Mortal Kombat director Simon McQuoid is back at the helm for the sequel Mortal Kombat 2, and while the video game adaptation wrapped production back in January after a bumpy ride through the year of the strikes, it sounds like they’re doing some reshoots at the moment. Ludi Lin reprises the role of Liu Kang in the new film, and while doing the press rounds for the martial arts movie Art of Eight Limbs, where he co-stars with former TV Spider-Man Nicholas Hammond, Lin took a moment to hype Mortal Kombat 2 to the folks at Screen Rant, saying the sequel is bigger and better than its predecessor, and that Karl Urban’s performance as popular video game character Johnny Cage will “blow your socks off.”
The screenplay for Mortal Kombat 2 has been written by Jeremy Slater, who was the lead writer on the Marvel / Disney+ series Moon Knight. Last year, Slater said that working on the project had been “really fun so far. … I’m working really closely with the director and the studios, and the game guys, and I think—I can’t say anything about the actual story, but I think they definitely learned some lessons the last time around in terms of, ‘Here’s the stuff fans responded to, and here’s what people liked out of the movie, and here’s the stuff that didn’t work out as well as we hoped.’ … (The sequel is) the chance to take everything that worked in the first one and do it even better and give the audience even more, and make something that is just incredibly satisfying, and really exciting, and unpredictable.“
In addition to Lin and Urban, Mortal Kombat 2 stars returning Mortal Kombat cast members Lewis Tan as MMA fighter Cole Young, Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Josh Lawson as Kano, Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Joe Taslim as Bi-Han and Sub-Zero, Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi and Scorpion, and, as mentioned, Max Huang as Kung Lao. New additions include Adeline Rudolph (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) as Princess Kitana; Tati Gabrielle (You) as Jade, the friend and bodyguard of Princess Kitana; Damon Herriman (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) as Netherrealm demon Quan Chi; bodybuilder/actor Martyn Ford (F9: The Fast Saga) as Outworld emperor Shao Kahn; Ana Thu Nguyen (Suka) as Kahn’s wife Queen Sindel; and Desmond Chiam (Joy Ride) as Jerrod, who was the King of Edenia (and married to Sindel) until Edenia’s warriors lost in the Mortal Kombat tournament.
Lin told Screen Rant, “I hope you guys are ready for the next one. We’ve been shooting this one forever, I’m back in Australia still shooting MK 2. I was here for almost a year last time. Yeah, it’s gonna be pretty immense, everything is going to be bigger. The story’s going to be great. Karl Urban as Johnny Cage, I hope you guys are ready, because he’s going to blow your socks off. Just from the experience that actors like Karl, actors like Nicholas [Hammond] brings on set… He mentioned that, in Art of Eight Limbs, they really changed the script – started tweaking it – after they found out that they’d nailed an actor like him to play the role. You can tell, as soon as he comes on it really fills out the entire movie, he fills out the role, just like Karl does with Johnny Cage. There’s just a level of expertise, there’s some toolbox, the essence that they bring to the role just adds another dimension to it. In both cases I really look up to actors like this that can really bring a movie to the next level.“
While we wait to hear a release date for Mortal Kombat 2, Art of Eight Limbs is getting a theatrical release on August 16th, in a double feature with another martial arts movie called The Lockdown. Art of Eight Limbs will then be getting a digital release on August 20th, with The Lockdown following on August 27th. On September 10th, those movies will be bundled with two more martial arts movies, Lady Scorpions and Kung Fu Games, for the digital release Tiger Style Presents: The Ultimate 4-Movie Martial Arts Collection. Trailers for the films can be seen in this article.
Are you looking forward to seeing Ludi Lin and Karl Urban in Mortal Kombat 2? Let us know by leaving a comment below.