Mortal Kombat director Simon McQuoid talks about his big screen version of the popular – and gory – game (Picture: New Line Cinema)
Mortal Kombat director Simon McQuoid has spoken about bringing iconic game characters Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada) and Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) to life on the big screen in the upcoming live action film.
Chatting to IGN, he explained he wanted to keep Scorpion as close to the game version as possible, keeping the ‘dignity and elegance’ of his armour.
‘We really wanted to be very true to his heritage and make it feel very genuine.
‘That’s really why it was born out of this touch of samurai about it. Obviously, there’s been many, many versions of Scorpion’s costume and how he looks, but out of authenticity came this version of Scorpion that kind of felt real but also felt very powerful.
‘[Scorpion’s costume] needed to have the armour plating with the detail in it and had a sort of dignity and elegance about it, which matched his character from the beginning.’
He described actor Taslim as ‘amazing’ in bringing ‘extraordinary presence’ to the role of Sub-Zero and called Sanada ‘a very, very gifted swordsman and athlete’.
The director continued: ‘The physicality between these two guys was quite extraordinary to watch. Just years and years of experience and ability to do these moves were kind of all baked into them.’
Fans of the game series will be glad to see from the trailer that the ‘fatalities’ Mortal Kombat is known for – where an opponent is brutally killed in a gory and ridiculous fashion to end a match – will still appear.
According to McQuoid ‘there was never any question’ about including them.
Other fighters set to make an appearance include Lui Kang, Sonja Blade, Shang Tsung, Raiden, and Goro as well as later characters like Jax and Kung Lao.
