Conception and History
Shang Tsung (originally named "Shang Lao") was based on the Chinese sorcerer Lo Pan from the film Big Trouble in Little China. Mortal Kombat art director Herman Sanchez said that as the series progressed he decided to emphasize Tsung's air of "sinister regality."
Shang Tsung's design varies throughout the series. The initial history of the character was explained in the 1992 Midway-produced comic book based on the original MK, in which he was the first-ever Mortal Kombat (then the Shaolin Tournament) champion over 500 years ago from the date of the then-current tournament depicted in the actual game, yet he was stricken with a curse that forced him to consume the souls of his defeated opponents in order to keep his youth. The book cited his "failure to appease the gods" as the reason for his premature aging to a withered old man, but he was noticeably younger in Mortal Kombat II, in which Shao Kahn had restored Shang Tsung's youth and powers as part of his plan to take over Earthrealm by luring Liu Kang and his fellow Earth warriors into Outworld for the next MK tournament.
According to GamePro magazine in 1993, the MKII version of Shang Tsung was nineteen years old, and an article about the game also included a rough sketch by Mortal Kombat co-creator John Tobias of Tsung's "true form," a twisted demon, which has never actually appeared in the video games. Tobias wanted Shang Tsung's long hair to hang loose in Mortal Kombat 3, but potential problems with it flopping about whenever he jumped resulted in it being tied back into a ponytail. In Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Shang Tsung is roughly 45 years old.
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