and the English electronic duo, The Orb.
So I think a lot of people look fondly back
on Event Horizon. And he followed that up with Soldier,
starring Kurt Russell. That one was scripted by David Peoples,
one of the screenwriters for Blade Runner, about I've never

(32:48):
seen that one. That one, I'm to understand, kind of
failed to find an audience, really. His next big picture
was a return to video game adaptations because, you know,
he'd proven himself there. And so he came back with
2002's Resident Evil, which proved another huge hit and kickstarted
a franchise of films starring his soon-to-be wife, Mila Jovovich.

(33:09):
Anderson directed films 1, 4, 5, and 6 in that
franchise and also remained active as a writer and producer
on other installments, including the one that Russell McKay directed
in 2007, Resident Evil Extinction.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
I did not know they'd made it to six Resident
Evil movies.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
I think I saw the first two.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
I think I saw one, and then I saw part
of Russell McKay's, and I was impressed by what I saw,
but for some reason I didn't finish it. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
Those Resident Evil movies are the kind that I know
I've seen them and I remember literally nothing at all
about them. Couldn't tell you a single thing.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Now, we also have to mention that Paul W.S. Anderson
directed 2004's Alien vs. Predator. Oof. That's probably a film
we could do a whole episode about. But to be fair,
I have to stress that while I don't think it
was a solid entry in the Alien franchise, you can
make a case for it being a solid entry in
the Predator franchise, I think. I'm mostly glad that it's

(34:12):
considered non-canon, but I still do remember seeing it and
being entertained by it. I don't remember being bored in
Alien vs. Predator, and I remember many of the effects
being pretty terrific. So I probably need to revisit that
one as well, even though I don't really want to.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
Well, I'm glad you feel obligated.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
I don't know if I feel obligated. I'm sure I
would enjoy myself if I rewatched it.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
Yeah, well, I probably would too.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Like if I'm faced with, okay, do I rewatch Alien
3 or Alien Resurrection or Alien vs. Predator? It's a
strong case to be made for each of these films
for pretty different reasons.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
I think I'm on the record being really not a
fan of Alien Resurrection. I would do 3, then AVP,
then Resurrection.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
I think it's pretty solid. All right. Other Anderson films
include a 2008 update of Death Race. a 2011 Three
Musketeers movie that has a pretty amazing cast, 2014's Pompeii,
2020's Monster Hunter, and up next, this one actually has
me a little bit interested, Lost Lands, a werewolf fantasy
movie starring Mila Jovovich and Dave Bautista based on a

(35:20):
story by George R.R. Martin.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
So that could fly drastically off the rails, but it
could be really good.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah. Yeah, I gotta see it.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
All right, now on the writing front, Mortal Kombat 95,
credits the creators of the Mortal Kombat franchise, that being
Ed Boon, born 1964, and John Tobias. Famously, of course,
these two last names spelled backwards create the ninjas, the
name of the shadow ninja Noob Saibot in the franchise.

(35:51):
Noob Saibot is not in this film, though.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
Very cool-sounding ninja.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah. Of these two individuals, Ed Boon remains creative director
and team leader on all Mortal Kombat and related games
at NetherRealm Studios. He's pretty active on social media as well.
He also did a lot of the voices. So Scorpion's
voice is Ed Boon, and we hear Ed Boon's voice
as Scorpion in this picture. John Tobias is widely considered

(36:15):
to have been really instrumental in the first four Mortal
Kombat games that really established much of the mythos and
the lore. But after that, I believe he parted ways
with the production and kind of went off on his own.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
One of the goofier choices in this movie is that
it does use sound effects from the video game in
the movie. I don't remember all the examples, but, you know,
there's a voiceover in the game. So like when you
select a player, it'll say their name, it'll go Scorpion.
And I think they use stuff like that in the movie, actually.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
I mean, maybe there are voices in the room that
were like, this is what video game fans want and
we should give it to them.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Which brings me to the screenwriter for this, which I
can't help, this is me projecting, but I can't help
but notice that screenwriter Kevin Droney was born in 1948.
That was the same year my dad was born. So
I can't help but think back and to imagine me
as a 16-year-old and my dad writing a Mortal Kombat film,
which is not a fair comparison. But at any rate, Droney,

(37:17):
writer and producer, who'd previously scripted episodes of TV's The Equalizer,
Jake and the Fat Man, Hunter, and Highlander, the TV series,
among others, as well as the TV movie Down Came
a Blackbird, starring Raul Julia, Laura Dern, and Vanessa Redgrave.
After Mortal Kombat, he worked on the screenplay for the
1999 Wing Commander film. Hilarious.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
He's writing for Raul Julia and Vanessa Redgrave and Mortal Kombat.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Yeah. But I'm really only familiar with his work here.
And again, he gets the job done. He adapted the
Mortal Kombat video games into a workable screenplay.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
It is a dumb screenplay, but this machine cranks. Yeah.
All right.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
Top build in this film, we have Christoph Lemberg playing
Lord Raiden with a Y. I didn't look that up.
Why it has a Y in it for this film.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
I think it's spelled in different ways and different games also.
I don't remember which was which, but it was spelled
differently in the arcade cabinet versus the console versions.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Hmm. All right, well, Lambert, we've talked about Lambert before.
He's one of our favorites. Born 1957, French franchise mainstay.
We discussed him at length in our pair of episodes
on Highlander 2. He's, again, top-billed here, but he's more
of a supportive character. Like you said, he's kind of

(38:40):
one of two actors who are kind of the glue
holding the whole thing together. He did not reprise this
role in the sequel as Lambert. Raiden would be played
in Annihilation by James Ramar. Of course, Ramar was in
The Warriors. And looking at his filmography, everything else as well.
This guy is just continually acted in anything and everything.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
Now, he plays his role as openly cheesy, which not
everybody in the movie does. Like some characters are playing
their role fairly straight. For example, our heroes mainly play
their roles straight. But Lambert is he's on a different level,
like he is embracing camp and cheesiness openly. And it

(39:20):
brings a wonderful kind of seasoning to the proceedings. I
think that contrast between some actors taking it seriously and
a couple of actors. primarily Lambert, not doing that, it
works out pretty well. But it also there are moments
where he turns it on and kind of does take
it seriously. There are only a few of them, but

(39:42):
those I don't know. It's charming.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. Like there's some points where he
brings a serious tone that really powers up the exposition dumps.
And then other times he's a little lighter and a
little silly. And it's interesting to think about this in
terms of where they ended up going with the Raiden
character in the later games, where Raiden is very serious
and he's all, I must consult the older gods and

(40:07):
all this. But in this film, Lambert plays him. And
I feel like Raiden is written as a kind of
trickster god. who's helping humanity, but on one level genuinely
wants to help them, but also is amused by them.
And so you're not exactly sure which is his primary

(40:27):
motivation scene to scene. And I think it's more befitting
of a supportive role God character in something like this.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
But he's also partially playing it like a beloved sitcom character.
He has what happened catchphrases.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Like he says, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
He says it. Three times that I counted. I don't
think so.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
So I would not be surprised to learn that Christophe
Lambert did this entire movie without knowing what it was
about and only read his lines for the first time
on the day he was shooting his scenes. I can't
prove that. It just feels possible. But still, he provides
this wonderful, just signature twinkling eye and mischievous chuckle and

(41:11):
all is right with the world. I'm so glad he's here.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Now, while Lambert is the top build actor, Raiden, again,
is not the main character. He's not our true protagonist.
Our protagonist is Liu Kang, of course, played in this
film by Robin Xu, born 1960. Not only is he
the true hero of this film, he is the canonical
winner of the first three Mortal Kombat games. So, you know, reminder,

(41:35):
never bet on a Mortal Kombat game because Liu Kang
is always the winner.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
If he can get good odds betting on him, I
guess he should.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
I guess. But yeah, he's always going to win. That's
just how it works. And he should. So Robin Shu,
born in British Hong Kong, raised in L.A. And while
at California State University, he decided to travel to mainland
China to study Wushu and martial arts. He finished his
schooling in the U.S., but then traveled back to Hong
Kong where he got into stunt work in Hong Kong cinema.

(42:02):
And this basically spilled out into small parts in some
Hong Kong productions as well. So prior to Mortal Kombat,
he'd appeared in such Hong Kong films as 1988's The
Big Heat, co-directed by show favorite Sue Hawk, and 1993's Undefeatable.
But then he's out of the blue cast in Mortal Kombat.
So this is a huge break for him, you know,

(42:23):
going from basically smaller roles in Hong Kong productions to essentially,
I mean, maybe not top build, but still the main
character in this fairly big budget production that ends up
being a summer blockbuster release. He would follow this up
with 97's Mortal Kombat Annihilation, reprising the role, of course,
Beverly Hills Ninja the same year. He was in an

(42:44):
episode of The Outer Limits from 1998. He was in
Death Race, Street Fighter, The Legend of Chun-Li in 2009,
Death Race 2 in 2010, Death Race 3 Inferno in 2013.
He's also written and directed, I believe the film is
2003's Red Trousers, The Life of the Hong Kong Stuntmen.
And he is also credited with fight choreographer additional fight

(43:06):
sequences for this film. So I guess he got to
throw in some of his own special sauce in some
of his fight scenes here.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah. So I also really like him here. None of
the characters in Mortal Kombat are written with great finesse.
And our hero role here is no exception to that.
Robin Cho is a great casting choice, and he shines
through due to just strong baseline likability. He's handsome. He's charismatic,

(43:37):
but not in a big, overt way. He's got an
understated charisma. He rips in his martial arts scenes and
just gives off good guy energy, even in the scenes
where he's bringing a bad attitude. He also has astoundingly
voluminous hair. It's an almost glam metal volume. I'm in awe.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
It is impressive hair, yes. The wind is often catching
it just right.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
Who did the hairstyling in this movie? Generally quite good.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
Catherine Reese, Michael Pockel, and Alicia M. Trippi. Those are
the three individuals credited. I don't know which one is
responsible for this hairdo, though.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
Hats off to you three. Literally, because you wouldn't want
to put a hat on that feathered do.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
It just wouldn't be the same if Liu Kang was
fighting in a ball camp. trucker hat, you know.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Now I'm picturing it sounds pretty cool. All right, then
we have Johnny Cage, played by Lyndon Ashby, born 1960,
American actor and martial arts practitioner. His credits go back
to 86. They include the 1987 werewolf TV show that
we frequently reference. He'd mostly done TV work prior to
Mortal Kombat, but also some action films sprinkled in there

(44:44):
as well. For instance, there's a role as one of
the Earps in the 1994 film Wyatt Earp, And his
post-Mortal Kombat credits include 35 episodes of Melrose Place, Wild
Things 2 in 2004, Resident Evil Extinction, 2008's Prom Night,
2009's Anacondas, plural, Trail of Blood, Mean Girls 2 in 2011,

(45:06):
2013's Iron Man 3, 88 episodes of TV's Teen Wolf.
That one is a strong Russell McKay connection there. And
various TV roles on top of that. He would return
to voice Johnny Cage, I believe, in downloadable content for
Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019. And I believe Christophe Lambert
did the same. I don't know if he says, I

(45:27):
don't think so, but I hope he does.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
So I thought Johnny Cage was really cool and really
funny when I was nine. Not sure I feel the
same way now, or at least maybe to rephrase, I
thought he, at the beginning of the movie, was cool
and funny when I was nine. Not sure I feel
the same way now. You know, early in the story,
his character is written smug, smarmy, and egotistical, but he's

(45:51):
got a nice redemption arc. He redeems himself with courage
and with a well-executed punch to the groin when it
matters most. So I think it all evens out.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Yeah, and I think this role may have been important
in setting the course for Johnny Cage in future combat
games and media. So moving away from just sort of
a cocky Van Damme clone, into this kind of privileged,
semi-hatable jerk who maybe comes through in the end for
the good guys despite his ego. I should point out
that Carl Urban is going to play him in the

(46:22):
next Mortal Kombat film, despite Urban clearly being the most
Kano-ready actor alive.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
Oh, man, put him in a metal faceplate right now.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
I think they already have a guy playing Kano, so
they're like, what do you do with Carl Urban? But
Carl Urban's great at comedic roles, so he's going to
deliver something special.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
Oh, but we've waited too long. We've got to talk
about Kari Hiroyuki Tagawa playing our villain Shang Tsung in this.
I love him.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
He is tremendous. This is the quintessential Shang Tsung. Born 1950,
Japanese-American actor whose credits fittingly go back to an uncredited
extra role as a Wing Kong man in 1986's Big
Trouble in Little China. I don't think I've ever spotted him,
but he's supposedly in there.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
That same year, he had a small role in the
1986 Fred Olin Ray-filmed Arm Response, starring David Carradine, Lee
Van Cleef, Mako, Michael Berryman, and Dick Miller. I mean,
to the extent anything. I mean, some movies star Dick Miller.
We've covered them on the show before, but Dick Miller
is generally a supporting note.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Yeah, he plays your door-to-door vacuum salesman.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
So Tagawa, since this film, has acted and voice acted
in tons of titles, often playing villains because he does
that so very well. I can't do all of his
credits justice, but just a few things to mention. He
did an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. He
was in 1987's The Last Emperor, 1989's License to Kill.

(47:48):
Let's see, the 1991 Not of This World remake and
Showdown in Little Tokyo, same year. 1992's Nemesis, 93's Rising Sun,
Thunder in Paradise 1 and 3 in the mid-90s, Babylon 9,
John Carpenter's Vampires in 1998, the 2001 Planet of the Apes,
and he came back to play Shang Tsung again in

(48:10):
the 2013 TV series, possibly this was a web series,
Mortal Kombat Legacy, and a major role in the TV
series The Man in the High Castle. And he would
also come back to play Shang Tsung in likeness and
voice for 2019's Mortal Kombat 11.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
Yeah, so we were talking about how he seems to
have been typecast as a bad guy, but you can
understand why, because he has a world-class sneer. But he's
also just a great actor. I'm sure if you gave
him a lovable, friendly, good guy role, he'd do well
with that as well. I think Tagawa is the best
actor in this movie, or at least, let me say,

(48:47):
make it not about the person, but gives the best
performance in this movie, and it's not even close. Every
scene he's in, he dominates everything. He has this great
rare skill of making even quite badly written dialogue just sing.
As we said earlier, even though this is a dumb movie,
it does not ever get boring. And we talked about
some reasons for that, like the pacing that keeps things

(49:11):
moving along briskly, the use of hype music to keep
the energy up. But I think a big reason it
does not get boring is a couple of the major problems.
One is Christophe Lambert, who just keeps things fun. But
the other one is Karihiro Yuki Tagawa, because he's almost
like a lubricant that keeps the movie's motor from reaching

(49:33):
the failure threshold. You know, it's like every scene he's in,
he just makes it come alive.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, he's clearly physically and spiritually committed to every scene
he's in. It is a completely over-the-top mustache twirling villain role,
except he doesn't have the mustache. But, you know, certainly
embodies that over-the-top vibe. The character lacks the complexity of
James Hong's Lopun, you know, one of the obvious inspirations

(50:01):
for the video game character. But yeah, Tagawa makes it
his own. And in this film, essentially becomes the quintessential
Shang Tsung moving forward. Oh, and he has a great coat.
Amazing coat.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
One of those martial arts movie costumes that makes so
little sense. It's like a huge, heavy, calf-length leather coat. Yeah,
I'm going to do some roundhouse kicks, so I'm going
to wrap my whole body in loose leather.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
It's amazing, yeah. Costume design here by Ha Nguyen, who
lived 1955 through 2012. I hope it's in a planet
Hollywood somewhere and people can look at it while they
eat their cheeseburgers.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
All right. Now let's move on to the character of
Sonya Blade. Played in this film by Bridget Wilson. Sampras credited,
of course, as Bridget Wilson for this film.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
I was trying to think of a not unkind way
to say this, but this character is the source of
a lot of the unintentionally funny parts of this movie.
Like the scene where we meet her is probably the
most unintentionally funny part of it. where she's decked out
in SWAT gear with her partner Jax, and they're running
through the middle of a techno dance club. I don't know, Rob,

(51:16):
if you can identify what kind of club this is
supposed to be. But they're running through this club with
all these dancers with shotguns, and she's relentlessly barking out
these tactical speak lines like, secure the perimeter and stuff.
It's an awkward fit in the role.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
Yeah, I believe it's supposed to be a heavy metal
rave club in mid-90s Hong Kong. which I guess maybe
that's realistic. I don't know. Hong Kong certainly has both
a metal scene and a rave scene, though nothing we
see here feels actually connected to any potential reality of that.

Speaker 3 (51:50):
Now, Sonya was actually one of my favorite characters in
the original Mortal Kombat game because I could do several
of her special moves and I thought they were cool.
She could shoot these energy rings out of her hands
and she could also do a thing where she would
like stand on her hands, grab you with her ankles
and flip you over. Um, so, uh, so Sonya was
cool in the game. In the movie, they, they really

(52:11):
emphasized like the special forces revenge element. So she is, uh,
hunting this guy Kano on the island. But a lot
of her dialogue once we reached the island is what
I would call hate flirting with Johnny Cage, where they're
just like trading barbs and insults back and forth. But
of course they're going to end up falling in love.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Yeah. And having children, you get to play their children
in the later games.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Are you serious?

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
For real.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
No way.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Yeah. Um, that's like a son and a son and
a daughter, I think.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
But anyway, and they let their kids enter the mortal
combat tournament. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Yeah. And yeah. And they fight against each other too. Yeah.
So all that is in play, but, um, it's often
pointed out that Cameron Diaz, uh, was cast in this
role and was training for the role and then suffered
some sort of training injury and had to back out.
That could have been interesting. It could have been. And
to be clear, Cameron Diaz is great, but I'm not

(53:05):
sure if even she could have done much with this
role because like you said, she's this sort of cardboard
revenge seeker action hero until suddenly she's not because then
suddenly she's a damsel in distress, kidnapped by the villain
that needs to be rescued by the male heroes.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
Yes, this movie does. There's a tension there because they're
all supposed to be fighters in this tournament. Right. And
they can hold their own. And we do see she
has a fight with Kano in the movie where she
is victorious. But right. For some reason, right at the
break for Act three, she transforms from a from a
determined fighter into. Well, now she just like needs to

(53:40):
be rescued by the dudes.

Speaker 4 (53:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Predictable twist. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Now, she would, of course, go on to marry tennis
star Pete Sampras, thus Bridget Wilson Sampras. She was a
former Miss Teen USA. She started out acting on Saved
by the Bell and Santa Barbara before appearing in 1993's
Last Action Hero, followed by Billy Madison, this film, and
Nixon in 95. So quite an interesting 95, I have

(54:06):
to say.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
And then Oliver Stone movie and Mortal Kombat.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
Other films include I Know What You Did Last Summer
in 97, House on Haunted Hill in 99. And she
also came back to lend her voice to MK11 in 2019,
I think, for some DLC. All right. Another female character,
a woman of mystery that shows up, is the character Katana,
played by Talissa Soto, born 1967. She'd previously appeared in

(54:33):
89's License to Kill as the villain's girlfriend, like the
drug lord's girlfriend. And so she's not really a bad
guy in that. I think she ends up, she doesn't
like the villain either. But then Bond chooses the other
girl over her, if memory serves. If you remember any
of the romantic themes and plotting of License to Kill.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
License to Kill is the one with Robert Davi, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Yep. So she plays Davi's character's girlfriend.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
She would reprise her role as Katana in the 97 sequel.
And of note, she is the wife of Benjamin Bratt.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
She is a character of power and mystery in this.
She is not a human fighter in the tournament. but
appears as one of the envoys of Outworld. I think
they say she's the daughter of the Emperor of Outworld.
And she's here at the tournament with mysterious and ambiguous motivations.
And clearly the villains are sort of afraid of her.
They don't know exactly what she intends to do.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
Yeah. And she's unfortunately in one of the least interesting fights.
It's more about passing secret information on to Liu Kang.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
Oh, yeah, yeah, but she saves Liu Kang's life by
letting him know that water freezes.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
That's right. All right, we mentioned Kano. Kano was played
by Trevor Goddard in this. He lived 1962 through 2003.
English actor who often played Australian characters. I've read he
might have actually been going for a Cockney accent here
with Kano, but what we get certainly feels Australian, and
it actually led to the franchise character becoming Australian. So

(56:06):
I think ever since Kano has always been Australian, And
I believe he's currently played by an Australian in the
new film series. So Goddard was a punk rocker turned
actor who really gets to choose some scenery and some,
I think, turkey legs in this one. He'd mostly done
TV work prior to this, but went on to appear

(56:26):
in 1998's Deep Rising, which is a pretty fun creature feature,
and 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the
Black Pearl. This was the same year of his untimely passing.
I would say Kano feels underutilized in the film. But
Goddard literally makes a meal at any Kano scene he's in.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
Yeah, there's a scene where he just eats this greasy,
juice-squirting turkey leg. And he's very much eating it in character,
if that makes sense. He's, like, acting through eating. And
I love him in that scene. He also gets to
throw the turkey leg on the floor after eating about
one-eighth of it or so.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Yeah, yeah. He's a food waster. And there's a lot
of spittle. There's a lot of spittle from this character. Yes.
All right, and I'll mention this in passing, but Peter
Jason is in this in a very small role playing
Master Boyd, Cage's old trainer or whatnot. Born 1944, he's
a familiar character actor who's been in everything from The

(57:21):
Karate Kid and Congo to a slew of John Carpenter films,
including the likes of Prince of Darkness, Escape from L.A.,
and In the Mouth of Madness.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
I knew I recognized him from somewhere.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Yeah, he's one of those guys. He's in a lot
of stuff.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Except when we see him, he's not really Master Boyd,
is he?

Speaker 1 (57:38):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
We'll get to that.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
All right. Voice actors, Frank Welker is in this, doing
the voices of Shao Kahn and Reptile. Born in 46,
he's a voice acting mainstay, especially when you need some
odd grunts and weird creature noises.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
Yeah, that's right. So he does the squealing of Reptile,
I guess, and then he, at the end of the movie,
gets to say, you weak, pathetic fools, I've come for
your souls.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
Yeah. Yeah. And then the voice of Goro is Kevin
Michael Richardson, born 1964, deep-voiced actor who has worked extensively
as a voice actor for film, TV, and video games.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Now, is this the point where we want to mention
the Goro special effects? Because I'm a little bit on
the fence. On one hand, I acknowledge that the Goro...
I don't even fully know how they accomplished it. Maybe
it's some combination of, like... suit and animatronics or whatever.
Whatever it is, it's an impressive achievement. Those forearms feel

(58:36):
kind of real. They feel like they're moving independently. But
on the other hand, the design is just hideous. I
want to wipe my eyes after looking at it.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
I would agree with that. Goro is... It's a lot
to take in.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
Yeah. But to come back on the other hand again,
I will give them that his presence... the presence they
achieve is genuinely menacing. And I remember being scared of
Goro in this movie when I was a kid. It's scary.
And some of the early teases of his presence are
quite good.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
Yeah. The teases are the best really. where you don't
see much of them at all. But then you see
all of them pretty much. And yeah, it's a weird
mix because as a 100 percent practical effect in a
film that has some hideous CGI elements, you know, he's
instantly admirable. You're like, yes, prove my point that the
practical effects are the best. But he also just looks

(59:29):
a little stilted and awkward most of the time. He
comes off looking like a jacked Crypt Keeper, but without
all the lifelike articulation of the Crypt Keeper. Like the
Crypt Keeper always felt real. And I wanted Goro to
feel more real. I wanted to believe in him more.
And at the same time, yeah, I realized like a

(59:49):
lot of admirable work and artistry went into creating this effect,
but it just doesn't quite work. And I'm not sure
exactly where the shortcoming is here. Like, Is it just
that he should have been a stop motion effect, more
or less like he is in the game? Does it
come down to the way that they shot it and
lit it? I mean, I'm not sure exactly what could

(01:00:10):
have improved the scenario here.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
He's got a kind of uncanny valley quality that makes
him sort of gross to look at, I think. It's
that he looks almost like a human, but has held
back in some way. Maybe if they had gone more
fully monstrous in his design and made him a little
bit less humanoid in the face, say that might've been better.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sometimes humanoid faces can be the
most difficult to make work. Like that's one of the,
you look at some of the behind the scenes stuff
on the dark crystal and they talk about how the
gelflings were the most challenging because they were the most,
they were supposed to be the most beautiful and the
most lifelike. And I don't think they're trying to make
Goro beautiful, but maybe there's a case to be made that,

(01:00:52):
close-ups of goro speaking should have been um like a
prosthetic on a human actor yeah instead of what we
have here and i don't know it's also probably just
another testament to how how great the effects are in
things like the dark crystal where a fully artificial uh
being is brought to believable life like it it's not
even if you have all the tools at your disposal

(01:01:14):
and you have a budget and you have expertise like
you're trying to create a masterpiece So on the effects front,
a lot of people were involved in this film. Tom
Woodruff Jr. is credited with Goro special effects and Goro suit.
So I think, you know, some of the times it
is a person in a suit. Born 1959, tons of
solid credits. He was a Stan Winston Studios guy. So

(01:01:36):
he was on the team behind the Terminator and Aliens,
though he'd splintered off at some point after those films
prior to Mortal Kombat. All right. And then we mentioned
the fight choreography. I'll mention that Patty Johnson, who lived
1939 through 2023, was a fight choreographer here. And he
was an accomplished martial artist with his own action acting

(01:01:57):
credits going back to 1973's Enter the Dragon. He appeared
in multiple Chuck Norris movies, such as 79's A Force
of One. He served as fight choreographer on 1984's The
Karate Kid and also the three sequels to that. all
three of the 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies, and
he also came back for Mortal Kombat Annihilation. He also

(01:02:18):
plays the referee with the mustache in the Karate Kid movie,
the first one. All right, and then finally, the music.
So we already mentioned the importance of music in Paul W.S.
Anderson films, but music is also a key part of
the Mortal Kombat franchise. The video games, especially MK2, had
some pretty great music. I've listened to the Mortal Kombat

(01:02:39):
2 soundtrack, like the original video soundtrack, a little in isolation.
It has, you know, an Eastern-influenced electronic vibe. I guess
you'd maybe call it chiptune by today's standards, you know.
Partially inspired by Carpenter and Hoarth's tremendous score to Big
Trouble in Little China. And then in 1994, Virgin Records
released Mortal Kombat, the album, by the Immortals. This is

(01:03:03):
the release that gave us.
A number of infectious beats, some solid cheese, and also
the Mortal Kombat theme song that we hear in this,
the 1995 film.

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
I was going to ask if you knew, so I
think of the theme song from this film with the
main dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, that thing I fully associate with Mortal Kombat
going back to the games, but I actually don't know
if anything like that is in the games. Is there
something like that? That's just straight from this album and

(01:03:37):
then the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
Correct.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
I don't think we had anything quite like this in
the video games. Though I love the video game music,
like I said.

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Yeah. Man, it managed to cement a place in the
early canon.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
They've continued to make music a big part of the franchise.
In 2011, they put out the album Mortal Kombat Songs
Inspired by the Warriors. This was part of the promotion
for that year's new Mortal Kombat game. And it has
some really solid EDM and dubstep tracks on it. For
some of you, if you don't know what dubstep is,
or you just have a vague idea, I'm talking dubstep

(01:04:14):
and like, say like the larger Euro understanding of dubstep.
So like, yes, Skrillex is on there and Skrillex track
is really good. But there's a lot of dubstep that's
more on the darker end of the spectrum, more atmospheric,
especially a number of like British and Euro tracks. artists
that were responsible for that. So this particular release has

(01:04:36):
some great tracks. It's got some stuff by Sound of Stereo,
Run DMT, LA Riots, Bird Peterson, Harvard Bass, JFK, and
Toki Monsta. These are all really fun artists. And I
occasionally will pick up at least a track or two
off of this album and listen to it. The Run
DMT track especially is really good. All right, but this

(01:04:57):
is side tension. How does this film do on the
music front?

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
Oh, well, as I said earlier, I think that it,
the use of music is one of the things that
really keeps the momentum up. Like we were talking, there's
some great hype music throughout. Uh, I'm thinking of, Oh,
I don't know. There were a bunch of moments. Like
there is a scene where Shang Tsung has all of
the warriors come in and like have dinner. There's this
big feast. Uh, and then he has his, you know,

(01:05:24):
oiled up muscle boys run in and they're going to,
one of them is going to fight sub zero. And
as they're getting ready for this fight, There's just a
drum track that is great. It really gets your blood pumping.
You are ready for an action scene. But there's also
a lot of use of music to sort of power
plot transitions. So at the moment where Liu Kang is

(01:05:45):
leaving the temple after having said, I'm going to the
tournament with or without your consent, there's this hype track
that comes on with these ringing bells and heavy drum beats.
It just sends a thrill through your body like you're ready.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
Yeah, I think the score is pretty darn good. And
it is the work of George S. Clinton, born 1947.
No relation to funk legend George Clinton. This is the
Chattanooga-born film composer.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
I think his name's come up on the show before.
He did something we've talked about.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
Yeah, I can't remember what it would be, because I'm
looking at the films he worked on, and they're the
likes of American Ninja II in 87, Hellbound, Chuck Norris,
and Brain Scan in 94. Delta of Venus in 95,
Beverly Hills Ninja, and Mortal Kombat Annihilation. So I'd have
to go back and look at his filmography to see
what I'm forgetting that he might have scored that we've

(01:06:37):
discussed before.

Speaker 3 (01:06:39):
Well, maybe I'm mistaken about that. I associated him with
Austin Powers for some reason. I think he did that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
I think you're right on that. I think I forgot
to include that, but let's see. I think you're right
on that. I think he was involved in the Austin
Powers franchise.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
So yeah, I think a lot of the original score
used in the movie is is very strong. But that
brings us back to that CD I had, because there's
also the original Motion Picture soundtrack CD, which is not
just the score, but it's got all the needle drop tracks.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
That's right. So, of course, we have that Immortals Mortal
Kombat theme song track, which is high energy, pretty great. Infectious, cheesy, yes,
all of the above. There's also a Utah Saints remix
of that theme song that is maybe like a little
deeper in the bass.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
Hmm, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
And let's see, some of my favorites off of this,
I would say I have to single out three tracks
that were my favorites. First of all, there's KMFDM's Juke
Joint Jezebel. This is the Giorgio Moroder Metropolis mix. I
don't know what the original mix sounded like because I
only ever listened to this. And this is basically the
only KMFDM song that I know. But it's a solid track.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
I wonder if someday we should do the Disco Metropolis
on Weird House, the one with the Moroder score.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
Yeah, yeah. It's a classic. I mean, it's a classic film,
and then it's highly regarded in terms of going back
and adding a new score to a classic silent film.
Another one that I really like is Tracy Lord's Control.
This is the Juno Reactor remix. It's an instrumental, so

(01:08:15):
we don't hear Tracy Lord's vocals on this. But I
went back and listened to the original track, and I'm
pretty sure I've heard this in mixes before. It's really solid. Lourdes,
of course, also acted in a number of mainstream genre films,
including 1998's Blade. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
Is she a vampire, I guess?

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
Yep, she was one of the vampire cronies. And then, oh,
we actually have a techno-ambient classic that is featured late
in the picture, and that is Halcyon plus On and
On by Orbital.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
The sound of feeling good. You might guess that this
plays at the coda of the film when evil has
been defeated and everybody's running around hugging it out. That
that is when we get orbital.

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Yeah, it's a great track. Absolutely great track.

Speaker 3 (01:09:00):
It feels like everything's gonna be okay.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
I Also should mention that so the the soundtrack album
featured some clips from the score by George S Clinton
including the track Goro versus art Art is the first
name of the car of Goro fights. It's not it's
not as high concept as it sounds and.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
It's not that scene in Batman where the Joker is
smearing on the paintings.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
That would be great. I mean, Goro missed his calling
as a painter. But anyway, yes, this track has Buckethead
on it, so that's notable.

Speaker 3 (01:09:31):
There are also some tracks I like a lot less. Man,
there's one on there that's a big Black Sabbath fan,
but there's like a Geezer Butler track on there that
is not good.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Yeah, I was not crazy about this one as well.
The vocals did not speak to me.

Speaker 3 (01:09:46):
But there's some other metal on there as well.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Yeah, and the film uses several tracks by Stabbing Westward
that are not on the soundtrack album. I think they're
Can't Happen Here, Lies, and Lost, and these are all
great tracks. I was looking around. I know I listened
to some Stabbing Westward somewhere, and I thought maybe they
were on the soundtrack to The Crow or something, but

(01:10:09):
I couldn't find them. So maybe I actually had a
Stabbing Westward album, but I don't specifically remember. But anyway,
some of their tracks are pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
Really know them they're like industrial metal.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
Yeah yeah there's somewhere in that i don't know there's
somewhere in that alternative industrial landscape but i'm not sure
exactly where to classify them like you know you can
sort of pick up on some vibes you might compare
to nine inch nails you might compare to you know
something like the tea party but um uh yeah i
i don't know how i don't know i'd like to
hear from any of you big stabbing westward fans out

(01:10:41):
there you tell us where we're supposed to classify.

Speaker 3 (01:10:44):
Them now uh-oh We're looking at the clock here. We
did not at all intend for our Mortal Kombat 1995
episode to stretch to two parts, but I think we
are at a point where we have no choice because
it would be ridiculous to release a three-hour episode on

(01:11:04):
Mortal Kombat. But I guess we've got a lot of
personal history with this movie and this franchise, so it
couldn't be helped.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
Yeah, I mean, this is a franchise that's a part
of both our childhoods. And also, apparently, it's a Christoph
Lambert film, and I guess we just can't cover Christoph
Lambert films without breaking them into two parts.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
Oh, you're right. We did that with Highlander 2, didn't we? Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
Well, once again, folks, we do not have the intention
of making two-part Weird House episodes a common thing, but
I guess it's going to happen every now and then.

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
Yeah, so we will be back to really get into
the plot of Mortal Kombat, and there's a lot of
fun to be had here, so we'll get to dig
in and make a meal out of it. Let's see.
In the meantime, Kano eating a turkey leg. Kano eating
a turkey leg. Oh, Goro getting punched in the nards.

(01:11:59):
There's so much fun, fun for everyone, fun for the
whole family.

Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
I want to say it has begun, but it has
not begun yet. It'll begin next time.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
That's right. So in the meantime, do feel free to
go ahead and write in with your thoughts about 1995's
Mortal Kombat or the Mortal Kombat franchise in general. Anything
we discussed in this episode or you anticipate that we'll
discuss in the next episode, write in. We would love
to hear from you. Let's see. First of all, oh,
if you're on Instagram, go ahead and follow us, stbympodcast.

(01:12:28):
That's our handle on Instagram. And if you want to
keep up with Weird House Cinema specifically, go to letterboxd.com.
That's L-E-T-T-E-R-B-O-X-D.com. Really fun site for chronicling your own cinematic
explorations and favorites. And you can follow us there. We
are Weird House. That's our handle. And we have a
nice list there of all the movies we've covered on
the show thus far.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, J.J. Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.
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