MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) Preview: Director Simon McQuoid Talks Balancing Character, Gore and Action, Challenging Visual Effects and More!

Growing up, there was one arcade game that I somehow was  always guaranteed to deliver up an ass kicking to my opponent, and that was Mortal Kombat. It’s a game series I’ve been a huge fan of for decades now, and I’ll be the first to admit that while it has its rough edges, the 1995 iteration of Mortal Kombat is what made me into the Paul W.S. Anderson fan that I am today. But even though I have a deep fondness for MK 1995, I can still recognize that there was definitely room for improvement when it came to bringing the Mortal Kombat universe to the big screen.

And ever since I first laid eyes on the initial trailer, one of this writer’s most anticipated films for 2021 quickly became the new Mortal Kombat, which was directed by Simon McQuoid and stars Joe Taslim, Hiroyuki, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Daniel Nelson, Max Huang and Sisi Stringer. 

Recently, I had the opportunity to check out the first 13 minutes of Mortal Kombat (2021), which introduces us to enemies Scorpion and Sub-Zero as well as a very electrifying Raiden who makes an unforgettable entrance in the opener, and the sequence set an impressive stage for what looks to be an incredible cinematic display of badass and brutal action and a story that feels faithful to these iconic characters and this world as a whole. I don’t want to give too much away at this point, but McQuoid does a brilliant job of seamlessly blending together all the fantastical elements from the MK world, relentless action sequences and a stunning real-world backdrop that feels like nothing short of a cinematic miracle.

At a recent virtual press preview day for Mortal Kombat (2021), Daily Dead had the opportunity to join in with a group of journalists to chat with Simon McQuoid about his approach to the new film, and the complexity of balancing out all the film’s visual effects and action, as well as making sure he was able to give each of the MK characters their due as well. McQuoid also talked about how the music theme from Mortal Kombat 1995 is incorporated into this latest film, immersing himself in all the lore from the video game series, and more.

Simon, not only do you have to worry about the choreography with the martial arts sequences, but on top of that, you had to add in all these special effects. How complicated was all of that?

How complex? Well it was quite complicated, actually. How do I give you a really good answer to that question? Yeah, It was incredibly complex. I had a great team of people around me. So Kyle Gardner and Chan Griffin. Kyle being a stunt coordinator and Chan being the fight choreographer, and then Chris Godfrey, who is the Visual Effects Supervisor. We spent a lot of time on all of that. My job as director was to get everyone communicating really effortlessly. I believe there's great value in that, because the film gets better when we can communicate well.

And I think what you asked is a really good question because it's something that we knew we were going to have to deal with and have to manage. It was a matter of making sure that we all chatted and collaborated together all the time on a daily basis, so that when it turned out that there was a heavy visual effects component within this particular martial arts moment, everyone felt emboldened to go, "All right, let's come up with lots of ideas that we can apply to this stuff." So not only were they really concentrating on the purity of their physical fighting, but they were also adding these great ideas. It was just a matter of making sure everyone knew exactly what was happening at each step and I knew that the ideas could come from anywhere. That certainly doesn't only come from me. I just employ very clever people to make me look smart.

We get this really great introduction for Scorpion and Sub-Zero in the opening and it really sets the tone for the film. These are characters that have been part of our pop culture lexicon for decades now, so how conscientious did you have to be, in terms of keeping the narrative moving, keeping the action moving, but also, allowing these characters the space for us as viewers to get to know them as fully fleshed out characters? 

Every moment of every day, I was thinking about that. Constantly, discussions were about exactly what you just said. These are revered characters. Whether it's Sonya, Jax, Kung Lao, or all of them. I kept saying to everyone, there's a big percentage of people who are only coming to see Kung Lao, or their favorite is Sonya, so to manage all of these characters within this ensemble cast, it was a big deal to me. I tried as best as I could to make sure that each character had a reason to exist, and they provided something that didn't feel under done, or someone didn't get overdone either. It was really hard. It's a very dense, very multilayered film with a lot of preconceived notions of super fans expect this, or expect that. So there's a lot to consider. And just using the 12 or 13 minutes that you've seen, that sets up the rivalry between those two guys and the Clans, and it is an important story point that carries on throughout the film.

But again, like you just said, I wanted to give them a bit of space to actually just be themselves for a moment amongst the fighting and  the action and so forth. So it was always in the back of my mind and everyone's mind. Greg the writer, he and I had to have many discussions about that very thing. It's almost like a thing that I probably spoke about the most, during the film. It was amazingly fun. I felt very privileged to be able to do it and I definitely didn't want to fuck it up.

There's 30 years of Mortal Kombat video game lore to dig through. I'm wondering when it comes to the movie, how much are you leaning on that versus creating something new specifically for this version of the universe?

You're right. There's a ton of stuff. I tried to take myself to Mortal Kombat university and learn it all but there's so much stuff there. I tried my best and then I just surrounded myself with very clever people  who really knew this stuff well, as well. So we have this, my assistant is particularly clever with this stuff, Vic[toria Cocks]. What I wanted to do and Greg, the writer even said this going into it very early on, was that we shouldn't be changing fundamentals. We can add a bit to help amplify lore and amplify stuff that is within. But I was very nervous and very careful about anything we might change.

There were a couple of things that did change a little bit. One is the example you've seen in the trailer, which is that Sub-Zero takes Jax's arms. Now we know that was Ermac, and there's even been other slightly different iterations of that through the years. But in this particular story, I needed to inform Sub-Zero as much as I needed to inform how Jax loses them, so I had really thought about a lot. But there were certain things that we just simply don't change.

It's so complex that a film can't really house a lot of it. It doesn't mean we're not truthful to it. It's just that we couldn't touch everything. So I'm just trying to be as truthful and as true to that as we could. When we talk about stuff, and as we put up the structure of our film, we have to consider - is this too complex? But there was a whole scene that we took out, that was really digging in deep simply because it was taking too much bandwidth. It was doing the lore really high service where fans would be super happy, but what we discovered was, and we never shot it so it doesn't exist, but it was just wrong from a filmmaking sense. 

When I think of Mortal Kombat movies, I think of the first one and the scream at the beginning of the title. Now that we've seen the beginning of this movie, we know it doesn't start like that. Will that pop up at all? And can you talk a little bit about how the music was influenced by the original film, if at all?

That's a good question. The music is in one of the fundamentals of what makes Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat. Right? So we knew that and Ben Wallfisch, who's the composer, did a forensic study on that song because we knew it was a key ingredient. So he pulled that song apart and has used it. He is a genius. He pulled stuff out of that song that, and it was just extraordinary. The level he went to, to really take what was embedded, and then move it into a new place, was great. But it still feels like Mortal Kombat. 

And then, so the song has been used in a few different ways. There's something that comes up at the end which is a little gift to those who liked the song. I'll just put it that way because I don't want to ruin the surprise. So the music mattered, and it was a big part of the discussion. What Ben has done is just extraordinary.

I feel like anytime there's a new movie like this, everyone's going to compare it to the older film. I'm wondering what you think makes this Mortal Kombat stand on its own.

Well, stylistically it’s  radically different, for starters. [The 1995 film] was a great film for its era. I'm not being critical of that film. I think actually, it definitely captured something that was really great. But this is a scale and stylistic elevation of that material, my goal was always to  pretend this was a book series before it was a game because there's so much lore that's so detailed now, so let's think of it in those terms so we don't fall into these obvious traps. As soon as you visualize it as a book, you go, "Oh, well, this really matters. This is really detailed and rich."

It's probably more stylistically from the game than it is from the first film. And so I would say it's an epic, brutal, beautiful tasteful telling of the Mortal Kombat story. I mean, it's probably better if you watch it and then you tell me if we were able to create that. But that's certainly what I've tried to do. I really just tried to make a giant cinematic version of that really hasn't been done for this title. I want to make big movies that you believe in. 

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Mortal Kombat will be released to theaters and will be streaming exclusively on HBO Max starting April 16th!