Mortal Kombat *SPOILERS*

[Username taken]

On a general note, is there a reason why DTV movies starring guys like Michael Jai White and Scott Adkins have better fight scenes and choreography than big budget moveis like these.

Heck, we've seen Asian movies do brilliant martial fight scenes for decades now. That's not to say the fights in MK were bad but I've watched Joe Taslim in "The Raid and "The Night Comes for Us", and his moves there were a 1000 times better than what we got in MK.

[Psy-lock]

Also, isn’t it weird that they keep whitewashing Kano? I get that most people are more familiar with the Australian version from the first movie and recent games, but he was of Japanese descent in the original game (Kano is a Japanese name, ffs!). That's just hypocritical, especially after one of the actors criticized the original movie for whitewashing Raiden.

[Psy-lock]

Being only familiar with this franchise through the first movie, isn't Lui Kang the lead anyway? So Johnny wouldn't be the lead even if he was in this right? you're right, the reasoning is a little weird.

Anyway, watching this with friends tonight.

That's right, Johnny wasn't really that significant of a character until MK10, while Lui Kang was canonically the chosen one of the franchise.

[The Cool Thatguy]

On a general note, is there a reason why DTV movies starring guys like Michael Jai White and Scott Adkins have better fight scenes and choreography than big budget moveis like these.

Heck, we've seen Asian movies do brilliant martial fight scenes for decades now. That's not to say the fights in MK were bad but I've watched Joe Taslim in "The Raid and "The Night Comes for Us", and his moves there were a 1000 times better than what we got in MK.

Hard to mix super powers with martial arts, I guess

[Username taken]

Also, isn’t it weird that they keep whitewashing Kano? I get that most people are more familiar with the Australian version from the first movie and recent games, but he was of Japanese descent in the original game (Kano is a Japanese name, ffs!). That's just hypocritical, especially after one of the actors criticized the original movie for whitewashing Raiden.

Mortal Kombat has been rebooted.

Kano is canonically Australian for a while now.

[SuperiorIronman]

Also, isn’t it weird that they keep whitewashing Kano? I get that most people are more familiar with the Australian version from the first movie and recent games, but he was of Japanese descent in the original game (Kano is a Japanese name, ffs!). That's just hypocritical, especially after one of the actors criticized the original movie for whitewashing Raiden.

Kano was an American who became orphaned in Japan. Following the portrayal of Trevor Goddard he'd since been portrayed as Australian/British with leaning towards Australian.

[Psy-lock]

Mortal Kombat has been rebooted.

Kano is canonically Australian for a while now.

I'm aware, but he was Japanese-American in the games far longer than he was white Australian and still retained his Japanese name. So making him Asian in the movie would've made all kinds of sense, especially when they're making such a big deal out of having an Asian lead and criticizing the previous movie for whitewashing the characters among which was Kano himself.

[Username taken]

I'm aware, but he was Japanese-American in the games far longer than he was white Australian and still retained his Japanese name. So making him Asian in the movie would've made all kinds of sense, especially when they're making such a big deal out of having an Asian lead and criticizing the previous movie for whitewashing the characters among which was Kano himself.

Who criticized the movie for white-washing the characters? If you have the links, I'd like to read that up because the film makers pretty much cast the character as Australian in line with the games.

And the white-washing criticsm would be very odd since Kano was changed in-game to match Trevor Goddard's Australian version (from the first MK movie). I believe this was done more than 10 years ago (I really can't remember). I also believe it was done because Goddard passed away some time ago.

EDIT:I believe he's been Australian longer than he's been Asian. But I stand to be corrected.

[The Gold Stream]

i hope in the sequel cole dies or they do like the video games and have a diff. character lead each chapter. maybe 2 can be more of johnny's tale

and yeah they did goro wrong. kung lao and liu kang were pretty good and kano, despite the sin of being a red head, fit his game counterpart for the most part

[80sbaby]

I agree that the fight scenes were pretty cool but we really needed more Scorpion. I have no issue with the actor playing Cole Young but he character wasn't necessary either. And his unlocked ability was pretty lame.

I also didn't like the fact that there was no actual tournament.

[Psy-lock]

Who criticized the movie for white-washing the characters? If you have the links, I'd like to read that up because the film makers pretty much cast the character as Australian in line with the games.

And the white-washing criticsm would be very odd since Kano was changed in-game to match Trevor Goddard's Australian version (from the first MK movie). I believe this was done more than 10 years ago (I really can't remember). I also believe it was done because Goddard passed away some time ago.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/screenr...ad-brooks/amp/
He's specifically talking about Raiden, not Kano, but since the whitewashing of Kano started with this movie it's weird that it wasn't criticized.

And speaking of Raiden, I wonder what China thinks about the fact that the two Chinese characters worship a Japanese god...

I believe he's been Australian longer than he's been Asian. But I stand to be corrected.

You know, you might be right about that. IIRC, it was changed around MK vs DC which came out in 2008, but I don't remember the post-90's era all that well.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Kano was about the only good performance in the first Mortal Kombat movie. Why are we surprised that they kept it?

[Guy_McNichts]

And speaking of Raiden, I wonder what China thinks about the fact that the two Chinese characters worship a Japanese god...

For what it's worth, they've kind of established in the game's lore that Raiden is the God of Thunder all over the world. Meaning he was Zeus to the Greeks, Thor to the Norse, and so on. Raiden is just the name he prefers.

You know, you might be right about that. IIRC, it was changed around MK vs DC which came out in 2008, but I don't remember the post-90's era all that well.

I believe Kano officially became Australian in MK: Deadly Alliance. I recall his Konquest mode had a lot of Aussie puns.

Truth is Mortal Kombat has always played fast and loose with this sort of thing when it came to certain characters. I think it was a necessity because they were limited to the handful of motion capture actors/actresses to "play" the cast in the old games.

They occasionally acknowledged or explained it in the lore...such as Kano's mother being an American who left him in a Japanese orphanage. Thus, explaining why, despite coming from Japan and his Japanese name, he was played by non-Asian Rich Divizio.
Similarly, the eventually explained the Sub-Zero brothers are half white to explain why they've never been played by Chinese actors.

But then at a certain point they just stopped trying.

It gets more confusing with the non-Earthrealm characters. Like Kitana's original motion capture actress was Katalin Zamiar, who is Cuban-American. And during the 3D era, her face was usually modeled to resemble Puerto Rican Talisa Soto who played her in the '95 movie.
But now MK11 has her with distinctly Asian features, causing fans to argue whether this is a change or she was always meant to be this way and they just never did.

Want a real fun time? Go to any MK forum and ask what race/ethnicity Jade is supposed to be. You'll get a wide variety of answers with the only consensus being she's not white.

[Psy-lock]

On a more positive note, I didn't mind the arcana thing they did as an explanation for the superpowers. Well, some of them at least. I wouldn't mind if the games borrow it. I like it much better than the "Johnny Cage shines green because he's actually a descendant of a warrior cult" nonsense.

Want a real fun time? Go to any MK forum and ask what race/ethnicity Jade is supposed to be. You'll get a wide variety of answers with the only consensus being she's not white.

Edenian. I believe we can all agree on that at least

[titanfan]

Wait what? Kano is Japanese?

Even in the first game, it was pronounced "Kay-No", which is well, not Japanese. If it were a Japanese character I would expect a "Kah-no" pronounciation.

I feel like the franchise may have learned it's lesson after the Sindel Minority Massacre.

I felt like they made it a point to cast an Asian Lead because they were trying to not whitewash the movie.