[Mortal Kombat] See the First Images from the Rated-R Reboot

We finally have our first look at the Warner Bros./Newline rated “R” reboot of Mortal Kombat. In an exclusive interview with EW director Simon McQuoid says fans need to get ready for blood, and lots of it. “Blood represents a connection. Blood represents who we are. Without getting too overcomplicated, what we did is use blood executionally.”

The 2021 Mortal Kombat will take us deep into the video game lore of how the games originated: the blood feud between the clans of Hanzo and Bi-Han. The film will open with a 10-minute sequence set in feudal Japan, and it ends in “a pretty nasty hand-to-hand combat” between the two, McQuoid says. He also says that the story of Bi-Han and Hanzo “needed to be told within the fight. There are some great camera moves to give it a bit of dynamism, that make it really enjoyable. We needed it to be really elemental and really brutal. It’s not a shiny film… I wanted the dirt and the grime to come through.”

Mortal Kombat (2021) CR: Mark Rogers/Warner Bros.

We then fast forward to the present-day to follow Cole Young, a new character, played by actor and martial artist Lewis Tan (Into the Badlands). “When we first meet Cole, he’s in a really bad spot,” Tan says. “He’s down on his luck. He’s kind of a washed-up MMA fighter who used to be a champion, who used to believe in himself, who used to have a lot of hope in his career. And it’s all gone down the drain. It’s a very interesting place for a hero to start, and I think that, along the journey of Mortal Kombat and Cole discovering where he comes from, you’re introduced to all these other iconic characters and elements that everybody loves so dearly.”

Cole has no clue about his heritage except from the strange birthmark on his chest that is the shape of the Mortal Kombat symbol. While he wouldn’t give any details about how his birthmark connects to the character, he does say “it’s a unique symbol” that “will eventually tie into the journey that he’s going on.”

As we follow Cole on his journey we will meet many fan favorite characters of the game. Major Jackson “Jax” Briggs (Mehcad Brooks), Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), Kung Lao (Max Huang), and Kano (Josh Lawson) will all be seen as Cole makes his way to the high-stakes tournament to defeat the invading enemies from Outerworld.

Even though McQuoid is still in the process of editing the film, he’s is certain that “it’s definitely not gonna get a PG-13 rating.” He says that they took great care to add some of the characters signature fatalities. “There are some crazy fatalities. We’ve picked a couple of iconic ones. There’s a lot of really cool signature moves that you’ll see, a lot of Easter eggs that we snuck into the film, but there are some really badass fatalities that I can’t wait to see on the big screen. They’re brutal, man. They, they don’t hold back.”

Mortal Kombat is produced by James Wan for Atomic Monster and Todd Garner. The film was written by Greg Russo, and also stars Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Joe Taslim as Sub-Zero, Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Josh Lawson as Kano, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, Tadanobu Asano as Raiden, Max Huang as Kung Lao, Elissa Cadwell as Nitara, and Sisi Stringer as Mileena.

Mortal Kombat will be released on April 16, 2021 in theaters and on HBO Max. Be sure to follow ScaryNerd for more of all things horror. You can check out the full EW article here.