Hacker Cinema
Mortal Kombat
1995 · Film · 101 min
Part of Mortal Kombat Collection
Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson
For nine generations an evil sorcerer has been victorious in hand-to-hand battle against his mortal enemies. If he wins a tenth Mortal Kombat tournament, desolation and evil will reign over the multiverse forever. To save Earth, three warriors must overcome seemingly insurmountable odds, their own inner demons, and superhuman foes.
8 positive2 negative9 neutralfrom 19 commenters
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19 comments on Hacker News
You're asking the wrong person lol. I can give you a list of "objectively bad" movies that I think are incredible for a variety of defensible reasons.
Just off the top of my head as I briefly scan shit sitting on the shelves of my office:
- Joe Dirt
- Death Wish 3
- Thrashin
- Hackers
- Mortal Kombat
- Uncle Buck
- The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
- Tapeheads
- Prayer of the Rollerboys
- Weekend at Bernie's
Not exactly Fellini, and some are barely even Andy Sidaris if we're being honest, but every movie in that list is amazing for different reasons. An objective critique of any of them (especially in context with "film", as a shapeless, vague concept) misses the point and the spirit of each and every one. But I am an uncultured heathen, so ...
Mortal Kombat OST has a lot of good industrial (genre) in it. Bands like KMFDM, but also The Immortals (Praga Khan / Lords of Acid). Orbital - Halcyon + On + On is a good track (more mellow, and one of the many tracks perfectly mixed into the movie), but it samples Kirsty Hawkshaw from Opus III. Traci Lords - Control is actually by Juno Reactor (with vocals by Traci Lords in that version) who IMO is a rather unique/special artist (and live band), who was later featured in various The Matrix tracks. My point being, all of these artists have done a lot of great work, and the mixing was ace.
Then you have other famous bands of that time: The Orb, The Shamen, The KLF, ...
My fav. Juno Reactor live set (and album) is still hands down 'Juno Reactor – Shango Tour 2001 Tokyo' [1]
[1] https://www.discogs.com/master/782091-Juno-Reactor-Shango-Tour-2001-Tokyo
Thanks for this gem!
This brings back _memories_! I think I won't even stand out from the crowd here mentioning me and the gang watched the hell out of the VHS back when, in our circle it was a different world than I suppose even for people in the West who loved it. We're so far removed this became a cult classic long before it became cult classic everywhere else. Needless to say, Angelina Jolie's character made quite an impression on this young mind :-) Damn, quotes from this movie live rent-free in my head. I was already quite a fan of Orbital when I saw Hackers for the first time. It was also at the end of "Mortal Kombat", by the way -- but Hackers used it marginally better still IMO.
Hacker had HEART, man. It was cheesy but the feeling it left in an entire sub-culture of a generation, cannot be underestimated. I am reading some of the other stories here, and it brings smile to my face knowing me and my gang weren't the only ones the movie imprinted on.
Woha, this isn't woodshop class?!
Pulling a wild bait and switch like that is also a death sentence for a movie. The parent could easily watch or read a review.
I was a kid before the video game rating system came out. Mom wouldn't let me buy Mortal Kombat.
I think this was also on the Mortal Kombat movie OST (another hidden gem from the 90's; not the movie, the soundtrack).
Well it depends what you mean by "contains violence."
There's a world of difference between stimulated violence in a Mortal Kombat movie and a video of Taliban members playing football with a human head.
This Wiki seems to have all the details; here's Jax specifically:
https://mortalkombat.fandom.com/wiki/John_Parrish
Also, ChatGPT (sorry, but I was curious) says:
One example is Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who played Shang Tsung in the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie and its 1997 sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Tagawa has had a long and varied career in film, television, and stage, appearing in a number of popular movies and TV shows such as The Phantom, Pearl Harbor, and Hawaii Five-O.
Another actor who appeared in the Mortal Kombat movies and has had a successful career is Robin Shou, who played Liu Kang in both films. Shou has appeared in a number of action movies and TV shows over the years, including Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, DOA: Dead or Alive, and NCIS: Los Angeles.
Other actors who appeared in the Mortal Kombat movies and have gone on to have successful careers include Bridgette Wilson (Sonya Blade), Talisa Soto (Kitana), and Linden Ashby (Johnny Cage).
I was just entering my teens during those years. Few things I remember vividly were
- Hackers (1995)
- Mortal Kombat the Movie (1995) (both of these movies used Orbital's Halcyon +On +On) song and a bunch of other electronic music
- And I remember the Windows 1995 release. That was a HUUUUUGE software release.
Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Postal, Detective Pikachu, Sonic 1&2. Not necessary the greatest of cinema, but all of them did a good job of turning the source material into a movie. Probably helps that the source material of all of them is relative simple and leaves plenty of room for interpretation.
Also Steins;Gate, though that's a visual novel turned anime, not a regular game. But probably the best example of staying very close to the source material and succeeding.
From the title mentioning "rave-y 90s project" and Mortal Kombat, I had assumed this would be about the legendary Belgian New Beat group Lords of Acid... they were contracted to create the companion soundtrack for the video game [1], including the theme song which was featured in the film / film soundtrack [2]. This was all done using an alias/side-project The Immortals, likely due to their main output as Lords of Acid containing rather extreme content.
Sadly only a passing mention in this article, but I'm sure there's an interesting story somewhere as to how that came to be!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Kombat:_The_Album
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Kombat_(1995_soundtrack)
Mortal Kombat was fine, I even went to see the movie.
Agree, and on top of that isn't it interesting that the more successful game movie adaptations are in those areas where the game plot was thin or non-existent. Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter both fit into that - Little to no plot for the games, then movies come along and are probably successful because they're not so constrained.
Top 5 Video Game Movies That Aren't That Bad:
1. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2010)
2. Resident Evil (2002)
3. Doom (2005)
4. Mortal Kombat (1995)
5. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2003)
All of Paul W.S. Anderson video-game movies are entertaining AF. Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, Alien vs Predator. ALL well crafted & inspired movies. They're not going to win Cannes Palm d'Or, but they will hit the spot.
Mostly because videogame plot lines aren't as good as we give them credit for. Videogames are great at being interactive diversions, but their stories leave a lot to be desired and are really just thin background dressing for the real reason we play videogames: for the gameplay.
The most successful videogame movies tend towards genre films like Mortal Kombat (the film) and Resident Evil (the series).
Of course, let's not forget that it can be hard to make a good movie, period.
I suggest not going back and watching Mortal Kombat again if you want to retain your memories of it being a good film.
Maybe it's best just to listen to the soundtrack instead.
I guess I'll be the odd ball who thought that Mortal Kombat was a decent movie. The fact that it seemed to use existing martial arts movies (Enter the Dragon and Game of Death, in particular) as a template rather than the game itself seemed to help.
There have been good video game movies, but the number is vanishingly small. Many are "so bad it's good" such as anything Uwe Boll makes, but there are a couple that seem to be created by directors who genuinely love the source material and take it in interesting directions (e.g. the first Silent Hill film, the first Resident Evil film, arguably Final Fantasy: The Sprits Within).
Also, Mortal Kombat (1995) is a good film.
I share this point of view. If I've learned something after watching Mortal Kombat movie a dozen times is that every man is responsible for his own destiny. We usually blame other people for bad things that happens to us because is more confortable than assuming that even after many years on this planet we still make a lot of mistakes.
To accept the obvious truth is really liberating. It takes away all bad feelings you had for people involved on situations where you've felt the victim. And it also makes you see that if you're responsible for your mistakes, you're also responsible for your success. There's no luck, it's your responsability to make things right.