- 3 months ago
Go behind the scenes of ‘Mortal Kombat II’ as the cast and creators break down the trailer. Karl Urban (Johnny Cage), Tati Gabrielle (Jade), Adeline Rudolph (Kitana), and Martyn Ford (Shao Kahn) reveal their favorite scenes to shoot, while Director Simon McQuoid gives an inside look at how the filmmakers captured the action, from costumes to practical sets to VFX. Plus Ed Boon, creator of the original video game, reveals the most iconic callbacks and pieces of history taken from the game, and the subtle ways they reappear in the film.
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00:00Wait, correct me if I'm wrong, it was your voice originally that did the original Get Over Here, correct?
00:03I did that, yeah.
00:04I think that's so amazing.
00:05I didn't know that.
00:06Yeah, yeah, that's so cool.
00:09Get over here!
00:14Get over here!
00:15Get over here!
00:17We are the cast and creators behind Mortal Kombat 2 and we are breaking down the trailer just for you.
00:24Uno Mas, thanks.
00:26You're Johnny Cage.
00:28I loved Citizen Cage when I was a kid.
00:32My favorite that whole bit.
00:34What a day that was.
00:36Like this was my best days.
00:38We were all, which you can see out of shot, up in these stairs, everybody hiding just watching from above.
00:44And from my perspective, it was a terrifying experience.
00:48These guys were all like, hey, we're gonna come and watch Uncaged Fury.
00:52I'm like, oh great, great, great.
00:53And I turn up to work and I put this costume on and it's this 90s MC Hammer-esque kind of dude.
00:59I feel ridiculous.
01:01I know it's so, it's so Johnny Cage.
01:04You look amazing.
01:04It's all right out of the game, it looks amazing.
01:06And I'm looking and I walk on set and there's all the cast and all of them are incredibly proficient at martial arts.
01:13And I'm coming here to do this Johnny Cage Uncaged Fury fight scene.
01:17And I was nervous.
01:20But we leaned into it and had so much fun.
01:22One of my most favorite parts of shooting the film.
01:24Yeah.
01:25Yes.
01:25They should do a reboot.
01:28Nobody wants that.
01:30We just thought, what is the kind of car represents sort of Johnny's moment in his career and life.
01:36And when you really look closely, there's dents all over it and stuff like that.
01:39Johnny Cage, you have been chosen to fight.
01:43Tell me you're not some crazy fans.
01:46Right in.
01:47Yes.
01:47I have a question about this actually for you, Carl, like, because of course we weren't there on the date.
01:53What were you actually seeing in this moment?
01:55They had this incredible interactive lighting set up that was flashing blue strobing.
02:01Yeah.
02:01It was flashing blue strobing lights.
02:03So it wasn't like I was just there reacting to nothing and stuff.
02:07They actually was something to react to and it was fun.
02:12Just a matter of getting as much in camera as possible.
02:14And it was actually shot in the car park.
02:16Yeah.
02:16It was originally going to be an exterior, but then it was monsoonal rain.
02:21Right.
02:22So it was one of those situations where it actually worked out better.
02:32Where the hell am I?
02:33Johnny Cage is the audience's view of how would you react to something like that.
02:39He's already in Outworld.
02:41He just went through that teleporter and he's still processing it.
02:45F*** that.
02:45He said something like, I'm pretty sure I'm having a brain aneurysm, but just in case, good luck.
02:53It's called Mortal Kombat.
02:56Johnny Cage v Katana.
02:58Yes.
03:01I loved this set.
03:02That set was like amazing.
03:04So intricate, so beautiful.
03:06This fight scene.
03:08This fight scene.
03:09You were formidable.
03:11You were fantastic.
03:12You know, it was like just the video game had literally just morphed into life.
03:16He played it so ferociously stoic and mean.
03:20And of course, Johnny has completely neglected his martial arts training and is so rusty.
03:25But it was a fun dance.
03:26Like I remember especially our more hand-to-hand portion of this fight.
03:32Yeah.
03:32It was, there were some really great moments between Katana and Johnny Cage and just trying
03:37to learn about each other and understand each other.
03:39And maybe low-key respecting each other a little.
03:41Yeah.
03:42Adeline is like my sister.
03:44And like I nearly cried like watching this because he worked so hard.
03:50I did not come from a martial arts background.
03:52She worked so incredibly hard.
03:54You just embodied that character.
03:56Fantastic.
03:57Thank you so much.
03:58This was my other favorite day.
04:03Yeah.
04:06That was a chilling day.
04:08Martin was incredible.
04:09Yeah.
04:09It was a nice day at work though.
04:12How long did it take to do all that, all this prosthetics and stuff?
04:15Uh, four to five hours.
04:17Well, every day four to five hours.
04:18Yeah.
04:19It actually depended on what position we were in during the fights as well.
04:22Right.
04:22With how much extra blood was on and so on.
04:24I think that was the hardest part for myself was to be waking up at
04:272 a.m.
04:28Your schedule.
04:29And normally I'd go to the gym first.
04:31So then going to set and sitting in the chair for anything from four to five hours.
04:35And then having to do the fight scenes on top of that.
04:37That was probably one of the most challenging aspects of this.
04:40And hard to fight in that costume.
04:42When you were in full makeup, full costume, standing next to me a foot taller.
04:47It was like the embodiment of Shao Kahn.
04:50You would never guess somebody so bad could be such a nice person.
04:53Yes.
04:54This is a war for the fate of your world.
04:58He dickheads in or what?
05:01That particular shot, when Jade lands, you did that first time and the camera just came in and
05:08landed.
05:08Everything landed perfectly.
05:09And I just stood there and I was like, okay, well, we've got that.
05:12Everything just, the magic happened.
05:16It was great.
05:16It was a good moment on set there.
05:18Yeah.
05:19I'm not some champion.
05:21I don't have transformer arms.
05:24Oh, and Taranobu.
05:25Taranobu.
05:26Oh, and Ludi.
05:29Ludi floats everywhere.
05:30This moment and then I was like, oh, my whole soul was like, yes.
05:35This, we had on set, we had the practical lights.
05:38We also had a flamethrower on Martin.
05:40Yes.
05:41He was very good about it.
05:42He took it like a char on the other way.
05:44What a sport.
05:45What a sport is.
05:46Yeah.
05:46Yeah.
05:47We're just going to do it one more time.
05:51I always said that I wanted Liu Kang's fire to feel like a dirty mongrel flamethrower sort of
05:57that was shooting oil out and it had this real power to it.
06:04I find you annoying.
06:05Not the face.
06:06The staff.
06:07This fight.
06:08Oh my god.
06:09Gosh.
06:09So they gave me the stunt department.
06:11I trained for this fight with Baraka in the Taranobu village.
06:16The stunt department gave me this bow stick to train with.
06:20And I was in my apartment like flying this thing around.
06:23It went flying.
06:24I smashed a bunch of crocker.
06:26Oh no.
06:27So that was the last time I practiced that at home.
06:29Oh my god.
06:30But this was without a doubt the most challenging fight stunt combat sequence that I have ever
06:36been involved with in my career.
06:41A lot of the scenes are in sets in sound stages.
06:44This was a wonderful opportunity to get outside and get the sunlight working.
06:49And it was really important to me that we had this flavor and this feeling.
06:53And it needed to feel bleached and brutal.
06:56I wanted to get a sense of that this was a community.
06:59I was inspired by one of the most recent games.
07:02In the story mode you go into the Taranobu village.
07:05And I looked at that and I thought okay we have to make this real.
07:09This is a massive opportunity.
07:10I actually sort of saw that as we're in early development getting working out the story.
07:15And it's like oh okay well you know Baraka probably the most challenging character to
07:19actually bring to life because of those teeth.
07:21But also so beautiful and wonderful.
07:24And I just wanted this environment to exist in the movie.
07:27And it was lots of fun out there in the dust.
07:35In the rain.
07:36In the rain.
07:37In the rain forest in the rain.
07:38Yeah.
07:38Yeah.
07:39Adi what were the things that were falling out of the trees?
07:42Remember that?
07:42Oh the leeches.
07:44Spiders?
07:45Like leeches.
07:46No no but I did see you.
07:47This was the day I saw a huntsman spider and freaked out.
07:50Spiders and leeches.
07:50Like so every time a leaf fell I was jumping all over.
07:54I was like oh god.
07:55And you know we shot this in Australia.
07:57So anything that can kill you lives in Australia.
08:01It's uh yeah.
08:03The location was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.
08:07Tots and I just loved being in that space.
08:09I mean it's so mesmerizing.
08:11And I also just love this moment for Katana and Jade's friendship.
08:14Yes.
08:14It was like yeah.
08:15Yes.
08:15I think it's reflective of a their relationship but also you know Mortal Kombat is the most,
08:21that's the most extreme of these characters when we're playing the games and all this.
08:25But this is how they live.
08:27Right.
08:27This is their life.
08:27This is them in there.
08:28Fighting is their life.
08:29Yes.
08:29And I feel like you get to get a look into their characters on a day off.
08:33Mm-hmm.
08:33We're sisters right.
08:34Right.
08:34We're not related.
08:37By blood.
08:38But by chosen family.
08:40Right.
08:40And loyalty.
08:41I think in this movie as any relationship does in real life too we go through our trials and
08:45tribulations and but it's nice to set the tone of like what the foundation I think of where that
08:52love is where that bond it comes from.
08:55You could tell that they are very close just from the very first scene with them you can tell.
09:00It's time to become the hero.
09:06Just go back to the pit.
09:07Right.
09:08Please.
09:08Yes.
09:09So I just want to talk about this set for a second.
09:11So when we were working out where we were going to put these various fights,
09:16one of the things that was creatively the most satisfying for me was to be able to go to
09:22what Ed and his team of geniuses had done over the years.
09:28And like I said it's an archaeological archaeological dig through through them.
09:33This and the blue portal I was what I did is I took from very very early versions of of what
09:39you'd created because I wanted to go from the very simple I think it was Sega Genesis version
09:45of the base of the pit and then create a really sort of massive version of it.
09:50IMAX version of something that we all remember from you know from the sort of 8 16-bit version.
09:56They absolutely add another dimension to all of the sets.
10:01It's time to become the hero.
10:06Very menacing.
10:07Yes.
10:08All right you big ugly .
10:12It's showtime.
10:13It's showtime.
10:15It's showtime.
10:16That was the start for me where I kind of realized how huge this was walking down the steps.
10:22And you got to see the whole stage and it kind of made you realize what sort of responsibility
10:27we had on our shoulders.
10:28I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
10:31It was good you guys.
10:32That's where the fun went.
10:37This was a nether round like the seeing it turn out like because it was such a smaller set and then
10:43seeing it turn out it's get over here.
10:58That's a bit much.
11:01I feel like even the people that have are not super super big Mortal Kombat fans.
11:05As soon as they hear Mortal Kombat they immediately go like finish him or get over here.
11:09It's the thing that immediately brings this nostalgia not even just to the game but I think
11:15to a time in people's lives.
11:16I love the excitement people get when when they it's like shout it out or they like and like the
11:21different I don't know poses or voices they try to embody to do it is really fun.
11:25I think in the film also they drop they're dropped so subtly.
11:29Yeah.
11:29It doesn't feel artificial or pushed or forced.
11:32Yeah.
11:32And I think that's what really brings it to life.
11:35Although you will get the people doing the Leonardo DiCaprio.
11:39He said the thing.
11:43Thank you guys so much for watching.
11:44We hope you enjoyed the trailer and please get out to see the film.
11:48Come fight with us.
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