Apparently casting for Liu Kang might be underway: https://twitter.com/KTANCH/status/238111395688902657

"Liu Kang is NOT what you expect in season 2. You will be surprised. Now to figure out casting. "

I'm not sure if I should be exited or worried. Shouldn't we kind of know what to expect? Is he still going to be a Shaolin Monk? Something really cool could be done with Liu Kang if they keep the same back story but deliver his character differently. But what if he does something stupid...

Yeah, I'm worried that he's trying to make this episode for those people who always say Liu Kang is too "boring"...Hopefully it's like the Raiden episode but only in the sense that it makes changes but principle elements of the character are retained.

Y'know, the movie already did a Liu that was different from the games, making him a skeptic who abandoned the temple and became Americanized, and was only out to avenge his brother.

All I want is to see the Liu from the original MK1, the devout pacifist monk who won't kill anybody and then has to pay for it in the sequel because letting Shang live leads to Shang killing all the monks to get his goat. When are we gonna see THAT Liu? It doesn't even exist in MK9. What happened?
Quite frankly, Kevin's comment just makes me wonder if that shit about the grocery store clerk wasn't fake after all. Because hey, a Chinese guy working a minimum wage job in his stupid fucking Deacon City is way more gritty and urban than a monastery in China is.

UGH!, I seriously hope KTanch doesnt do something THAT DAMN RETARDED!.

GEEWUN!



Cannot care. If it passes in its own universe, then perhaps there will be an iteration of Liu Kang I would like.

Geewun sucked. TFAnimated and Beast Wars were best
Seriously, though, I'm open to alternate universes and Elseworlds provided they're actually good.

There were certain things in the first season and particularly in the Rebirth concept-trailer before that that I just don't think are strong ideas or character designs, not to mention the series' low budget nature really shows on the screen, I don't really like the look of the thing in some episodes.

Like, if this wasn't a Mortal Kombat adaptation, if it was an original series with almost the same premise, say, a story about this Deacon City and the mobs and killers in this dirty, corrupt town holding an underground tournament of street fights and cage matches with the secret that some of the bad guys are undead, demons in human disguise, etc. and there's this supernatural element trying to claw its way into the world through these people, I kinda doubt I would be interested enough to watch that.

I'll give a small example. A lot of people really enjoyed the Raiden episode because it was the grittiest and most different/Rebirth-y I guess? But it was the episode I liked the least, solely because the idea of a mental hospital with medieval conditions where the doctor tortures and lobotomizes patients for no established reason and gets away with it because asylums are supposedly shitty places no one pays attention to is such a shallow, one-dimensional cliché that I felt insulted as a viewer. I expect better ideas from professionals, y'know?
Anyway, the fact that he's doing Liu Kang different only bugs me because nobody, not even NRS, has portrayed Liu's original MK1 motivations and personality since 1993. It's not just Kevin, it's everybody. I'm just really bummed that nobody ever sees the "Why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker?"-type storytelling potential old Liu had.

Not everything can be Citizen Kane, and not everything SHOULD be Citizen Kane.

I would not want something like Commando (Schwarzenegger) to be remade realistically and cleaned up, because that would ruin the wonderfully cheesy original idea - as the movie had nothing else beside that and Ahnold's charisma driving it.

Playing the original premise straight is not always wise. However if they brought something else to the table to compensate, that is another tale.



Remakes that remake the original as it is aren't remakes. Reproductions at best. Yes, Liu Kang from MK1 hasn't been brought to the big screen as MK. There isn't really much to work with it either.

This is cool news! I own the first on blu-ray so I'll be buying the second

Now that, I completely disagree with.

One of my favorite tropes in fiction is when you have a hero who has a no-killing code and when faced with an incredibly evil murdering bastard, even when all his friends around him are telling him "you gotta off this dude for the greater good", he either refuses to compromise his beliefs or simply doesn't have the guts to take a life and ends up sparing the bad guy when he beats him, guaranteeing the bad guy will one day return and do it all again.

It's common in superhero comics but happens on occasion in action cartoons too, it was a main theme in the last half of Avatar: The Last Airbender's final season, Goku did it sometimes in DBZ (though most of the villains either turned into allies as a result or forced him to finish them anyway)...but what I can't recall EVER seeing before is the logical outcome to that scenario, which I brought up when I referenced the fact that comic fans constantly ask "Why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker? Isn't he responsible for all the people Joker keeps killing since he won't permanently stop him?)

Where are the series where the hero, faced with the consequences when the bad guy comes back and does something worse than they did the first time (i.e. Shang leading the slaughter of the Shaolin Temple), goes "My old philosophy was a mistake" and BREAKS his code?

I think if they ever showed a Mortal Kombat story where Liu Kang went through that, it would be the most interesting portrayal of his character ever.

Because Liu Kang's shaolin beliefs hold little merit in a world where gods manifest regularly. And the fact that the only reason why he is a shaolin monk is because shaolin monk equals to kung fu action character of asian descent. No thoughts on WHAT actually their beliefs are....

If he were a buddhist he would not really give a damn about a god appointing him to fight in a tournament. His concerns would be reaching the state of Nirvana and entering Bardo.

They really could have used some other martial arts denomination instead of shaolin. Way to not care about source material....

Seems like an ironic way to end that post...

Does anyone actually expect Tancharoen to do a 1:1 translation of Liu Kang? Have we ever? It would be fun if that was the twist. I don't know if he's that self-aware, but it'd be nice. [RE: NOT what you expect in season 2.]

I think that its sole meaning is that "Liu Kang will be something you've never seen before." instead of "Something that you couldn't figure out."

Chrome, I'm not sure why you chose then to complain about how MK Shaolin Monks have different beliefs from real world Shaolin Monks (for the dozenth time) because none of that actually has anything to do with what I was talking about.
To reiterate the actual argument, I wish to see a story about a hero who doesn't kill being forced to reevaluate his ways because the villain he let live comes back and destroys his home/family because I think that would make for a more fascinating and entertaining character/story than Liu has been portrayed as in anything since MK2.
The issue is telling a good story. Making a character interesting. The real world ain't got shit to do with a work of fiction whose primary concern is entertainment.

Well yes, but it always cooks down to what you prefer.

I don't know. Perhaps a labour-force Liu Kang is more appealing to me than what I have already seen before. You can certainly retell it, it will ultimately be the same stuff that MK implied or outright told.

I am not a big fan of repetition anymore. And frankly speaking, there is so much that I have forgotten concerning MK that probably I wouldn't mind. So the point right now is: even if it should be tied more closely to MK, I am too jaded to care.

I will judge it on it's own merit. The rest is inconsequential.

My argument in that case would probably have to be that if you're tired of the story of Mortal Kombat, maybe you shouldn't watch Mortal Kombat adaptations and should look for more original movies and games to occupy your time? If you don't enjoy the hobby on its own merits anymore, time to get a new one, y'know?

Nah, it has more to do with going through each of the fans phases: from overtly excited to the fluff-is-serious etc... while the franchise has been the same. Mk is like a 80's cartoon where status quo is the god throughout most of their run. For bet ter or worse.

I think it has more to do with the Ktanch version catching my eye and holding my interest compared to the overexposed original. At least that is my guess.

And it's not like the Ultimate Marvel universe where the same thing tries so hard to be gritty it oozes blood. And KTanch IMO has been true to a very large portion of what MK originally is or was. From the prespective of Scorpion's backstory it is irrelevant wether it's in contemporary or older times.

BRAVO!!
That is precisely what I think about new versions of the old series. I am all for the new approaches and experiments and it doesn't mean that I am not fan of MK as well as anyone who share the same sentiment.
It has nothing to do with being tired from the series itself. It is search of the new form for the old story. It's not bad to be open minded and see things beyond usual borders.

True. And I can understand enjoying "alternate universe" takes. My thing about Liu Kang isn't really about wanting them to be true to the source material, it's about wanting to see something nobody's actually done yet that fits the character perfectly and would be a good story on its own merits. Like I said, I just love stories about heroes with no-killing codes forced to justify or reconsider their morals.

But you were just advocating the potential grocery store clerk thing, and that strikes me as "Halle Berry Catwoman" territory. Now we're not just talking about changes from the source material, y'know, we're talking about flat out bad ideas.

This.



She was great, and honestly, she being so charming, sweet and nice (as seen in all those interviews that had her on the spotlight) really makes me like her even more, but, I couldn't help but feel that something significant was missing or out of place.

I'm a huge Sonya fan, and even though Jeri was good in the episodes she played her, I feel like she can't give us the real Sonya we all know. As much as I hate to say it, Jeri is much too old for the part and not as athletic/versatile as she needs to be.

^ Co-sign.......Seriously how is any of the characters being lowly supermarket employees a good idea IN ANY WAY!?

Cheesier than ANYTHING in the games that might have been labeled "cheesy".

I wouldn't put it into Catwoman territory. A lot of ideas sound whack in the first stage of development. Catwoman could have been a good movie. It wasn't, but it is sure as hell it wasn't fucked over in the initial phases.

Same thing: Uwe Boll receives alot of shit, when the guy has to put up with alot of stuff that really isn't within his control as a director.

Hell, Robocop is a stupid idea when you think about it. The Terminator originally harvested human organs to function in the early drafts.

Liu Kang as a grocery clerk may end up good. It depends on many things. Grocery clerks can be characters with depth too.

There's at least three opinions in that post that legitimately upset me. I think this conversation is gonna have to end.

Sure they can.....If this was an Evil Dead/MK crossover but it's not. This is as dumb as making Batman a homeless drifter who uses a hockey mask and golf cart or Superman a human street thug that runs a gang called the Kryptonians and clean up the gritty streets of Metropolis but also where a red shirt and blue jeans for thier signature gear and the S on the costume now being an S chain they wear. Or turning the Ninja Turtles into species from an Alien race of deceased Warrior Turtles from another planet.

Simply put, there are not only principle elements of the characters and mythos itself that need to be kept in mind when adapting a property and it shouldn't be altered for something that sounds like an Evil Dead ripoff either.

If this idea eventually makes it into the series: who knows. We do not know jack about it yet.I want to see an end product. On it's own merits.