I really liked Liu Kang back in the MK1-MK3 days. But I increasingly lost interest in him, mostly because the dev team chose to make him more of a caricature than a serious martial artist IMO.

The MK franchise has become increasingly tilted toward magic and mysticism, and Liu Kang seems to have less and less of a place in it. But even in the best efforts to phase him out, fans wanted him back, so the writers zombifed him to justify his re-entry into the franchise. This was really too much for me, and I would have preferred to see Liu Kang simply disappear than be disrespected in this fashion.

Similarly, I wouldn't mind him being phased out of post-MK9 games altogether. I know I'm pretty alone on this one, so I don't mean to start a flame war, but I do think that Liu's time is up for the aforementioned reasons.

I will agree that he is generally a cool character, with unique moves and a special fighting style, but he is one of many Bruce Lee derivatives - a formula that becomes stale after a while. He deserves a place in MK9 because fans like him, and this is a fan service game, but his "forced" continuation is becoming frustrating.

He's the best because he's essentially the main character. That's why.

Some reason he remind me of Ryu just because he is the main cahracter or FACE of SF (i hate Ryu, GO CHUN LI). But at first Liu Kang was one of my faves but i lost interest of him to Kitana/Jade/Mileena/Sindel/Sub Zero/Sonya/Scorpion/ you get the picture. lol but he is still my faves. I wont say hes the best character but kinda one of the most important people of Mk. My opinion (I know its off topic) he will definitely BE IN MK 2011 100%.

I read the title of this topic and the first thing that comes to mind is... "He isn't."

He is a very cool Bruce Lee tribute and is quite good as the "ultimate good guy" of the franchise, however, I've always seen him as a second rate character. He is important to the series as he is the main hero and all, but his storyline is very typical and unoriginal, and quite frankly, rather boring in my opinion. I like Kung Lao alot better as the main hero which he more or less took over in MKDA.

Though he is the main hero of Mortal Kombat, he is nothing like Ryu from Street Fighter. Ryu is by far a million times more dull as a character than Liu Kang will ever be. Yes, I hate Ryu...

Why is Liu the best?

Simple.

Because he's Bruce motherfucking Lee.


WATAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The thing about Liu Kang... Still don't care about him in MK1, but he is my fav character. The great thing with him is that he was accessible and easy enough to play with that almost any one could pick up and play with him. Also with the majority of his specials being, Forward, Forward, X, I like for the speed of input commands as a competitive player.

All in all he is the main hero/protagonist throughout the series, so he has a natural spot light on him. And he actually is pretty well received as a character to the general public.

Liu Kang's the "best"? He's okay, making him the golden child/ only hero to really do much for every single game(aside from DA and Deception) doesn't make him the best. I like Liu Kang's moves, accessiblity and look, but he isn't the best. He lacks personality, it's cool that they paid homage to Bruce Lee with his creation but he hasn't evolved and you would think the "main hero" would undergo character evolution. Ermac underwent more character evolution in two games than Liu Kang did in his entire stint and Liu Kang's only been absent from one Mortal kombat game( Deadly Alliance).

When Liu Kang isn't crushing people with arcade games or being a dragon, he doesn't do much for me as a character. I value the function he holds in the series, and I do consider him iconic, but main protagonists are rarely my favorite character. I prefer characters who emit smoke and get left behind by their allies.

NEVAR FORGET ;_;

I've tried to like Liu Kang and failed miserably more than a few times. I mean, he's an average character at the core, but it has always irritated me how he essentially defeated every main villain in every game until his death, and always easily "saved the day" despite not having an impressive story or even an impressive personality or background or freakin' characteristic that would make him worthy of so much limelight and power. Just because you're asian and you fight like Bruce Lee doesn't make you cool enough to take down Shao Khan over and over again.

If they bring him back this time around (ugh, what am I saying) When they bring him back this time around, I really hope they'll make him more interesting. Make him have doubts, fears. Give him conflicts, internally and externally, with some of his allies. Make him believe he is not good enough. Make him not good enough. Part of what makes a great hero is having failed at some point. Why the fuck should I care about Liu Kang defeating Tsung, Khan, and Shinnok when I knew right from the start he'd be able to? BO-RING! He just needs to be made a lot more relatable, a lot more human, a lot more flawed and interesting, so that maybe we'd give a fuck about following him through the story.

Indeed.

And look what I found.

Very well said! It almost seems like because he "is" the hero, there is often a lack of attention paid to the context that surrounds that notion.

First off, Welcome to MKO.

Second, I've never liked Liu Kang, but I've never really liked protagonists anyway.

As in Soul Calibur, I don't like Seigfried, and in Tekken, I don't like Kazuya, Jin, or Lars Alexandersson.

Protagonists just aren't my thing, but in the case of Liu Kang, his turkey call kinda takes a toll on the ears.

Well liu Kang has been my fav character since I was a kid (yes kid, it's was the first game I ever played next to megaman ) mainly because he was easy to play with and idk but I just had a feeling I would have fun with him the first time I seen him on the character select screen of mk1 and NO HE IS DEFINITLY NOT LIKE RYU,I F**KIN HATE HIM!!!! KEN FTW!

I feel like Liu Kang worked really well as a character in the first 3 games; he was a shaolin monk in a secret society whose main purpose is to win the Mortal Kombat tournament and protect Earthrealm. While the rest of the characters in the first game all had ulterior motives for entering the tournament, Kang entered simply to save Earth. He has no real motivation beyond this.

After Mortal Kombat 4, he should have been relegated to a more minor role as "Mortal Kombat champion". He wouldn't have much to do since the later games didn't actually have tournaments and the villains were immensely powerful magic users. The fact that Tsang Shung and Quan Chi so easily defeated him in Deadly Alliance proves that he no longer had the chops to be the main hero.

Very good point,actually.

MK4 really should have a been a rematch of Raiden vs Shinnok,mano-a-mano. Liu is pretty badass,but even I don't see him beating the shit out of an Elder God.

If he didn't win the MK tournaments, he wouldn't be special. He's a bland forgettable character. He's not one of the best characters, quite the opposite, I find him to be one of the worst. In my opinion being a zombie DOUBLED his character depth

i think this belongs in Overall MK Discussion

You think right!

But before I move this thread....

He was cool in MK1-3 but after that, it really did just fall off for me. I remember actually wanting to see Liu Kang but now, if he was missing I probably wouldn't even notice.

I've always liked Liu Kang. It's true that his personality and character development are ridiculously stifled in the games and that he had no business winning MK4, Shinnok wasn't his bad guy, he was Raiden's.

But I think that Shang Tsung IS Liu's archenemy, and no one deserves to win the tournament but Liu. And I believe that if the person who defeats Shang is NOT the one who then goes on to stop Shao Kahn in MK3, then you're failing at one of the basic rules of storytelling. You don't make a person the main hero and then suddenly change who the main hero is halfway through the story, and MK1 thru 3 is all one story. Beating Shang isn't an accomplishment in itself, it's a stepping stone. It's a rite of passage and whoever does it IS the man who must beat Shao Kahn at the end.

So MK9 needs to not fuck with that. They can change MK2 if they want to because the end fight of that part of the story's not really important to the narrative, but 1 and 3 BETTER have Liu, or Liu and Kung Lao as a team, doing the winning.

And I think Liu has a lot of potential endearing qualities and character flaws and, sadly, the only media that has successfully used him to his potential was the terrible Defenders of the Realm cartoon. That was the first and only thing to really look at the truths of Liu's storyline and go "Okay, being champion means you stop aging. All his friends will wither and die while he watches, how would someone feel about that?" or "Being champion means you spend your whole life fighting people, and it doesn't stop until you die, how would a kind, gentle pacifist feel about that?", and to really flesh out his romance with Kitana.

I also like the idea that because he's spent his whole life as an isolated monk devoted to training and eastern philosophy, and hasn't seen much of the outside world, that he's a bit naive and overly optimistic and expects the best from people. But I hate how it was executed in Shaolin Monks, where it just made him look childish and stupid. They can do better. In fact, I've always believed it would be this trait that makes him so appealing to Kitana. She's lived her whole life forced to kill for her evil stepfather and she wants to excape from that life and become a hero and fight back, and at just the right time, here comes this person who sees the good in people and has the power to defeat Kahn, to help her fight and inspire her to live up to her potential. Also, in the original MK2, Liu's storyline was about dealing with the fact that "I let Shang live...and as a result, he sent the Tarkatans to wipe out my monastery and everyone is dead. I want revenge, and I'm willing to kill this time." I want to actually SEE that emotional growth on the screen.

I think MKvsDCU did a really good job of characterizing Liu and didn't make the same mistakes Shaolin Monks did with him, so I have hope that MK9 will get him right as well. I'm just afraid that this idea of Raiden changing who wins the tournaments is going to completely screw over Liu, because being the champion is central to his character and without it, he serves no purpose in the franchise.

I'd also like to know more about how his "Chosen One"-ness works, how he taps into...whatever it is that he taps into that makes all his moves look like dragons and lets him transform into one. I believe he's calling on the power of the Elder Gods somehow, since they also look like the dragon shapes he's conjuring, and I'd like to know, did they secretly pass a gift down to him because they wanted a mortal to stop Shao Kahn for them? Or is he just reaching a level of spirituality and enlightenment through meditation that allows him to touch the power of the gods? Was he born this way and realizing his destiny? Is it something the Great Kung Lao passed down to his descendants, that Liu learned but Kung Lao hasn't because KL is too self-centered and not zen enough?

The core of the problem is: how 'original' can Liu Kang be made without being the main 'day-saver' this time as well? Sure, the multiple-time championship has become radically connected to Liu's storyline, personality and, really, the very notion of him, but to continue to pass the title over to him even in the revised MK history... uh, wouldn't it actually mean repeating the previous storyline rather than bringing something new, which, after all, I think is what we all want?

The fact that Shang and Liu remain perpetual arch nemeses does not mean that Liu again has to defeat Shang or, less yet, the entire 'classic villain trio' (Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn, and Shinnok). I'd say it is one of the things that most made him, well, annoying... which he would be less if he exposed some internal conflicts, reluctance, two-sided relations (he doesn't have to only admire Kitana, for example; he can at the same time silently feel doubtful about her, or even part-hate her...), but still, even then his constant clicheic 'chief victor' image just feels too unappealing.

Why wouldn't Liu Kang become corrupted 'on his own'? That is, devise his personal plan to achieve enough divine power (after, say, defeating Shang, but before defeating Kahn), and then goes on his own mission of slaying Shao Kahn and taking the throne of Outworld? My lifelong imagination has been to have Shang Tsung as a kind of a protagonist who defends Outworld from now immensely powerful Liu Kang...

Pretty sure it will never happen but then, who's to say...

Baby come back you can blame it all on me

Liu Kang is the superior champion of MK. Kung Lao isn't worthy or skilled enough to become champion.

He's not.

Liu Kang is, was, and ever shall be Mortal Kombat's Wesley.


Fucking twat.