First Look at Mortal Kombat, new details revealed for the R-Rated reboot

EW has provided our first look at the upcoming Mortal Kombat reboot film from Warner Bros and directed by Simon McQuoid Jessica McNamee, Hiroyuki Sanada, Joe Taslim, Tadanobu Asano, Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Josh Lawson, Lewis Tan and more.

McQuoid says that the kunai is an important element of the story and will even figure out in the history of Hiroyuki Sanada’s Scorpion character but also the war between the Hanzo Clan and the Bi-Han Clan. It also looks like Scorpion’s going to be killed using a kunai as evidenced in the photo below.

The story of Bi-Han and Hanzo “needed to be told within the fight,” McQuoid says. “There are some great camera moves to give it a bit of dynamism, that make it really enjoyable. We needed it to be really elemental and really brutal. It’s not a shiny film… I wanted the dirt and the grime to come through.”

Lewis Tan who played Shatterstar in Deadpool 2 will also be a new character added to the new Mortal Kombat film. He plays Cole Young.

“When we first meet Cole, he’s in a really bad spot,” Tan says. “He’s down on his luck. He’s kind of a washed-up MMA fighter who used to be a champion, who used to believe in himself, who used to have a lot of hope in his career. And it’s all gone down the drain. It’s a very interesting place for a hero to start, and I think that, along the journey of Mortal Kombat and Cole discovering where he comes from, you’re introduced to all these other iconic characters and elements that everybody loves so dearly.”

The director also reveals that Young’s mysterious birthmark and backstory will also bring him into the fold as he’s targeted by Chin Han’s Shang Tsung on Earth by sending Sub Zero.

Another story beat that was discussed during the Entertainment Weekly feature was that of Sonya Blade and Jaxx Briggs.

Major Jackson “Jax” Briggs (Supergirl’s Mehcad Brooks), a special forces major who bears the same mark as Cole, urges him to seek out Sonya Blade (The Meg’s Jessica McNamee). She ferries him onward to the next leg of the journey, to the thunderous Elder God known as Lord Raiden (Thor’s Tadanobu Asano), who grants sanctuary at his temple to all those with the mark. There, Cole encounters even more recognizable characters from the Mortal Kombat games — Liu Kang (Power Rangers’ Ludi Lin), Kung Lao (actor and stuntman Max Huang), and Kano (Superstore’s Josh Lawson) — as they all train for a high-stakes tournament to defeat the invading enemies from Outworld.

Apparently Kano is one of the good guys in the new Mortal Kombat reboot

As for the blood and guts, a staple in the Mortal Kombat games, McQuoid has this to say:

“it’s definitely not gonna get a PG-13 rating.”

“Out of context this quote might seem incendiary, it’s not: The rules around ratings aren’t what a lot of people think they are,” he says. “It’s amount of blood, it’s amount of red, it’s interpretation of how you go about it. We had a lot of discussions about getting the balance right so there was gore and there was blood and there were fatalities.” He pauses to repeat what he just said. “And there is gore, blood, and fatalities.”

Mortal Kombat is slated for release April 16 in cinemas and on HBO Max.