[My apologies to Charles Webb who originally posted this as I'm about to trample all over his post with a stack of new - and 100% confirmed - information on this. - Todd]
Fans of Mortal Kombat wondering when they'd get a taste of the upcoming feature film reboot of the franchise, today is your day. A nearly eight minute promo reel for the upcoming project has arrived online labeled as being from Mortal Kombat: Rebirth and I have confirmed absolutely that this video has NOTHING to do with the upcoming new installment of the video game franchise and is, in fact, a promo reel for the upcoming feature film. And, good lord, this is tasty stuff - worlds better than any of the original film incarnations. There is a healthy noir overtone, the actors involved all seem to recognize exactly what sort of universe they are inhabiting and - best of all - they went out and got themselves a boat load of actual fighters to fill the parts.
Who's involved? The director here is Kevin Tancharoen. And don't hold the Fame remake against him ... the guy is a long time fan of martial arts film and it has often been said that shooting action well is an awful lot like shooting a dance sequence well, just with different lighting and sound effects. The discipline itself completely carries over. Handling the fight choreography is Larnell Stovall, who was recently awarded the Best Fight Choreographer award at the inaugural Action Fest for his work on Undisputed 3. And the stars? That's Michael Jai White - sadly not fighting - awaiting his transformation into Jax, Jeri Ryan as Sonya Blade, Lateef Crowder as Baraka, and Matt Mullins as Johnny Cage.
But enough reading about it, check it out below.
Fans of Mortal Kombat wondering when they'd get a taste of the upcoming feature film reboot of the franchise, today is your day. A nearly eight minute promo reel for the upcoming project has arrived online labeled as being from Mortal Kombat: Rebirth and I have confirmed absolutely that this video has NOTHING to do with the upcoming new installment of the video game franchise and is, in fact, a promo reel for the upcoming feature film. And, good lord, this is tasty stuff - worlds better than any of the original film incarnations. There is a healthy noir overtone, the actors involved all seem to recognize exactly what sort of universe they are inhabiting and - best of all - they went out and got themselves a boat load of actual fighters to fill the parts.
Who's involved? The director here is Kevin Tancharoen. And don't hold the Fame remake against him ... the guy is a long time fan of martial arts film and it has often been said that shooting action well is an awful lot like shooting a dance sequence well, just with different lighting and sound effects. The discipline itself completely carries over. Handling the fight choreography is Larnell Stovall, who was recently awarded the Best Fight Choreographer award at the inaugural Action Fest for his work on Undisputed 3. And the stars? That's Michael Jai White - sadly not fighting - awaiting his transformation into Jax, Jeri Ryan as Sonya Blade, Lateef Crowder as Baraka, and Matt Mullins as Johnny Cage.
But enough reading about it, check it out below.
Video
More from Mortal Kombat Rebirth
- News: MORTAL KOMBAT Headed Back To The Big Screen
- News: I'd Say That Qualifies As A Finishing Move. It's MORTAL KOMBAT LEGACY Episode Two!
- News: First Full MORTAL KOMBAT: LEGACY Episode Online Now!
- News: MORTAL KOMBAT: LEGACY Teaser Arrives!
- News: MORTAL KOMBAT Shorts Hit The Web In April! Feature To Follow In 2012?
loving it!
looking forward to it!
wow. i actually got chills from this. if only all video game adaptions could be this polished, yet gritty...
Don't get too excited - E3 is just a couple of weeks away and it's likely this is just a live-action teaser for a new game announcement. My instinct is that whatever eventual game WB has brewing will probably be a PG-13, mass-market title.
Devin Faraci says its legit w/choreography from Larnell Stoval (Undisputed 3).
http://chud.com/articles/articles/23984/1/IS-THIS-VIDEO-FOR-THE-NEW-MORTAL-KOMBAT-MOVIE/Page1.html
Yeah I saw that and added it to the original post. The only thing dampening my expectations is the lack of any IMDB info on the project.
Devin is probably wrong. That quick flash of what Sub Zero looks like is the official character render from the new game.
My guess is Stovall is just the director of this short film, and perhaps the cinematics of the upcoming game too.
I just posted a significant re-write / update. None of this is speculation, it's all confirmed information.
Cool idea for a reboot. It sorta reminds me of the Legend of Chun-Li which tried to make the video game more realistic and gritty. Don't get me wrong, this short promo is already 100 times better, heh, but MK will always be to me like a really violent, over the top version of Big Trouble In Little China. A fun American made champloo of what's cool about martial arts movies and myths.
Thanks for the update, Todd!
Mortal Kombat still has fans?
Love it
Jeeeerrrriiiiiii RYYYYAAAANNN!
oops, did I type that out loud?
Love White too
Very nice
Interesting new take on the MORTAL KOMBAT mythos..theres been so many false starts in rebooting the franchise, would be good to see it given a chance to go in this darker direction
Great work from all involved, and major respect to Larnell and his choreography
This looks like it is gonna be sooooo EFFIN AWESOME!!!! I can't wait to see the whole movie (:
Looks like more Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Dragon Ball Z B-movie crap. That looks nothing like Baraka. The history behind reptile angle seems kind of cool. These types of films need bigger budgets so that they attract A-List and B-List action stars like: Jet Li, Tony Jaa, Jason Statham, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Nathan Jones, Wesley Snipes, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Dolph Lundgren, Tommy "Tiny" Lister Jr., Ving Rhames, Hugh Jackman, Vinnie Jones, Ray Park, Tak Sakaguchi and Jija Yanin Vismitananda to make the characters in the film more believable and draw a wider audience; even if they never get blockbuster stars like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt or Will Smith. Although, Michael Jai White has been coming up in his career as of late.
Hope they can keep up the somewhat moody look of this clip. Bit worried it'll be mostly campy wirework though.
According to Jeri Ryan this was done to sell WB on the director's vision for a new MK film:
http://kotaku.com/5558850/that-mortal-kombat-trailer-jeri-ryan-explains
So there is no new MK film yet, but hopefully someone at WB will make this happen.
Who's playing Liu Kang? Please please please let it be Robin Shou....
Despite my tendency toward optimism when it comes to films like this, I'm really not sure this could end up being anything but crap with decent action sequences. Sure they've got some good names involved, but the dialogue sounds like something out of a bad episode of Heroes, and the plot is nothing less than cookie-cutter. Honestly, I'd never expect more from a Mortal Kombat film, but this just looks silly. If you want to turn a fighting game into a film, go with something like BlazBlue with an actual plot (too much to fit into one film, actually, not that it would ever get made in the US).
i found the IMDB page, created Feb 2010 aka "MK: Devastation":
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0293429/
and i found this intersting:
"Warner Bros. looking to reboot franchise, but Threshold Entertainment filed new breach of contract lawsuit to prevent it from moving forward."