🎬 Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins (1995)
Based on video game
Before the live-action blockbuster hit theaters in the summer of 1995, fans were treated to a curious piece of Mortal Kombat media: 'Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins.' Released directly to home video, this animated feature served as both a prequel and a promotional primer for the upcoming Paul W. S. Anderson film, blending traditional 2D animation with early CGI motion capture for the fight sequences.
The film attempts to expand the relatively simple lore of the 1992 arcade game into a deeper mythology. It brings together the core trio of heroes—Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade—aboard a mysterious ship bound for the Mortal Kombat tournament island. Under the guidance of the thunder god Raiden, they learn about the history of the tournament and the looming threat of Shang Tsung and the forces of Outworld, all while fighting off spectral ninja attacks.
While the 1995 live-action film is remembered fondly for its faithful adaptation of the game's aesthetic and its techno soundtrack, 'The Journey Begins' is largely considered a bizarre and clunky footnote. The stiff CGI motion capture, used for characters like Scorpion and Sub-Zero, contrasts jarringly with the hand-drawn animation, and the film is padded with lengthy exposition dumps that explain the tournament's rules and backstory. Despite its flaws, it remains an interesting artifact of 90s franchise marketing, attempting to build a cinematic universe before the term even existed.
Mortal Kombat is a fighting video game developed and published by Midway Games, first released in arcades in 1992. Created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, the game distinguished itself from other fighting games of the era through its use of digitized sprites of real actors, a darker fantasy aesthetic, and its notorious, over-the-top graphic violence, including the series' signature 'Fatality' finishing moves.
The game's story centers on the Mortal Kombat tournament, a martial arts competition held between the realms of Earthrealm and Outworld. If Outworld's champions win ten consecutive tournaments, the evil emperor Shao Kahn will be allowed to conquer Earthrealm. The original game follows Earthrealm's defenders, including Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade, as they fight to prevent this outcome under the guidance of the thunder god Raiden.
Mortal Kombat was a massive commercial and cultural phenomenon, sparking a franchise that includes numerous sequels, spin-off games, films, television series, comic books, and merchandise. Its intense violence led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in the United States, forever changing the landscape of video game regulation.
