Mortal Kombat - Leg-Fu for the Win

Waffling Taylors Goes To The Movies

Don’t forget to check out the other episodes in the series. Make sure to click here to see which movies we’ve already covered - we’re sure that you’ll love what you have to say.

Featured Image

Players

Squidge

Jay

Anthony

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Content Warning

As this is an episode about a both PG13 rated movie and a fighting game which literally started the game rating systems, we’d advise a little caution for this episode. There’s nothing explicitly terrible in this episode, but the subject matter can be pretty rough.

There are a few swears toward the end of the episode, but they’re all bleeped out. There’s also a part at 42:44 (which lasts for 90 seconds) where we discuss possible titles for a porn parody for this movie.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

The boys are back in town, and this time they’re joined by Anthony of the Capes on the Couch podcast. Anthony joined us to talk about the 1995 movie Mortal Kombat. Anthony was actually on an earlier episode

here’s a link to that episode

And he described Capes on the Couch as:

Anthony:

So Capes on the Couch, we are a podcast. We just crossed the five year mark, which we’re very proud of, and we cover the mental health issues of comic book characters. And my co host, my best friend, my brother, is a board certified psychiatrist, and so he breaks it down from the perspective of, “what are some of the issues that each character faces?” And then we dissect what treatment options would look like for the characters, both in universe and that can involve whatever the characters have available to them, if they’re magical, if they are technologically savvy, whatever the case may be, if the have abilities. Whatever that world has to offer, Doc will utilize that in treatment.

And then we discuss what treatment would look like for a real person with a lot of these issues. And then we role play what a therapy session with that character would sound like. And it gives us an opportunity to have a little bit of fun and to do some voice acting. Some of them are funny, some of them are deadly, some of them are really serious. So it all honestly depends on the character. And so we have a lot of fun with it.

And we just recently announced, I don’t know exactly when this episode is going to be coming out, but we just found out that we are going to be doing our first ever panel appearance at a convention. We will be at Puchi Con in Atlantic City, New Jersey, so not terribly far from where we are. On Sunday, May 14, we will be discussing Vash the Stampede from Trigun. If you are at all a manga or anime fan, the con is a little more anime and manga focused than your standard comic convention. So when we were putting the panel together, I said to Doc, we’ve never done a manga character. I want to make sure that we hit the audience kind of where they are.

Interestingly, since they had recorded the Mortal Kombat Annihilation episode ahead of this one

though it wasn’t out when this one was being recorded

Squidge and Anthony had some things to say about it before the record button was pressed. Jay brought this up.

Anthony:

Well, I wouldn’t say it was trash talk, but Squid seemed to indicate that he felt that Mortal Kombat Annihilation was the best Mortal Kombat movie of them all. And I personally disabused him of that notion. Now, mind you, I haven’t seen the reboot, so I cannot compare that to the original two…

So I did see Moral Kombat Annihilation in theaters, and I could say, Squidge, I don’t know what you were on. I don’t know what we’re just talking about mental health. Maybe you need to see somebody. Maybe you need to get some treatment there, because I think you are operating under a delusion and under a separate reality than the rest of us. And that is okay. That is you’re living your truth. But I’m going to speak my truth. I’m going to live my reality. And my reality is one in which the Mortal Kombat Annihilation falls well below the standard of the original. So that is what I will politely and tactfully say about that.

And Squidge’s rebuttal was plain for all to hear:

Squidge:

The story is already established, and it’s not meant to be taken as seriously as the first one. So in that regards, story is inconsequential, really. But it’s a quote. Irish comedian Dylan Moran - Mortal Kombat Annihilation not that part. This part, "it’s fabulously f*%king stupid." The movie is pure cheese, and I love it. Talk about 90s cheese films, and itt doesn’t get better than Mortal Kombat. Annihilation, seriously

And before they could talk about the movie in question, the collected chaps wanted to quickly cover the Street Fighter movie

which was covered back in episode 95

And there’s no way that a discussion about the Street Fighter movie could happen without discussing the guy in a towel holding a gun like it’s a loved one:

Or indeed the lady holding a shoe:

Basic Info on the Movie

This movie was released in 1995, and Mortal Kombat Annihilation was a direct sequel to it - taking place seconds after the ending of this movie.

It was directed by Paul W. S. “look at how hot my future wife is” Anderson, and after making this movie he stepped away from it because he “didn’t want to get tied down to a series.” But after seeing the failure that was the sequel, he wanted to keep hold of the reins for the next video game movie he made: Resident Evil. So if you want someone to blame for the live action Resident Evil movies, then Lawrence Kasinoff (the producer of both Mortal Kombat movies) is your man.

But then, if we didn’t have the first Mortal Kombat movie, we’d have never had the absolute banger that is Utah Saints Take On The Theme From Mortal Kombat. So swings and roundabouts, really.

Anthony:

Thank you, Utah Saints, for that. If you don’t get hyped after hearing that and want to run through a goddamn brick wall, like, check a pulse.

Initial Thoughts

Before they could discuss the movie proper, Anthony brought up a very valid point about the journalism in this movie:

Anthony:

How bad is the press? Though, that they have nothing else to write about. That Johnny Cage’s fighting skills make front page headlines on two separate continents in at least two different languages. How starved are they for content? Of all the things that the could write about, there’s no political corruption, there’s no diseases, there’s no global disasters. No. Let’s talk about whether or not this globally beloved action star is a fake.

To which Squidge responded by asking the most important question of all time:

Squidge:

So does does that make Johnny Cage the Tommy Wiseau of the mortal Kombat universe? I think that’s my mic drop moment. I’m done.

Get in touch with us on Twitter or our Discord server if you think that this movie would have been better if Tommy Wiseau had been in it. Would it have been better if Tommy Wiseau played everyone? Is there anyone out there who could put that together?

The Scenes We Want To Highlight

The first scene that Anthony wanted to talk about was the one which introduced Sonya, Jax, and Kano. It takes place in a very packed club, and both Sonya’s team and the bad guys are firing shotguns and semi-automatic rifles into the crowd, yet no one seems to notice.

Anthony:

She’s trying to make her way through this mob of all of these goths and industrial folks that she’s just, like, bashing skulls in with the shotgun - the tactical shotgun with the flashlight on it - and chasing through, and nobody moves out of the way.

There was also a discussion about Kano’s nationality in this movie and how it affected the character in the games that came after it. Essentially, folks heard his accent (cockney) and thought, “oh! Australian.” And that led to Kano being retconned as Australian and:

Jay:

So the the crazy thing about that is that the actor who played Kano (Trevor Goddard) went to his death telling everyone he was Australian because the American media went, "and Kano, who’s Australian." that’s just the fact that he absorbed that and made it part of his internal character. The actor. Yeah. Very strange. Very strange indeed.

And it’s also not possible to talk about that sequence without talking about the beginnings of Shang Tsung’s utter sleaze every time that Sonya and him are in the same scene together. Seriously, he’s a slime ball, y’all.

Jay:

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa has - like I’ve got it written down in my notes - he was the perfect person to play Shang Tsung.

Not only because he was chewing the scenery so much, but like his facial expressions, right? They are perfect. Like that first scene where he holds up Liu Kang’s brother’s head and looks directly into the camera, like he’s going, he’s pulling that face. It’s perfect.

But what’s really interesting to me is that when he had his audition, he turned up in that costume. Like that was his own costume he put together. He turned up, he’s like, "yep, I’m going to be Shang Tsung. This is who I am." And then got up on a chair and was like, "YOUR SOUL IS MINE!" And they de-aged the character because Shang Tsung is supposed to be like 5000 years old or whatever. They de-aged the character in the script so they could hire him to play the character because they knew he was so good at it.

Anthony:

Yeah. He was the only one they wanted. They were like, "we want you. And that’s it. You are the alpha and the omega of our Shang Tsung list."

So if you take only one thing from this episode, just be more like Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

Squidge wanted to talk about the first scene with Raiden.

Squidge:

The first scene that I really loved was when you saw Raiden for the first time and he told Liu Kang, "come at me, then. Show me how good you are." He did a sweet ass flip. He got flipped by a god.

So best fight scene in the movie. Just because it’s got Christopher Lambert in it going "hup" and flipping him over. It’s just hands down the best one in the film because just by the looks of everyone else in the crowd, they’re like, "whoa, you got flipped by a god, son!" How’d you come back from that?

"I’m going to go to the tournament and win." So is that because he got owned? If he didn’t get flipped, would he not go? Was that his motivation? It wasn’t revenge [for getting flipped].

And of course that, somehow ended up devolving into a discussion of possible porn parody titles for this movie, including:

• Mortal Cumbat
• Immoral Cumbat
• Liu Wang and Sonya Bae
• Kum Lao

The second scene that Squidge wanted to talk about was the one where Kano is having a meal with Goro. Specifically this shot:

Squidge:

How big is that wheel of cheese to his right, our left?

Anthony:

It’s huge.

Squidge:

How much cheese do they need?

Jay:

Mortal Kombat: don’t be lactose intolerant. That’s how you survive Mortal Kombat.

Squidge:

Or if you are, the fights are really fast, for obvious reasons.

Anthony:

You hit me in the ribs, and I $h!t myself. Fight’s over.

Squidge:

No no no no! Not in the gut! Not in the gut! [squelchy sound] I give up.

Jay:

Shitality.

Anthony:

Fartless victory.

And just how big is that chalice that Kano is drinking out of?

Anthony introduced the scene that Jay wanted to talk about:

Anthony:

But it led to the best line in the movie for me. "Those were $500 sunglasses, asshole."

aka: Goro vs Jonny Cage. The one fight in the movie which included the best strategy ever:

Jay:

BIFF! Right in the nuts. Right in the yambags. Then, "haha! Lol! Run!" And there’s like that’s the best strategy ever whack him in the yambags and leg it.

And the interesting thing about the Goro animatronic/suit is that:

Anthony:

Apparently, the guy inside the suit could only do two minutes at a clip because they didn’t put air holes in the suit. So he could only operate for two minutes at a clip because he was running out of oxygen.

Even the Godzilla actors inside the suits were able to do longer than that. Jesus Christmas. It’s 1995. How hard is it to put a little holes in the suit or whatever so the guy can breathe?!

And who were these two dudes? They kept getting a tonne of screen time throughout the Goro vs Cage fight:

How Would We Rate It?

We don’t usually rate games or movies, in fact we have never done that. And this was a conscious decision that we made early in the life of the site.

But we needed to figure out a way to tell you all whether we think you should watch this movie or not. Normally we would rely on three ratings across three categories, which are:

• Love it (best)
• Try it
• Fling it into a tree (worst)

Across these categories:

• As a video game movie
• As a martial arts fantasy action movie
• As a Mortal Kombat movie in the Mortal Kombat canon

Anthony’s Ratings

Squidge’s Ratings

Jay’s Ratings

External Links of Interest

• Join our Discord server and be part of future episodes
• Our Facebook page
• Us on Twitter
• Support us on Ko-Fi
• Anthony on Twitter
• Capes on the Couch
  • on Twitter
  • on the web
  • on Discord
• Mortal Kombat on IMDB
• Cockney on Wikipedia

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

• Intro music is Massive Scratch - Eight Bit/Chiptune
• Spoiler Break music is Spectrum (Subdiffusion Mix) by Foniqz (BandCamp)
• Pallet Cleanser music is Breath Deep Breath Clear (Wu Chi) by Siobhan Dakay
• Big crash sound
• Boxing Bell Sound
• Cheesy Porn Music
• Confetti - Sound Effect
• Glass Breaking Sound Effect HD Glass Shattering Sound Effect
• Metal Gear Solid (ENG) - Death Quotes - © Konami
• Mortal Kombat 2 - Character Select Music - © Midway
• Mortal Kombat 3 (UMK3) - The Grave Yard - © Midway
• Mortal Kombat 3 (UMK3) - The Street - © Midway
• Mortal Kombat 3 (UMK3) - The Subway - © Midway
• School bell sound effect
• Street Fighter ‘Ryu K.O’ Death Sound - © Capcom
• The More You Know
• Xbox One Rare Achievement Sound & Popup Notification - © Microsoft
• Outro Music is Massive Scratch - Eight Bit/Chiptune