Mortal Kombat (film) - Production

Production

The original script was written to be a hard R-rated movie with graphic violence and gore. However, unlike the games, the MPAA rated this film with a PG-13 rating. Robin Shou said that in the original script he "was supposed to fall in love with Talisa Soto . I was looking forward to it, but they thought we have so much action, we don't we don't want to add romance to it. They cut it out." Also scripted but not filmed were a short battle between Sonya and Jade, another of Shang Tsung's servants, and a scene where Shang Tsung allowed the heroes a night to bury Art Lean and mourn his loss. They buried him in the Garden of Statues, underneath the statue of Kung Lao; this is the only place where Kung Lao appears in any of the movies, although Liu Kang claims he is Kung Lao's descendant in the film before his final battle with Shang-Tsung. In Mortal Kombat canon, Liu Kang is the close friend of the current Kung Lao, who is in fact a descendant of The Great Kung Lao. Originally not included in the movie, Reptile was added in response to focus groups being unimpressed with the original fights in the film. Robin Shou and Paul W. S. Anderson noted that neither knew what Reptile's lizard form would look like until after filming, making the pre-fight sequence difficult to shoot.

Although the movie was primarily based on the first game in the series, there are several notable elements that were incorporated from the second game, Mortal Kombat II. Outworld was seen in the movie, but was never mentioned in the first game (only mentioned in the video game's manual). Similarly, Shao Kahn is seen in the final scene of the movie, but was not even referenced in the first game. Jax and Kitana were introduced in the second game as well. Shang Tsung did not regain his youthful appearance in the game series until the second game, but has it throughout the film. In his match with Reptile, Liu Kang uses his "Bicycle Kick" special move, which was first introduced in the second game, as was Reptile's ability to turn invisible. Shang Tsung's ability to steal the souls of fallen victims - which is seen twice in the film - was first seen in MKII as one of his Fatalities. After killing Scorpion, Johnny Cage drops an autographed picture of himself near his remains, in a reference to his Friendship move in MKII. When Reptile assumes his human form, the voice of Shao Kahn - sampled directly from the second game - can be heard announcing "Reptile". The Shadow Priests, seen before the final battle, were first seen in the second game as part of two of the backgrounds.

The Outworld exterior scenes were filmed at the abandoned Kaiser steel mill in Fontana, California; the site is now the Auto Club Speedway. All of Goro's scenes were filmed in Los Angeles. Shooting locations in Thailand were accessible only by boat, so cast, crew and equipment had to be transported on long canoe-like vessels. Producer Gerrit Folsom constructed an outhouse in a secluded area near the set in order to alleviate the problem of repeated trips to and from the mainland. The bows of the boats were fitted with ornamental dragon-head carvings and used in the movie as the fighters' secondary transport to Shang Tsung's island from his junk. The film was originally scheduled for a May 1995 release, but was pushed to August.