Mortal Kombat movie aims to have the best fight scenes ever on film
The Mortal Kombat movie has some high expectations, at least from the director himself. He's promising fight scenes that will blow you away, but it remains to be seen if the crew can pull that off.
Simon McQuoid--an Australian commercials director who makes his feature directorial debut with Mortal Kombat--told Collider that the goal was to create the best fight scenes ever committed to film.
"The fights themselves, what we've attempted to do… is to innovate within," he said. "To drive character forward and story forward within the fight. So we spent a lot of time on that. The fight team are incredible on this movie. The first thing I said to Kyle [Gardiner], who is the stunt coordinator, he runs the whole thing, I said to him, 'Ok Kyle, we have to make the best fights that have ever been on film. So, no pressure.' ... But it was really about building character and story within the fight itself so it didn't just feel like a plugin. It actually felt like part of the scene and part of the act."
Producer Todd Garner, meanwhile, said the aim with the film was to make the "most badass fight movie that's ever been shot." Garner acknowledged this would be a difficult task, but the team tried its best to make it happen.
"The closest thing I can think of is that it feels like a dance movie. Where it's just like, we got this. You're not faking anything … These guys are just, you know, they're the best at what they do. [Lewis Tan, who plays a new character named Cole Young] has done every piece of fighting choreo in this movie. And they all have," Garner said.
Joe Taslim, who plays Sub-Zero, said Mortal Kombat features an extended, four-minute fight scene where they really go all-out. "There's one crazy fight," he said. "That... every day I discuss it with Simon, with our action directors, to make it better and better and better."
Taslim is no stranger to intense fight scenes, having worked on The Raid and The Night Comes For Us, two of the most-acclaimed Indonesian martial arts movies ever made.
The full interview touches on numerous other aspects of the fight scenes in Mortal Kombat, with insight from the actors and others involved. It's a good read--check it out here at Collider.
The Mortal Kombat movie, which is produced by Aquaman's James Wan, releases on April 16 both in theaters and on HBO Max. You can check out a trailer above.
gamespot.com
