This is the fifth casting update for the Mortal Kombat reboot, for previous casting news check out these articles:
- MORTAL KOMBAT Remake Pulls Sub-Zero From THE RAID
- Liu Kang Has Entered MORTAL KOMBAT
- MORTAL KOMBAT Remake Summons Raiden, Jax, Mileena
- Sonya Blade, Shang Tsung & Kano Cast For MORTAL KOMBAT Reboot
That’s All I Need To See
Based on the number of pageviews, clicks and comments around our Mortal Kombat reboot posts, genre movie fans look at this project as somewhat of a joke.
I don’t blame them.
Last week, I tried to watch 1995’s Mortal Kombat and it’s absolutely one of the worst studio pictures ever made.
Every single part of the movie is lazy, broken and stupid.
But now New Line has officially elevated the reboot to Serious status by casting Hiroyuki Sanada as the mustard-masked ninja, Scorpion.
Sanada is the veteran Japanese actor who played Commander Kaneda (nice Akira drop, btw) in one of the best hard sci-fi movies ever made, Danny Boyle’s Sunshine.
Sanada more recently has appeared in 47 Ronin and Avengers: Endgame, where I truly can’t remember who his character was.
In fact, I can’t really remember much about Endgame at all.
Weird, I wonder if Disney has some kind of MIB-type memory-erasing signal or pattern inside their movies?
Nah, they would never do that.
Scorpion is the alias of Hanzo Hasashi, the greatest warrior of the Shirai Ryu, a Japanese ninja clan. Along with Sub-Zero and Reptile, he’s one of three “palette-swapped” ninjas to appear in the first Mortal Kombat game.
The character also appeared in the 1995 movie, where — like everyone else in that mess — he basically just played a nameless, faceless video game character fronting for embarrassing CGI.
Casting Sanada in this role means we are going to get to know Hanzo Hasashi is once Scorpion takes off the mask.
Mortal Kombat will challenge audiences in theaters on March 21, 2021.
