Friends, yesterday afternoon saw the release of the first trailer for the upcoming live action Mortal Kombat movie, which is due to be released in both theaters and HBO Max on April 16th. While it is the honest truth that I am most looking forward to seeing Godzilla vs. Kong at the end of March, I would have to rank this new Mortal Kombat film as a close second. During nearly a decade that I was fortunate enough to write for the Retroist, and even on the PCR site, I believe I have made evident my love of the Mortal Kombat series. Having said that I always admit that I am absolutely horrid at the fighting game genre, but I am so very much addicted to the lore of the MK series of games, comic books, and even the criminally overlooked animated series from back in ’96.
I plan on covering the 1995 Mortal Kombat film on a future episode of the Pop Culture Retrorama podcast. Mortal Kombat began as a rather controversial arcade fighting game in 1992, released by Midway Games who had a hand in such classic video games as TRON and Rampage to name a few. But thanks to the hugely popular home ports of the first Mortal Kombat as well as Mortal Kombat II and Mortal Kombat III, the series managed to reach a younger audience that might not have had the luxury of a nearby arcade. Which would explain why back in 1994 Hasbro decided to tackle such a controversial property and produce a line of Mortal Kombat action figures – that could easily fit in with your collection of G.I. Joe toys.
That original live action film managed to obtain a PG-13 rating for violence and some ‘mature’ language. It certainly appears though that the upcoming Mortal Kombat reboot is proud to let folks know it is has earned an R rating for over-the-top violence and what I am sure will be plenty of swear words. The trailer below is courtesy of Entertainment Tonight and not the red band trailer that is available online – it still shows plenty of action and violence however and is courteous enough to bleep out a bit of bad language at the end of the preview.
In closing out this article, I have to say that this new movie looks like quite a bit of fun – hopefully I will be able to watch it at the arcade. In addition I am extremely impressed with the casting of Hiroyuki Sanada (Westworld) as Hanzo Hasashi aka Scoprion. Furthermore I am ecstatic the film is going to be featuring Kung Lao, who is played by Max Huang (Kingsman: The Secret Service, Hitman: Agent 47). I will be sure to share a non-spoiler review of Mortal Kombat after it is released in April.
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