You certainly can't fault the ambition of Mortal Kombat director Simon McQuoid. The upcoming live-action video game adaptation is actually his feature film debut, but he wants you all to know that he and the rest of his team are putting everything they have into it, and they all want the fight scenes to go down in cinema history as some of the very best ever seen on film.
"The fights themselves, what we've attempted to do... is to innovate within," the director explained in a recent interview with Collider. "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."
Mortal Kombat producer Todd Garner added that one of the main aims during production was to make the "most badass fight movie that's ever been shot." Nothing wrong with aiming high, my friends. Nothing wrong with that at all.
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"The closest thing I can think of is that it feels like a dance movie," Garner said. "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."
It's one hell of an admirable goal, even if I'm fairly sceptical about whether or not the team can achieve it. I've no doubt Mortal Kombat with have some seriously intense and super violent brawls, but... well, have you seen the corridor fight scene in Oldboy? I'm not sure anything will ever touch that. Still, if nobody tried to be the very best we'd never hit greatness, would we?
Mortal Kombat comes to HBO Max and cinemas (depending on where you live and what the COVID situation is) on April 16.
Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros.Topics: News, Warner Bros, Mortal Kombat, Movie