The upcoming Mortal Kombat movie isn't looking to pull any punches (aha) when it comes to making its fights as bone-breakingly realistic as possible. In fact, producer Todd Garner reckons it might contain one of the most brutal fights he's ever seen. Fatality, indeed.
It's no secret that Mortal Kombat as a franchise has a historic penchant for the wet red stuff. Just ask anybody who grew up in the mid '90s, and they'll tell you about how you could barely move for the mainstream media trying to get the games pulled from shelves for their violent depictions. We can look back now with our 4K HDR graphics and laugh at the thought of a pixelated man pulling another pixelated man's pixelated head off causing that much offense but, people were not best pleased at the time.
Anyway, in a recent interview with GAMINGbible, Garner and director Simon McQuoid both pointed out that one fight in particular in Mortal Kombat will be looking to do those games proud.
Advert
"There's an incredibly brutal fight in this movie," Garner says. "Probably one of the most brutal fights I've seen. Just bone crunching, real violent, messy, you know, and that's obviously shot very differently than the first scene you guys saw in the trailer. Doing a 540[-degree] spin has this very operatic, kind of very choreographed look to it. And then you see Sub-Zero freeze someone's blood and stab them with it. That obviously has a very specific look and shooting style. So the goal was to make sure that every fight was unique."
McQuoid echoed this in talking about the movie's Australian-based VFX company Method. He said "[They're] an incredible visual effects company who were responsible for Goro. They're also responsible for another part of the film that no one's seen [which is] a pretty gutsy moment."
Oof. Hearing words like "bone crunching", "violent", "messy" and "gutsy" to describe a fight makes me feel a bit unwell, but I guess that's what you go in for with a franchise like Mortal Kombat. In fact, it conjures up imagery of The Mountain popping Oberyn Martell's head like a watermelon in Game Of Thrones.
Advert
But, like Game Of Thrones, those moments of extreme violence will be spread thin through the movie's storyline, with Garner adding they were keen not to make it feel like too much. "We're also not making torture porn, you know?" he said. "We're not making a horror movie that's slashing everybody up just for the sake of doing it. It comes from a real place, it comes from a grounded place."
You can read the whole interview right here. There's a lot of interesting stuff about Mortal Kombat including what the influences for the movie were, and just where the hell Johnny Cage is. You can also catch Mortal Kombat when it releases in theatres and on HBO Max in the US on April 16th, with a UK release date to be confirmed soon.
Featured Image Credit: New Line Cinema / Warner Bros.Topics: Movies, News, Mortal Kombat