Trivia / Mortal Kombat (2021)

• California Doubling: The film was largely filmed in Australia and Quebec. It's not clear whether or not Raiden's temple is supposed to be in Australia or not, but Cole being from Chicago (and by extension the gym where he works and the final battle of the film takes place in) and Sonya's home being in Gary, Indiana (an actual suburb of Chicago) leads to this.
• Cast the Expert: Joe Taslim and Hiroyuki Sanada were already trained martial artists prior to being cast, Taslim being a member of Indonesia's national Judo team for twelve years and also trained in Silat, Wushu and Taekwondo, and Sanada a lifelong martial artist with a particular emphasis on Kyokushin Karate. In fact majority of the cast have a martial arts background or played an action role in a previous work at some.
• Deleted Scene: Lewis Tan has said that a number of fights didn't make it to the theatrical/HBO Max cut.
• Dyeing for Your Art: The cast trained martial arts, and Sisi Stringer had to endure a long make-up process to get Mileena's Facial Horror.
• Executive Meddling: According to writer Greg Russo, the new character, Cole Young (Lewis Tan), was a studio mandated addition.
• Fake American: Australian Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade. Damon Herriman, who voices Kabal, is also Australian. British actor of Chinese descent Lewis Tan ^note  Lewis Tan is born in Manchester, England but raised mostly in L.A. so naturally does not have a British accent of any kind but in fact an American one in real life. as Cole Young, who is from Chicago and has Japanese ancestry. ^note  Though his Japanese ancestor may have married into a Chinese family as she was seen being taken to the Shaolin Temple that Liu Kang and Kung Lao live in generations later.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Indonesian Joe Taslim as the Chinese Bi-Han/Sub-Zero. It's worth noting that Taslim has Chinese ancestry, though.
  • Inverted with Kano; Josh Lawson is the first Australian performer to ever portray the character.^note Trevor Goddard and Darren Shahlavi were both from the UK with Darren being British Iranian, as are Robin Atkin Downes, JB Blanc and Michael Des Barres, while Michael McConnohie, Rich Divizio and David Allen are American.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Oddly averted in the Japanese dub: both Raiden and Scorpion are voiced by Kenjiro Tsuda and Kazuhiko Inoue in the dub, rather than being dubbed by their original Japanese actors, Tadanobu Asano and Hiroyuki Sanada respectively. The oddity came with the fact those actors normally dubs themselves in their own films back in Japan, being this film an exception on this rule. This is especially more bizarre in Scorpion's case, since both as the latter and his human family before their deaths spoke Japanese in their debuts, which means Scorpion's Japanese voice was voiced by Inoue, rather than Sanada's in the dub for the sake of consistence.
• No Export for You: Despite the games themselves being more or less banned from there (aside from the recent Mobile Game of the series along with the occasional Guest Fighter content in two Injustice games) due to CERO rules mandating against excessive blood and gore, it was surprisingly averted in Japan, where it was released in the region on June 18, 2021. One major reason in releasing the movie there is that Raiden and Scorpion are played by Tadanobu Asano and Hiroyuki Sanada respectively.
• The Other Darrin: In a rarity for the franchise, Scorpion's trademark "Get over here!" is provided by his main actor, Hiroyuki Sanada, and not dubbed over by franchise creator Ed Boon.
• The Other Marty: Elissa Cadwell was initially reported to have been cast as Nitara (as shown in this on-set photo), but was injured during filming and had to be replaced at the last minute by Mel Jarnson.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Joe Taslim is a huge fan of the Mortal Kombat games before eventually being cast as Sub-Zero, which he said is "a dream come true."
  • Ludi Lin. He played the Mortal Kombat 2 video game religiously growing up and watched Robin Shou as Liu Kang in the first movie, who became one of his heroes. He even skipped school to watch the film's sequel.
• Recycled Script: This film borrows a lot from Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. An Outworld strike force^note which includes Mileena on both teams led by one of its leaders^note Shao Kahn in MKA, Shang Tsung in this one circumvents the rules of the Mortal Kombat tournament by trying to assassinate Earthrealm's fighters^note which include Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, and Jax Briggs, but no Johnny Cage, in both iterations so that the planet will be left defenseless and easily conquered. Earth's fighters end up separated at one point in order to fight off the various Outworld assassins. The heroes all meet up at one point at Raiden's temple, which is an ancient building inside a rock quarry that has seen better days. Jax has to learn how to believe in himself after being brutally defeated. Raiden is unable to get directly involved. Most of the Outworld assassins seemingly only exist to stuff in as many game characters as possible and have limited screen time or development. The main character is attacked by one of the mascot ninjas and is saved by the other mascot ninja^note with Scorpion and Sub-Zero, though technically a different Sub-Zero, switching roles between the two films and the losing ninja is hinted to return in a potential sequel. Both films even have a Designated Girl Fight between Sonya and Mileena.
• Release Date Change: The film was originally going to be released on March 5, 2021 before being moved up to January 15. Then, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, it was moved to April 16 of that year and given a simultaneous theaters / HBO Max release. Less than one month before release, it was delayed a week to April 23 to make space between it and Godzilla vs. Kong.
• Role Reprise: The Brazilian dub has the same voices from Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11 for Mileena and Sonya. Liu Kang had his voice from the games in the trailer, but for some reason was replaced in the actual movie's dub.
• Saved from Development Hell: In the twenty-plus gap between this and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation various projects for a third MK movie were raised, including one by the makers of Mortal Kombat: Rebirth.
• Throw It In!: According to Josh Lawson, who plays Kano, the "ya fuckin' beauty" line was an ad-lib.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to writer Greg Russo, he tried really hard to find a way to work the famous "Toasty!" line into the film, but couldn't find a way to make it fit in naturally.
  • Apparently, Johnny Cage was supposed to be in the film in an early draft of the script, but the writers felt that Kano's personality made his character redundant.

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