Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.
This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema, we are talking about the nineteen ninety five supernatural martial arts film Mortal Kombat, adapted from the incredibly popular nineties video game franchise. The movie directed by Paul W. S Anderson, starring a very interesting cast that we'll get into as we go, most notably show favorite Christophe Lambert as some kind of god of thunder.
First thing I gotta say about Mortal Kombat is that this is nine year old Joe McCormick's idea of a really good movie. I had the original Mortal Kombat game on Super Nintendo before the movie came out, so of course I was extremely pumped for it, and I think I was like the target demo of this movie. I was male eight eight to twelve years old, obsessed with karate and ready to accept mid nineties CGI as a legitimate visual art form.
Super Nintendo. So you had the version of the home Wortal Combat that didn't have blood.
No, it's all sweat or sand coming off of people like you. You'd punch somebody and something flies off of their head, but it's like tan in color.
So that you did have, as I recall, a superior in my opinion, sub zero fatality, because in the Arcade version and in the Sega Genesis version that I had, he did like the spine rip like a predator. They
could be good. I mean, that's a great, great one, but it's not very ice themed, and I really liked the theme of the Ninja with all this ice magic, and so the super Andes version of the Fatality was freezing solid and then shatter them, which which I thought was really It's classier and it's more befitting of an ice ninja.
Oh yeah, I see what you're saying. This may be a case where some I don't know the real reasoning here, but it may be a case where a censorship impulse actually produced a better artistic choice overall.
Yeah, yeah, so yeah.
Anyway, So I was excited for this movie. I saw it in the theater, I think probably with my dad. I owned a copy of it on VHS, and I don't know if you recall, rob, but in the nineties VHS tapes were expensive you like had to really want a movie on tape to justify saving up to get it.
I was trying to do a little math, and I think it's you know, now you can go get a Blu Ray for like fifteen or twenty bucks, but they were essentially like twenty or twenty five bucks for a VHS tape in the nineties, which is like forty to fifty dollars today.
Yeah, but then you knew once you bought this film on VHS, you were good to go. You would never have to buy this movie again.
That's true.
VHS purists out there would agree with that without the tiniest shred of irony, I'm sure. But as it worked out, like yeah, these movies you bought on VA, you ended up buying them again on DVD, then buying them again on Blu Ray, and then because you can't find your Blu ray, you buy it again as a digital purchase.
And then buy it again on VHS off eBay.
I mean, yeah, yeah, come back around to the nostalgia.
Yeah, so I watched this tape many many times, I like acted out the scenes. I not only had the VHS, I had the Mortal Kombat Original Motion Picture soundtrack on CD, which was This was something I did a number of times as a kid. Rob, Have we ever talked about whether you did this too? Like when I liked a movie, I wanted to own the soundtrack and not just to own it, but actually like listen to the CD over and over.
Oh yeah, I absolutely did this. I definitely had the Mortal Kombat Original Motion Picture soundtrack, had it up there on the shelf, probably beside my soundtrack to The Crow. Let's See Gonna Fit were another of big ones. I mean, obviously pulp fiction was in the mix, but I would go for stuff like one of my earliest cassette purchases actually was a cassette that had all the James Bond theme songs on there, but not official versions. They were all like some sort of horrible cover like.
Instrumental version of Goldfinger.
Almost It wasn't aimed exclusively at children, but it was something like some off brand Bond compilation that I got at Walmart on cassette. So yeah, I was very much in this boat. Like if I love the film, I wanted to read it in novel form and I wanted to listen to it in audio format.
Well, we had that in common. So yeah, I got into soundtracks in fact way before I actually appreciated the album by an artist music format. And I did this with other movies too that were less in the weird house zone now. Like I remember, I really loved the soundtrack CD to the original Brian de Palma Mission Impossible movie from ninety.
Six, which had soundtrack at all.
It had like the cranberries and stuff on it, but I think actually my favorite tracks on it were just the Mission Impossible theme itself. It's like the the you know, the soundtrack to Sneak In Around the House.
Oh yeah, it's a great theme song.
But anyway, like many elementary school kids in the nineties, I was a real Mortal Kombat head from the game to the movie to the soundtrack. It was a lifestyle, which is curious because after this I really did not
keep up with Mortal Kombat at all. Like I played Mortal Kombat two and three on the arcade cabinets with my friends, which I think we're both out before this movie came out, so I think, right, yeah, But since then there have been I don't know how many, like thirty seven games, new movies, TV series, a bunch of expanded mythology and lore, and I'm not really familiar with any of it. I've sort of seen it at a distance. I know the new games have characters like Jason Vorhees
and Superman in them. I'm not quite sure what's going on with that.
Uh and uh.
Yeah, So I really did not keep up with Mortal Kombat, despite how into it I was for a brief period of time.
I think I've kept up with it pretty well. I wasn't really playing video games when four came out. That was the three D one that I don't think his all owned probably has an aged all that well, whereas one and two and three those are still great today. You can still play those and they're still a blast.
And then I got into I think all the major installments of the franchise since for with the exception of the most recent one, because I don't have the hard way to run it, otherwise i'd probably have played it by now. But it's I think it's going to be even harder to understand because they decided it's time to factor in the multiverse for this one. So I don't know if I have the time and mental energy these days to handle that level of Mortal Kombat.
But do they do like a like a reality gem, like in game explanation for why characters from other franchises are in the game.
In the games that I've played, generally the outside characters are not involved in the story at all, so they're kind of external to.
Story mode bonus content.
Yeah, but then if you beat the game with those characters, they'll generally find a clever way to explain to you why leather Face just won the Mortal Kombat tournament, you know, things like that, which they do a pretty good job, so I'll give them credit. But I would say that this is something I'll hammer home again later, is that these early Mortal Kombat games, they did not have a true story mode like a lot like video games today. They had an intro that would play on the arcade cabinet.
There'd be a very short like epilogue for your character that you beat arcade mode with, and that was it. The rest was just you filling in the blanks based on like the cool sounds and sights and moves and the individual aspects of these different characters. It wasn't all
spelled out to you. And I think that's one of the appeals of Mortal Kombat is that it was enthralling and it was captivating, but it didn't give you, like beat by beat, like who all these characters were really supposed to be and what all their motivations were, and you got to sort of dream up the red that.
I think that's exactly right. You might that might be surprising because on the surface these games are like the content that's there is mostly pretty dumb and quite violent, but they do stimulate a lot of imagination when you're a kid, like you get to kind of make up a story as you go along.
Speaking of the violence, I do want to throw in that I'm gonna sound like an old person here, but the games are just way too violent now, Like the fatalities are now just unwatchable, Like they're traumatizing to behold. Like when I the most recent games I've played in the Moral Kombat series, I'll just intentionally not do fatalities because it's just too much.
It's like Saw Territory.
Yeah, it's just it's just too much. So but I don't know, that's just me. Evidently they're still popular, but the games are The games are still fun.
Oh sorry, I forgot one more thing. I did engage with, which is I've seen the sequel to the movie we're talking about today, which is Mortal Kombat Annihilation from nineteen ninety seven, which has strong so bad it's good energy. It's a movie in which Christoph Limbert would not return to reprise his role and had to be replaced by Dexter's dad.
Ah. Yes, yes, I did not see moratl Kombat Annihilation, but I am familiar with it due to its reputation. So my memory is a little hazy on exactly what my expectations were for this film when it came out. Like the brief timeline that we've alluded to is first Mortal Kombat game hit arcades in ninety two, and then the excellent sequel, Mortal Kmbat two came out in nineteen ninety three, which, just looking at that, that's just crazy turnaround time by today's.
Standards, right, yeah, yeah.
And so I was. I was all the way in on MK two by the time this film came out. I played it like at the local Walmart until one day they turned the blood off and everyone was upset by that, which was the day Kurt Cobain died, I believe. Oh yeah, strange.
Yeah, but that was Is there like a physical switch on the cabinet. It's like blood on, blood off.
No, No, we checked, we thought of that. We're like, well, we got to find the switch, we got to turn it back on. But I guess it's inside the cabinet, and if the local parents group, you know, pressures the store owner, they'll change it. But anyway, so, and then MK two had come out on Sega Genesis. I played it there, and then MK three came out April of ninety five, ahead of this film's August eighteenth, nineteen ninety five theatrical release, And yeah, MK three was pretty awesome too.
So by this point in the franchise, we were three games deep in an ever expanding lore. We had this story about an interdimensional martial arts tournament that was determining the fate of the world. And I would have been sixteen at the time, so I was old enough to be a little opinionated about movie adaptations of video games. But I think also optimistic enough to think that a video game adaptation of Mortal Kombat was a good idea.
Well, you know, that impulse might not have been totally misguided, because you could see little Inklings and Rob you were sharing the before we started recording this. You shared a link to some of the TV spots advertising the games themselves, like advertising the Mortal Kombat two cabinet and stuff, and they're awesome commercials, like they got incredible atmosphere.
Yeah, there was a TV commercial for MK two for the console editions and it was amazing. You can still find it on YouTube and stuff, but it was I was doing some digging. They filmed it at Shepperton Studios and Bob Keane's Image Imagination Group did the makeup. This is a group that had worked on the Hell Raiser films, Lord of Illusions, Life Force, So it looks really sharp and there are aspects of it that look better than
what we see in this picture. But I remember I remember like videotaping that commercial and like rewatching it and thinking like, yeah, yeah, this this could work.
Wait how did you take Did you just like happen to get it while taping something else or did you intend to tape the commercial?
It was probably both. I was something and either I wasn't taking out the commercials because you know, whatever I was watching and taping was probably in the same demographic as MK two console edition. Yeah, yeah, all right, so we've provided a fair amount of the basics here regarding Mortal Kombat. Joe, what's your elevator pitch? For Mortal Kombat the movie from nineteen ninety five.
Some random fighters from around the world are invited to participate in a martial arts tournament that, it turns out, will determine the fate of our cosmos and whether our souls are to be eaten by monsters from another dimension.
It's interesting that we're talking about this during the Summer Olympics, you know, which is about international competitors coming together to compete, and to a very limited extent, that's the story of Mortal Kombat as well.
Yeah, It's kind of like if the Olympics were only combat sports, and several of the competitors were from another dimension and they had four arms and were giant, and in order to win the Olympics, you had to beat those things, the monsters from another dimension, and if you lost the Olympics against them ten times in a row, something will come and eat your soul.
Okay, that's kind of the plot of what is it Monster Jama?
Is it Space Jam?
Space Jam? That's basically a pot of space jam.
Right, it's close. Yeah, speaking of we've just been talking about it as if you know, it's common knowledge. Probably a lot of people know what's going on with Mortal Kombat the video game. But for people who aren't familiar, should we very briefly describe Mortal Kombat in terms of gameplay setting in story?
Yeah?
Yeah, absolutely, Okay, So the original Mortal Kombat is a side view, one on one fighting game in which players could select from a list of seven playable characters and face off against either each other. So you fight against your friends or you could fight against the computer playing some other character, And there was a sort of a story mode, as you alluded to earlier, but there wasn't
really much of a story to it. Instead, that just means you sequench Lee face off against all of the other characters in the game, one after another, and then at the end of that there are a couple of different boss fights.
Yeah, that's right. You just basically go up a ladder. So with solo fights against the computer, then you would do there's some test your mites in there where you karate break things in half. There'd be a mirror match, some endurance matches, especially in that first one, they had to make the most out of a limited roster, and then you would fight the two.
Bosses, right, and so the seven playable characters are Lu Kang, who is kind of the canonical hero of the video game series. He is portrayed as a practitioner of sort of classic kung fu. He's a Shaolin warrior and he's he's the good.
Guy, very Bruce Lee as clearly inspired by Bruce Lee.
Yes, there are two ninjas that look identical except a swapped color palette on their outfits. One is the Ninja sub Zero, who has ice powers, and the other is the Ninja Scorpion, who can throw a spear on a that grabs you and pulls you over to him, and that's his special move and he says come here when he does that. And then also he can take his mask off and breathe fire on you.
Yeah, he's like an infernal revenant. I guess you'd say.
There is Sonia Blade, a Special Forces operative who is at the tournament chasing after a criminal who's another one of the players named Cano happens to be the Terminator. Like half of his face is the Terminator. It's metal with a red Eye, but I don't know if canonically he is robot beyond that metal part of his face.
I think it's supposed to be just like a cybernetic replacement for his eye. But it also is a weapon that shoots a laser beam. At least in later games, that shoots a laser beam.
That's right. So you got the sort of the cop and the criminal. I think in the later games there is more straightforwardly even than Sonya Blade, a character who's just like a cop, who just has like police equipment. Yes, Striker is the cop that shows up in him k III. That's the strange choice. I'm just in a tournament here, but I have my like police anyway. There's also two more characters in the first game. There is Johnny Cage
you can play as. He's a movie star, like a martial arts movie star, based I think on Jean Claude van Dam And then he does the split punch right right, he does the splits and punch it. Yeah, it goes down, splits and punches in the groin area, which plays into the movie we're about to talk about. And then finally there is Raydon, who is a god. Seems kind of unfair that a god gets to face off against all of the other human fighters, but he is a god who has electricity powers.
Yeah, the name very loosely based on the Japanese thunder deity Ragion. And also the character is very clearly inspired by the lightning empowered member of the Three Storms in Big Trouble in Little China. John Governor's Big Trouble in Little China is an obvious strong influence on Mortal Kombat.
Yes, on this character in the game, but also on the way Raydin is portrayed by Christopher Lambert in the movie. Now, just a couple of other things to mention from the game that'll play into the film. As we've alluded to, Like, all the characters have their own different special moves, Like they can all punch and kick and jump, but then they've got these special moves that you would enact by
entering a different series of buttons in the game. So like Lukang can shoot a fireball and he can do a flying kick, and kane O can throw a knife and he can like turn into a ball and fly across the screen. Sub Zero can shoot ice and so forth. One thing that kind of separates Mortal Kombat, and I think perhaps justifiably drew the ire of some like parents who are watching their kids play this game, is that the game is not just about like physical fighting, but
it is explicitly a fight to the death. And at the end of a fight you are there is like a voice that comes on when one side has been defeated and tells the victorious party to finish him I guess, meaning kill him, which then you can do one of your fatalities, which is a special move. For example, where the Scorpion, the Yellow Ninja, he pulls his mask off and breathes fire on the other person.
Yeah, reduces you to a skeleton which then crumbles to the ground. These were a huge hit. You know. You're looking up these special moves and the special fatality inputs, you know, perhaps bringing them to the arcade with you on a little sheet of paper, folded up page from a magazine.
That's learning how to do research. It's an important skill. Yeah. And then of course you had your non playable villains in the game. One of them is Goro, who's this big scary guy who's huge and he has four arms instead of two. He will factor into the movie and then there is Shang Sung, the Big Bad of Mortal Kombat, who was an evil sorcerer who could shape shift into the form of any other fighter in the game.
Yeah, and this character was clearly inspired, at least to some degree, by the character of Lopin in Big Trouble, Little China.
Yeah. Now, should we put this in the context of any other movies based on video games we have done on Weird House. The nineteen ninety three Super Mario Brothers movie, which I still maintained, is one of the weirdest movies we've done on the show, and one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. Mortal Kombat in the movie is a pretty strange cultural artifact, but as an adaptation of its source material, I think it's a lot more
straightforward than Super Mario Brothers. Like, so, the game is about a weird, supernatural martial arts tournament where people around the world come to fight to the death. The movie is about that too. Super Mario Brothers instead veers way way off into its own Dennis Hopper mud bath and just I don't know, it introduces a lot of its own stuff, and all that stuff is quite unexpected.
Yeah, Super Mario Brothers as a motion picture doesn't right itself to the same degree that Mortal Kombat does.
And I think to some degree that's because the Mortal Kombat game premise, I would assume it seems quite clear it is based on movies of a certain type, movies like Enter the Dragon, but there are a lot of movies of this with this basic premise that it's like a destination martial arts tournament that is ruled over by some kind of evil king or sorcerer.
Yeah. Yeah, so it's yeah, pretty simple structure to sort of aspire to there, and then at least in the game, your mind kind of fills in the blanks. And then not to say it's I think it is a challenge for the screenwriter, and I think you see that in this film, like there are certain story points that have to be created and nourished in order to make this work on any level as a picture about characters, and then they go for it, and I think it mostly works.
But I can imagine some people, some like fans of the film and maybe even I thought this to some extent, like wondering like why do we care about this character? It's like, well, you've got to have these things it can't just be one fight after another. That's what the video game is. This is a movie. It needs to tell some sort of story.
Yeah. I'm kind of two minds about that stuff, because I think a lot of the character development in the movie is on its face laughable, But at the same time it works pretty well as a plot glue that just helps chain one scene into the next and keeps the movie moving.
Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's mainly where it succeeds, because to be clear, there's not a lot of character development to go around in this picture. Some characters don't get it at all.
Yeah. So yeah, maybe that leads into some of my summary thoughts upon revisiting Mortal Kombat this time. I think for the most part, you could say you could certainly make the case that the scripting is not great. It's strangely heavy on these two dy little banter exchanges between our heroes, a lot of hate flirting. But at the same time, there are quite a few memorable lines, and I think that is mostly due to qualities of delay livery,
which brings us to the question of acting. I think the acting in the movie is quite a mixed bag. There are a couple of velvety, rich villain performances, one in particular that really stands out, which are accompanied by a fine Christoph Lambert pairing. But a lot of the other actors are just sort of treading water and they're like, what is going on in this movie? I don't know, We're just getting through this scene. But that's what you'd
often expect from a martial arts movie. However, despite some of the limitations of the script and the acting, this movie is not boring. It has lots of zippy energy and it's just fun the whole way. It really maintains a strong sense of momentum, I think due to some choices about editing a pretty good discipline about not letting any of the fights or really any of the scenes
that all go on too long. It just keeps moving, and it really uses music to great effect to keep the energy up and keep a feeling of forward motion.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Also, I'll say that the martial arts scenes are on the whole a lot better than I expected them to be. When coming back to this, the fights mostly convey some amount of drama. Longtime listeners will be familiar with my gripe about action scenes, but for newcomers, if you want to hear it briefly. I think action scenes are often quite boring in movies because there's really no drama to them. There's no meaningful exchange of power, no genuine fear for
the character's fate. Nothing is revealed about the characters, no questions are asked or answered, there's no effect on the broader story. They're often just an interlude where we take a break from the story to watch some violence happen. But great action scenes transcend to this by containing drama within them. And you know what, I think Mortal Kombat does a reasonably good job at making the fights dramatic.
Absolutely. I think the fight most all of the fights hold up really well. That they tell a story. That is That's always been my key way of thinking about it. Like you can't just lot of films, especially Western films, if they engage in some fights, it'll just be like some moves. You'll see some moves, you'll see some you get a vibe of fighting, but you don't get the sense of there being a story. There a story where there are obstacles to overcome, there's conflict, there are stakes,
there are little callbacks and so forth. Like a great cinematic fight is going to have all of these elements and you can become lost in its own inner drama.
I think that's exactly right. Another thing about this movie stylistically, it is extremely nineteen nineties. I think if you were to be teaching a film class about the conventions of popular filmmaking during the nineties and you're making a viewing list for that class, this movie should be on it. It strongly reflects that music video influenced style that was dominant in blockbuster films of the time.
Absolutely, and so it's really kind of a minor miracle that the fight scenes are so good, because when I think about that music video style, I can instantly turn my head to various examples I'm not going to call them out here, but various examples where you have that kind of music video vibe to the fight sequences, where it is all vibe and it is not about telling a story.
It's just stuff happening. It's just loud noises, flashes of things. You can't tell where anybody is or what's going on or why it matters. But this movie, yeah, mostly not like that. The fight scenes are well choreographed and well filmed thumbs up to that. Special effects also a mixed bag, but leaning toward the negative, I would say the standout element is some truly egregious CGI. I think we've called out this movie before on the show is a nideer
of CGI in big budget movies. The technology was not ready to be used the way it is used in this movie.
I don't think i'd seen this film since the nineties, so I was prepared for the CGI to be rough. But it was worse than I remembered it. Like, I remember being excited the CGI this film and thinking it was like pretty cool.
It seemed great at the time.
Yeah, it seemed amazing at the time. Now it looks very very liquid television in the worst ways. And I say that as someone who loved liquid television at the time on MTV. But then the other thing is I expected to be really excited about the film's practical effects, namely the Goro effects, and this didn't hit the right notes for me either. Yeah.
Well, let's get into that in a bit.
Okay, we'll come back to Goro, but let's go ahead at this point. Let's go ahead and listen to a little bit of the trailer audio. For Mortal Kombat. I'm almost certain we're gonna hear just a little snippet of that Mortal Kombat theme song.
In each of us, there burns the fury of a warrior.
Generation.
A few chosen to prove it. One of you three will this side. Yeahut, come of the tournament, three strangers, You'll travel to the mystical realm of outworld to defend our people against Shang Sung. You will live and it forces of darkness in an ancient tournament. One more victory. Your song, It's mine in our world? Is theirs?
Has begun?
Be saying I don't need to run.
Combat begins?
All right. If you're wondering at this point, where can I watch Mortal Kombat the nineteen ninety five cinematic treatment, Well, it is widely available in pretty much all formats, including various franchise bundles. I streamed it on Max, but I also realized I own a digital copy that I received as some sort of an Xbox bonus for one of the you know, the recent games with like I don't
know ten or twelve or something, maybe eleven. I don't know, the tenth, eleventh or twelfth game, one of them They're like, here have the ninety five film version as well for.
Free download code or something.
Yeah, yeah, you just got it through like the Xbox film download things. So I watched it on Max. I don't think that there is a definitive special edition or anything here. So this is very much a case of watch it wherever is least painful for you.
I guess I watched it by getting into a time machine made by the Tubular Corporation and going back to nineteen ninety five to my local cineplex.
There you go. Maybe the effects are better if you said it in the nineties, you know, like not only in terms of expectations, but in terms of like picture quality. All right, let's talk about the people who made this film. We mentioned that the director is, of course Paul W. S. Anderson born nineteen sixty five, English director and writer and producer, who started out in TV writing for the British crime series LCID starring Alfred Molina at least in the first
couple of seasons. I think someone else came in to lead it after that. But Anderson made a big splash as a director after this with the violent crime drama Shopping in ninety four, which He also wrote, I have not seen it, but it features an excellent cast, including the feature film debut of Jude Law, and it features an extremely stacked soundtrack featuring such acts as Stereo MC's Salt and Peppa Emf and Utah Saints.
Oh, Utah Saints are on this soundtrack. Yeah, Yeah, they've got some really good hype music in there.
So it is worth noting, yeah, that Paul W. S Anderson clearly put a lot of stock in the soundtrack to these pictures that he was involved in, and he brings a lot of I think enthusiasm, especially for electronic music of the time period. Yeah, So Mortal Kombat was his follow up to the success of Shopping, which was a big commercial hit. Even Roger Ebert admitted that it was better than expected, and he would follow this up with nineteen ninety seven's Even Horizon, a film that certainly
wears its inspirations on its sleeves. But this was a huge favorite of mine upon its release, and it's still one that I'd come back to now and again, I'm probably overdue to revisit and see how I feel about it at my current age.
You know, I just recently put on event Horizon sort of in the background while I was doing something else and tuned in for a few scenes here and here and there. And I'm gonna say I think I feel about it similar to how I feel about Mortal Kombat, which is that it's hard to say like it's a good movie, but it really does have its charms.
Yeah. It has a great cast, has some great sets, great look in many ways, and the score was a collaboration between Michael Kaman and the English electronic duo The Orb. So I think a lot of people look fondly back on Event Horizon. And he followed that up with Soldier starring Kurt Russell, and that one was scripted by David Peeples, one of the screenwriters for Blade Runner. But I've never seen that one, and that one, I'm to understand kind
of failed to find an audience. Really. His next big picture was a return to video game adaptations, because you know, he'd proven himself there, and so he came back with two thousand and two's Resident Evil, which proved another huge hit and kickstarted a French eyes of films starring his
soon to be wife, Nila Djoviovic. Anderson directed films one, four, five, and six in that franchise, and also remained active as a writer and producer on other installments, including the one that Russell McKay directed in two thousand and seven, Resident Evil Extinction.
I did not know they'd made it to six Resident Evil movies. Yeah, I think I saw the first two.
I think I saw one, and then I saw part of Russell McKay's and I was I was impressed by what I saw, but for some reason I didn't finish it. I don't know.
Those Resident Evil movies are the kind that I know. I've seen them. I remember literally nothing at all about them. Couldn't tell you a single thing.
Now, we also have to mention that Paul W. S Anderson directed two thousand and four's Alien Versus Predator. That's probably a film we could do a whole episode about. But to be fair, I have to stress that while I don't think it was a solid entry in the Alien franchise, you can make a case for being a solid entry in the Predator franchise. I think I'm mostly glad that it's considered non canon, but I still do
remember seeing it and being entertained by it. I don't remember being bored in Alien Versus Predator, and I remember many of the effects being pretty terrific, So I probably need to revisit that one as well, even though I don't really want to.
Well, I'm glad you feel obligated.
I don't know if I feel obligated. I'm sure I would enjoy myself if I rewatched it.
Yeah, well I probably would too.
Like if I'm faced with, Okay, do I rewatch Alien three? Or Alien Resurrection or Alien Versus Predator. It's a strong case to be made for each of these films for pretty different reasons.
I think I'm on the record being a really not a fan of Alien Resurrection. I would do Three, then a VP, then Resurrection.
I think it's pretty solid, all right. Other Anderson films include a two thousand and eight update of Death Race, twenty eleven three Musketeers movie that has a pretty amazing cast, twenty fourteen's POMPEII, twenty twenties Monster Hunter, and up next, this one actually has me a little bit interested. Lost Lands, a werewolf fantasy movie starring Mila Jovivic and Dave Bautista
based on a story by George R. R. Martin. Okay, so that could fly drastically off the rails, but it could be really good.
Yeah, I got to see it all right now.
On the writing front, Mortal Kombat ninety five credits the creators of the Mortal Kombat franchise, that being ed Boone born nineteen sixty four and John Tobias. Famously. Of course, these two last names spelled backwards create the Ninjas. The name of the shadow ninja Nube Sibot in the franchise, Nube Saibot is not in this film.
Though, very cool sounding ninja.
Yeah, all of these two individuals. Ed Boone remains creative director and team leader on all Mortal Kombat and related games at nether Room Studios. He's pretty active on social media as well. He also did a lot of the voices, So Scorpion's voice is ed Boone, and we hear ed Boone's voice as Scorpion in this picture. John Tobias is widely considered to have been really instrumental in the first four Mortal Kombat games, you know, that really established much
of the mythos and the lore. But after that, I believe he parted ways with the production and kind of went off on his own.
One of the goofy er choices in this movie is that it does use sound effects from the video game in the movie. I don't remember all the examples, but you know, there's a voice over in the game, so like when you select a player, it'll say their name, it'll go Scorpion, and I think they use stuff like that in the movie.
Actually, I mean maybe there are voices in the room that were like, this is what video game fans want and we should give it to them, which brings me to the screenwriter for this, which I can't help This is me projecting, but I can't help but notice that screenwriter Kevin Droney was born in nineteen forty eight. That was the same year my dad was born. I can't help but think back and to imagine me as a sixteen year old and my dad writing a Mortalbat film.
Not a fair comparison, but at any rate. Droni writer and producer who previously scripted episodes of TVs, The Equalizer, Jake and the Fat Man, Hunter and Highlander, the TV series, among others, as well as the TV movie Down Came a Blackbird starring Roald Julia, Laura Dern and Vanessa Redgrave. After Mortal Kombat. He worked on the screenplay for the nineteen ninety nine Wing Commander film Hilary.
He's writing for Raal Julia and Vanessa Redgrave and Mortal Kombat.
Yeah, but I'm really only familiar with his work here, and again he gets the job done. You know, he takes he adapted the Mortal Kombat video games into a workable screenplay.
So it is a dumb screenplay, but this machine cranks.
Yeah, all right, Top Build. In this film we have Christopher Limbert playing Lord Raydon with a wha, I don't I didn't look that up. Why it has a y in it?
For this he gets spelled in different ways in different games. Also, like there, I don't remember which was which, but like it was spelled differently in the Arcade Cabinet versus the console versions.
All right, well, Lambert, We've talked about Lambert before. He's one of our favorites. Born nineteen fifty seven, French franchise mainstay. We discussed him at length in our pair of episodes on Highlander two. This is he's again Top Build here, but he's more of a supportive character. He's, like you said, he's kind of one of two actors who were kind of the glue holding the whole thing together. He did not reprise this role in the sequel, as Rayden would
be played in that in Annihilation by James Ramar. Of course, Dramar was in The Warriors and looking at his filmography everything else as well. This is one of those guys is just continually acted in anything and everything.
Now he plays his role as openly cheesy, which not everybody in the movie does, like some characters are playing their role fairly straight. For example, our heroes mainly play their role straight. But Lambert is act He's on a different level. Like he is embracing camp and cheesiness openly, and it brings a wonderful kind of seasoning to the proceedings. I think that contrast between some actors taking it seriously and a couple of actors primarily Lambert not doing that,
it works out pretty well. But it also there are moments where he turns it on and and kind of does take it seriously. There are only a few of them, but those I don't know. It's charming.
Yeah, yeah, I agree, Like there's some points where he brings a serious tone that really powers up the exposition dumps and then other times he's a little lighter and a little silly, and it's it's interesting to think about this in terms of where they ended up going with the Raiden character in the later games, where Raidin is very serious and all the imust consult the older gods and all this, but in this film, Lambert plays him, and I feel like Rayden is written as a kind
of trickster god who's helping humanity but on one level genuinely wants to help them, but also is amused by them, And so you're not exactly sure, like what which is his primary motivation seen to scene, and I think it's more befitting of a supportive role god character and something like this.
But he's also partially playing it like a beloved sitcom character. He has what happened catch phrases, Oh yeah, he says, I don't think so.
He says it three times that I counted, I don't think so. So.
I would not be surprised to learn that Christophe Lambert did this entire movie without knowing what it was about, and only read his lines for the first time on the day he was shooting his scenes. I can't prove that just feels possible, but he but still he provides this wonderful just signature twinkling eye and mischievous chuckle and all is right with the world. I'm so glad he's here now.
While Lambert is the top build actor, Raydn again is not the main character. He's not our true protagonist. Our protagonist is Lou Kang, of course, played in this film by Robin Chu born nineteen sixty. Not only is he the true hero of this film, he is the canonical winner of the first three Mortal Kombat games. So you know, reminder, never bet on a Mortal Kombat game because Lu King is always the winner if.
You can get good adds betting on him. I guess you should, I guess. But yeah, He's always going to win. It's just how it works.
And he shit so. Robin Schu born in British Hong Kong, raised in la and while at California State University, he decided to travel to mainland China to study wushu martial arts. He finished his schooling in the US, but then traveled back to Hong Kong, where he got into stunt work in Hong Kong cinema and this basically spilled out into
small parts some Hong Kong productions as well. So prior to Mortal Kombat, he'd appeared in such Hong Kong films as nineteen eighty eight's The Big Heat co directed by show favorite Sue Hawk and nineteen ninety threes Undefeatable. But then he's out of the blue cast in Mortal Kombat.
So this is a huge break for him, you know, going from basically smaller roles in Hong Kong productions to essentially, I mean, maybe not top bill, but still the main character in the fairly big budget production that ends up being a summer blockbuster release. He would follow this up with ninety seven's Mortal Kombat Annihilation, reprising the role of course Beverly Hills Ninja. The same year, he was in
an episode of The Outer Limits. From nineteen ninety eight, he was in Death Race Street Fighter, The Legend of Chun Lee in two thousand and nine, Deathrays two Into twenty ten, Deathras three, Inferno in twenty thirteen. He's also written and directed I Believe that the film is two thousand and three is Red Trousers The Life of the Hong Kong Stuntmen, and he is also credited with fight
choreographer additional fight sequences for this film. So I guess you got to throw in some of his own special sauce in some of his fight scenes here.
Yeah, so I also really like him here. None of the characters in Mortal Kombat are written with great finesse, and our hero role here is no exception to that. But Robin Show is a great casting choice, and he shines through due to just strong baseline likability. He's handsome, He's charismatic, but not in a big overt way. He's got an understated charisma. He rips in his martial arts scenes and just gives off good guy energy even in the scenes where he's bringing a bad attitude. He also
has astoundingly voluminous hair. It's at almost glam metal volume. I'm in awe.
It is impressive hair. Yes, the wind is often catching it just right.
Who did the hairstyling in this movie generally quite good?
Catherine Reese, Michael Pockel, and Alicia M. Trippy. Those are the three three individuals credited. I don't know which one is responsible for this hairday, though, hats off two.
You three quite literally because you wouldn't want to put a hat on that feathered de.
It just wouldn't be the same if Luke King was fighting at a ball cap. Yeah, trucker hat, you know, I don't know now I'm picturing it sounds pretty cool, all right. Then we have Johnny Cage, played by Lyndon Ashby born nineteen sixty American actor and martial arts practitioner. His credits go back to eighty six. They include the nineteen eighty seven Werewolf TV show that we frequently referenced. He'd mostly done TV work prior to Mortal Kombat, but
also some action films sprinkled in there as well. For instance, there's a role as one of the ERPs in the nineteen ninety four film Wyatt Erp. And his post Mortal Kombat credits include thirty five episodes of Melrose Place, Wild Things Too in two thousand and four, Resident Evil Extinction, two thousand and eight, prom Night, two thousand and Nine's Anaconda's Pearl, Trail of Blood, me Girls two in twenty eleven, twenty thirteen's Iron Man three, eighty eight episodes of TV's
Teen Wolf. That one is a strong Russell McKay connection there, and various TV roles. On top of that, he would return to voice Johnny Cajo believe in downloadable content for Mortal Kombat eleven in twenty nineteen, and I believe Christophe Limbert did the same. I don't know if he says I don't think so, but I hope he does so.
I thought Johnny Cage was really cool and really funny when I was nine. Not sure I feel the same way now, or at least maybe to rephrase, I thought he at the beginning of the movie was cool and funny when I was nine. Not sure I feel the same way now. You know, early in the story his character is written smug, smarmy, and egotistical, but he's got a nice redemption arch. He redeems himself with courage and with a well executed punch to the groin when it matters most. So I think it all evens out.
Yeah, And I think this role may have been important and setting the course for Johnny Cage in future combat games and media, so moving away from just sort of a cocky Van dam clone into this kind of privileged, semi hateable jerk who maybe comes through in the end for the good guys to spite his ego I should point out that Carl Urvin is going to play him in the next Mortal Kombat film, despite Urban clearly being the most Cano ready actor alive.
Oh Man put him in a metal face plate right now.
I think they already have a guy playing Kano, so they're like, what do you do with Carl Urban? But Carl Urban's great at comedic role, so he's going to deliver something special. I'm sure.
Yeah. Oh, but I feel we've waited too long. We've got to talk about Kerrie hiro Yuki Tagawa playing our villain. Shang Song in this. I love him.
Oh yeah, he is tremendous. This is the quintessential Shing Song born nineteen fifty Japanese American actor whose credits fittingly go back to an uncredited extra role as a Wingkong man in nineteen eighty six. Is Big Trouble in Little China. I don't think I've ever spotted him, but he's supposedly in there.
Okay.
That same year, he had a small role in the nineteen eighty six Fred Olin Ray filmed arm Response starring David Carridine, Lee Van Cleef, Mako, Michael Berriman, and Dick Miller. I mean to the extent anything. I mean, some movies starred Dick Miller. We've talked, we've covered them on the show before, but Dick Miller is generally a supporting note.
Yeah, he plays your door to door vacuum salesman.
Yeah, so to Goawa since this film, has acted and voice acted in tons of titles, often playing villains because he does that so very well. I can't do all of his credits justice, but just a few things to mention. He did an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation.
He was in nineteen eighty seventh, The Last Emperor, nineteen eighty nine's Licensed to Kill, Let's See the nineteen ninety one Not of This World remake and Showdown in Little Tokyo same year, nineteen ninety two's Nemesis, ninety three's Rising Sun,
Thunder and Paradise one and three. In the mid nineties Babylon nine, John Carpenter's Vampires, in nineteen ninety eight the two thousand and one Planet of the Apes, and he came back to play Sheang Sung again in the twenty thirteen TV series Possibly This was a web series Mortal Kombat Legacy, and a major role in the TV series the Man in the High Castle, and he would also come back to play Sheang Sung in Likeness and voice for twenty nineteens Mortal Kombat eleven.
Yeah, so we were talking about how he seems to have been typecast as a bad guy, but you can understand why because he has a world class sneer. But he's also just a great actor. I'm sure if you gave him a lovable, friendly, good guy role, he'd do well with that as well. I think Tagawa is the best actor in this movie, or at least, let me say, make it not about the person, but gives the best performance in this movie, and it's not even close. Every
scene he's in he dominates. He has this great rare skill of making even quite badly written dialogue just sing. As we said earlier, even though this is a dumb movie, it does not ever get boring, and we talked about some reasons for that, like the you know, the pacing that that keeps things moving along briskly, the use of hype music to keep the energy up. But I think a big reason it does not get boring is a couple of the major performances. One is Christoph Lambert, who
just keeps things fun. But the other one is Kerrie Hiroyuki Tagawa because he's he's almost like a like a lubricant that keeps the movies motor from reaching the failure threshold. You know. It's like every scene he's in, he just makes it come alive.
Yeah, he's clearly physically and spiritually committed to every scene he's in it. It is a completely over the top mustache twirling villain roll. He doesn't have the mustache, but but you know, certainly embodies that over the top vibe. The character lacks the complexity of James Hong's lopen you know, one of the obvious inspirations for the video game character. But yeah, Tagawa makes it his own and in this
film essentially becomes the quintessential shanksn moving forward. Oh and he has a great coat.
Amazing coat, one of those martial arts movie costumes that makes so little sense. It's like a huge, heavy calf link leather coat. Yeah. I'm gonna do some roundhouse kicks, so I'm going to wrap my whole body in loose leather.
It's amazing. Yeah. Costume design here by ha Win because of nineteen fifty five through twenty twelve, I hope it's in a planet Hollywood somewhere people can look at it while they eat their cheeseburgers. Yeah, all right, now let's move on to the character of Sonia, played played in this film by Bridget Wilson. Sampras credited. Of course, this is Bridget Wilson for this film.
I was trying to think of a not unkind way to say this, but this character is the source of a lot of the unintentionally funny parts of this movie. Like the scene where we meet her is probably the most unintentionally funny part of it, where she's decked out in swat gear with her partner Jacks, and they're running
through the middle of a techno dance club. I don't know, Rob, if you can identify what kind of club this is supposed to be, But they're like running through this club with all these dancers with shotguns, and she's relentlessly barking out these these like tactical speed lines like secure the perimeter and stuff, and is just it's an awkward fit in their role.
Yeah, I believe it's supposed to be a heavy metal rave club in mid nineties Hong Kong, which I guess maybe that's that's realistic. On Hong Kong certainly has both a metal scene and a rave scene, though nothing we see here feels actually connected to any potential reality of that now.
Sonia was actually one of my favorite characters in the original Mortal Kombat game because I could do several of her special moves and I thought they were cool. She could shoot these energy rings out of her hands, and she could also do a thing where she would like stand on her hands, grab you with her ankle and flip you over. So so Sonia was cool in the game. In the movie, they really emphasized like the Special Forces
revenge element. So she is hunting this guy Cano on the island, but a lot of her dialogue once we reach the island is what I would call hate flirting with Johnny Cage, where they're just like trading barbs and insults back and forth. But of course they're gonna end up falling in love.
Yeah, and having children. You get to play their children in the later games.
What are you serious?
Yeah? Yeah, no way, yeah, that's like a what a son and a son and a daughter I think, But anyway.
And they let their kids enter the Mortal Kombat tournament.
Yeah, yeah, and yeah, and they fight against each other too. Yeah, so all that is in play. But it's often pointed out that Cameron Diaz was cast in this role and was training for the role and then suffered some sort of training injury and had to back.
Out, and that could have been interesting.
It could have been, And to be clear, Cameron Diaz is great, but I'm not sure if even she could have done much with this role because, like you said, she's this sort of cardboard revenge seeker action hero until suddenly she's not because then suddenly she's a damsel in distress, kidnapped by the villain. It needs to be rescued by the male heroes.
Yes, this movie does. There's a tension there because they're all supposed to be fighters in this tournament, right, and they can hold their own and we do see she has a fight with Kano in the movie where she is victorious, but right for some reason, right at the break for act three, she transforms from a from a determined fighter into well, now she just needs to be rescued by the dudes. Yeah, predictable twist.
Now, she would of course go on to marry tennis star Pete Samprass thus Bridget Wilson Sampress. She was a former Miss Teen USA. She started out acting on Saved by the Bell and Santa Barbara before appearing in nineteen ninety three He's Last Action Hero, followed by Billy Madison this film and Nixon in ninety five. Quite an interesting ninety five, I have to say, and then.
Oliver Stone Movie and Mortal Yeah.
Other films include I Know What You Did Last Summer in ninety seven, House on Haunted Hill in ninety nine, and she also came back to lend her voice to MK eleven in twenty nineteen. I think for some DLC all right. Another female character, a woman of mystery that shows up is the character Katana, played by Telissa Soto
born nineteen sixty seven. She'd previously appeared in eighty nine's Licensed to Kill as the villain's girlfriend like the drug lord's girlfriend, and so she's not really a bad guy in that. I think she ends up she doesn't like the villain either, but then Bond chooses the other girl over her. If memory serves, if you remember any of the romantic themes and plotting of a License.
To Kill, License to Kill is the one with Robert Dovey, isn't it yep yeap?
So she plays Dobby's character's girlfriend.
Okay, okay.
She would reprise her role as Katana and the ninety seven sequel, and of note, she is the wife of Benjamin Brad.
She has a character of power and mystery in this. She is not a human fighter in the tournament, but appears as one of the envoys of Outworld. I think they say she's the daughter of the Emperor of Outworld, and she's here at the tournament with mysterious and ambiguous motivations, and clearly the villains are sort of afraid of her. They don't know exactly what she intends to do.
Yeah, and she's unfortunately in one of the least interesting fights. That's more about the passing secret information onto Luke King.
Oh yeah, yeah, but she saves lu Kang's life by letting him know that water freezes.
That's right, all right. We mentioned Kano is played by Trevor Goddard in this, who lived nineteen sixty two through two thousand and three, English actor who often played Australian characters. I've read he might have actually been going for a cockney accident here with Kano, but what we get certainly feels Australian and it actually led to the franchise character
becoming Usustralian. So I think ever since, Cano has always been Australian, and I believe he's currently played by an Australian in the new film series.
Okay.
So Goddard was a punk rocker turned actor who really gets to choose some scenery and some I think turkey legs in this one. Yes, he'd mostly done TV work prior to this, but went on to appear in nineteen ninety eight s Deep Rising, which is a pretty fun creature feature, and two thousand and three is Pirates of the Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl. This is
the same year of his untimely passing. I would say Cano feels underutilized in the film, but Goddard literally makes a meal of many Cano scene he's in.
Yeah, there's a scene where he just eats this greasy, juice squirting turkey leg and he's very much eating it in character, if that makes sense. He's like acting through eating. I love him. In that scene. He also gets to throw the turkey leg on the floor after eating about one eighth of it or so.
Yeah. Yeah, he's a food waster and there's a lot of spittles, a lot of spittle from this character. Yes, all right, I'll mention this in passing. But Peter Jason is in this in a very small role, playing Master Boyd, Cage's old trainer or whatnot. Born nineteen forty four. He's a familiar character actor who's been in everything from The Karate Kid and Congo to a slewage on Carpenter films, including the likes of Prince of Darkness, Escape from La and In the Mouth of Madness.
I knew I recognized him from somewhere.
Yeah, he's one of those guys. He's in a lot of.
Stuff, except when we see him, he's not really Master Boyd, is he.
That's right, we'll get to that, all right. Voice actors Frank Welker is in this doing the voices of Shao Khan and Reptile. Born forty six. He's a voice acting mainstay, especially when you need some odd grunts. It's like weird creature noises.
Yeah, that's right. So he does the squealing of Reptile, I guess, and then he at the end of the movie gets to say what, you weak, pathetic fools. I've come for your souls.
Yeah, and then the voice of Goro is Kevin Michael Richardson born nineteen sixty four, deep voiced actor who has worked extensively as a voice actor for film, TV and video games.
Now, is this the point where we want to mention the Goro special effects? Because I'm a little bit on the fence. On one hand, I acknowledge that the Goro I don't even fully know how they accomplished it maybe has some combination of like a suit and animatronics or whatever. Whatever it is, it's an impressive achievement. Those four arms feel kind of real, they feel like they're moving independently. But on the other hand, the design is just hideous. I want to wipe my eyes after looking at it.
I would agree with that it's Goro is It's a lot to take in.
Yeah, But to come back on the other hand, again, I will give them that his presence, the presence they achieve, is genuinely menacing. And I remember being scared of Goro in this movie when I was a kid. It's scary, and some of the early teases of his presence are quite good.
Yeah, the teases are the best, really where you don't see much of them at all, but then you see all of them pretty much. And yeah, it's a weird mix because as a one hundred percent practical effect in a film that has some hideous CGI elements, you know, he's instantly admirable. You're like, yes, prove my point that that practical effects are are the best. But he also just looks a little stilted and awkward most of the time. He comes off looking like a Jack crypt Keeper, but
without all the lifelike articulation of the crypt Keeper. Like the Cryptkeeper always felt real, and I wanted Goro to feel more real. I wanted to believe in him more. And at the same time, yeah, I realized, like a lot of admirable work and artistry went into creating this effect, but it just doesn't quite work. And I'm not sure exactly where the shortcoming is here, Like, is it just that he should have been a stop motion effect more
or less like he is in the game. Does it come down to the way that they shot it and lit it. I Mean, I'm not sure exactly what could have improved the scenario here.
Got He's got a kind of uncanny valley quality that makes him sort of gross to look at. I think it's that he looks almost like a human but has these but is held back in some way. Maybe if they had gone more fully monstrous in his design and made him a little bit less humanoid in the face, say that might have been better.
Yeah, yeah, I mean sometimes humanoid faces can be the
most difficult to make work like. That's one of the you look at some of the behind the scenes stuff on The Dark Crystal and they talk about how the gelflings were the most challenging because they were the most They're supposed to be the most beautiful, the most lifelike, And I don't think they're trying to make Goro beautiful, but maybe there's a case to be made that close ups of Goro speaking should have been like a prosthetic on a human actor instead of what we have here.
And I don't know. It's also probably just another testament to how great the effects are, like The Dark Crystal, where a fully artificial being is brought to believable life, like it's even if you have all the tools at your disposal, and you have a budget and you have expertise, like you're trying to create a masterpiece. So on the effects front, a lot of people were involved in this film. Tom Woodruff Junior is credited with Goro Special Effects and Goro Suit, so I think you know some of the
times it is a person in a suit. Born nineteen fifty nine tons of solid credits. He was a Stan Winston Studios guy, so he was on the team behind The Terminator and Aliens, though he'd splintered off at some point after those films prior to Mortal Kombat. All right,
and then we mentioned the fight choreography. I'll mention that Patty Johnson, who lived nineteen thirty nine through twenty twenty three, was a fight choreographer here, and he was an accomplished martial artist with his own action acting credits going back to nineteen seventy three's Enter the Dragon. He appeared in multiple Chuck Norris movies, such as seventy nine as a
Force of One. He served as fight choreographer on nineteen eighty four as the Karate Kid, and also the three sequels to that, all three of the nineteen nineties Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies, and he also came back for Mortal Kombat Annihilation. He also plays the referee with the mustache in the Karate Kid movie The first all Right,
and then finally the music. So we already mentioned the importance of music in Paul W. S Anderson films, but music is also a key part of the Mortal Kombat franchise. The video games, especially MK two, had some pretty great music. I've listened to the Mortal Kombat Too soundtrack, like the original video soundtrack a little in isolation. It has, you know,
an Eastern influenced electronic vibe. I guess you maybe call it chiptune by today's standards, you know, partially inspired by Carpenter and Howart's tremendous score to Big Trouble in Little China. And then in nineteen ninety four, Virgin Records released Mortal Kombat the album by the Immortals. This is the release that gave a a number of infectious beats, some solid cheese, and also the Mortal Kombat theme song that we hear in this the nineteen ninety five film.
That's what I was going to ask, if you knew is the so I think of the theme song from this film with the main Dun Dun Dun, dun du dah dun dud that thing I fully associate with Mortal Kombat going back to the games, But I actually don't know if anything like that is in the games. Is there something like that that's just straight from this album and then the movie?
Correct, Yeah, I don't think we had anything quite like this in the video games. So I love the video game music.
Like I said, yeah, man, it managed to cement a place in the early canon.
They've continued to make music a big part of the franchise. In twenty eleven, that put up the album Mortal Kombat Songs Inspired by the Warriors. This was a part of the promotion for that year's new Mortal Kombat game, and it has some really solid EDM and dubstep tracks on it. For some of you, if you don't know what dubstep is or you just have a vague idea, I'm talking dubstep and like say, like the larger euro understanding of dubstep.
So like, yes, Skrillis is on there, and Skrillick's track is really good, but there's a lot of dubstep that's more on the darker end of the spectrum, more atmospheric, especially a number of like British and euro artists that were responsible for that. So this particular release has some great tracks. It's got some stuff by Sound of Stereo, Run DMT, La, Riots, Bird Peterson, Harvard, Bass, JFK and
Tokey Monsta. These are these are all really fun artists and I occasionally will we'll pick up at least a track or two off of this album and listen to it. That the run DMT track especially is really good. All right, But that's just side tension. How does this film do on the music front?
Oh? As I said earlier, I think that the use of music is one of the things that really keeps the momentum up. Like we were talking, there's some great hype music throughout I'm thinking of I don't know. There are a bunch of moments, like there is a scene where Shang Sung has all of the warriors come in and like have dinner. There's this big feast and then he has his you know, oiled up muscle boys run in and they're gonna one of them is gonna fight
sub Zero. And as they're getting ready for this fight, there's just a drum track that is it's great, like really gets your blood pumping. You are ready for an action scene. But there's also a lot of use of music to sort of power plot transitions. So like at the moment where lu Kang is leaving the temple after having said I'm going to the tournament with or without your consent, there's this hype track that comes on with
these like ringing bells and heavy drum beats. It just sends a thrill through your body, like you you're ready.
Yeah. I think the score is pretty pretty darn good and it is the work of George S. Clinton born nineteen forty seven. No relation to funk legend George Clinton. This is the Chattanooga born film composer.
I think his names come up on the show before he did something we've talked about.
Yeah, I can't remember what it would be, because, like, I'm looking at the films he worked on, and they're the likes of American Ninja two in eighty seven, Hell Bound Chuck Norris and brain Scan in ninety four, Delta of Venus in ninety five, Beverly Hill's Ninja and Moral Combat Annihilation. So I'd have to go back and look at his filmography to see what I'm forgetting that he might have scored that we've discussed before.
Well, maybe I'm mistaken about that. I associated him with Austin Powers for some reason. I think he did that.
I think you're right on that. I think I forgot to include that. But let's see, I think you're right on that. I think he was involved in the Austin Powers franchise.
So yeah, I think a lot of the original score used in the movie is very strong. But that brings us back to that CD I had, because there's also the original Motion Picture so on Track CD, which is not just the score, but it's got all the needle drop tracks.
That's right. So of course we have that Immortals Mortal Kombat theme song track, which is which is high energy, pretty great, infectious, cheesy, yes, all of the above. There's also a Utah Saints remix of that theme song that is maybe like a little deeper in the bass. M. Yeah, and let's see some of my favorites off of this. I would say I have to single out three three tracks that are my favorites. Okay, first of all, there's
kmfdm's juke Joint Jezebel. This is the Georgio Moroder Metropolis mix. I don't I don't know what the original mix sounded like because I only ever listened to this, and this is pretty basically the only KMFDM song that I know. But it's a solid track.
I wonder if someday we should do the disco Metropolis on Weird House, the one with the Marauder score.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's a classic. I mean, it's a classic film. And then it's it's highly regarded in terms of going back and adding a new, new, new score to a classic silent film. Yeah, all right. We also another one that I really like is Tracy Lord's Control. This is the Juno Reactor remix. It's an instrumental, so we don't hear Tracy Lord's vocals on this, But I went back and listened to the original track, and I'm
pretty sure I've heard this in mixes before. It's really solid. Lords, of course, also acted in a number of mainstream genre films, including nineteen ninety eighth Blade. M Oh yeah, is she a vampire? I guess yep, she was one of the vampire cronies. And then all we actually have a techno ambient classic that is a featured late in the picture, and that is Halcion plus on and on by Orbital.
The sound of feeling Good. You might guess that this plays at the coda of the film, when Evil has been defeated and everybody's running around hugging it out. This when we get orbital.
Yeah, it's a great track, absolutely great track.
It feels like everything's gonna be okay.
I also should mention and that So the soundtrack album featured some clips from the score by George S. Clinton, including the track Goro Versus Art. Art is the first name of some of the Goro fights. It's not as high concept as as it sounds.
It's not that scene in Batman where the joker is like smearing on the paintings.
So that would be great. I mean Goro missed his calling as a painter. But anyway, Yes, this track has bucket Head on it, so okay, okay, that's notable.
There are also some tracks I like a lot less man. There's one on there that's a big Black Sabbath fan. But there's like a Geezer Butler track on there that is not good.
Yeah. I was not crazy about this one as well. I just the vocals did not speak to me.
But there's some other metal on there as well.
Yeah, and the film uses several tracks by Stabbing Westward that are not on the soundtrack album. I think there Can't Happen Here, Lies and Lost, and these are all great tracks. I don't I was looking around, I know, I listened to some Stabbing Westwards some way, and I thought maybe they were on like the soundtrack to the Crow or something, but I couldn't find them. So maybe I actually had a Stabbing Westward album, but I don't
specifically remember. But anyway, some of their tracks are pretty good.
I don't really know them. They're like industrial metal.
Yeah, yeah, there's somewhere in that. I don't know, there's somewhere in that alternative industrial landscape. But I'm not sure exactly where to classify them. Like, you know, you can sort of pick up on some vibes you might compare to nine inch Nails, you might compare to, you know, something like the Tea Party. But yeah, I don't know how. I don't know. I'd like to hear from any of you big Stabbing Westward fans out there. You tell us where we're supposed to classify them.
Now, uh oh, we're looking at the clock here. We did not at all intend for our Mortal Combat nineteen ninety five episode to stretch to two parts, but I think we are at a point where we have no choice, uh, because it would be it would be ridiculous to release a three hour episode on more Combat. But I guess we've got a lot of personal history with this movie, in this franchise, so it kind of it couldn't be helped.
Yeah, I mean this is this is a franchise that's a part of both our childhoods and also apparently it's a Christoph Lambert film, and I guess we just can't cover Christoph Lambert films without breaking them into two parts.
Oh you're right. We did that with Highlander two, didn't we. Yes, right, Yeah, Well once again, folks, we do not have the intention of making two part weird house episodes a common thing, but I guess it's going to happen every now and then.
Yeah, So we will be back to really get into the plot of Mortal Kombat, and there's there's a lot of fun to be had here, so we will get to dig in and make a meal out of it. Let's see. In the meantime, you know, eating a turkey leg okay, no eating a turkey leg oh goro getting punched in the nards. There's so much fun, fun for everyone, fun for the whole family.
I want to say it has begun, but it has not begun yet. It'll begin next time.
That's right. So in the meantime, do feel free to go ahead and write in with your thoughts about ninety ninety five's Mortal Kombat or the Mortal Kombat franchise in general, anything we discussed in this episode or you anticipate that we'll discuss in the next episode. Right in. We would love to hear from you. Let's see. First of all, Oh, if you're on Instagram, go ahead and follow us STBYM podcast.
That's our handle on Instagram. And if you want to keep up with Weird House Cinema specifically, go to letterbox dot com. It's l E T T E R B O x D dot com. Really fun site for chronicling your own cinematic explorations and favorites, and you can follow us there. We are weird House. That's our handle, and we have a nice list there of all the movies we've covered on the show thus far.
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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