Darren Shahlavi stars as a mug of beer.

In seriousness... he doesn't strike me much as Kano, though I assume this is early in the story. I'll have to wait until he's intentionally made to look more like Kano before I pass my final judgment, but as is he looks far too clean to be anything like the Kano I always envision, who is a dirty street rat.

Could definitely pass off as Mavado, though.

He looks like Jarek. I hate Jarek lol. Hope he pulls off an awesome performance similar to Trevor. It's going to be hard to top that.

He looks like Ed Boon to me in the shot. Dunno why. O.o...

Looks more like Jarek to me.

Agree on the Jarek call, but I think he could be a Kano.. remember, this is pre-tournament Kano.. this is Kano in his lair.. he doesnt need to get his hands dirty, he hasn't been approached by Tsung yet

I have faith. I was never a big fan of Trevor's Kano to be honest. Seemed to play him a bit dumb. I don't think Kano should be dumb. I think he should be cunning and ruthless.

I think UK Trevor Goddard (the aussie.. umm, accent.. was faked) did a great job with Kano.. and they are different. His Kano was a servant of Shang, living in fear of what Shang may do to him.

This Kano will be a lot stronger and badder

For one thing Kano is not a petty criminal. Petty he may be, but not the one who is the lowest common denominator.


I like to think of him as some sort of Genghis Kahn without an army.

Ok first things first. For absolutely EVERYONE who is under the impression that Kano is Australian. He's not. Trevor Goddard was actually a Brit, although he always marketed himself as Australian.

The accent in the movie is in NO WAY an Australian accent. No Australian has an accent like that. But everyone from overseas seems to think that is how Australian's speak.

Trevor's accent was more British than anything else, which I think worked well for the character. But Australian? Not a chance. And yes I know Ed and the team have now molded Kano as an Aussie, just so everyone knows, the Kano in the current games speaks like a stereotype. No one, particularly with Kano's criminal background, would speak like that.

So until someone gets the accent right, I'm happy to assume that Kano is actually British.

As for the Pic, looks great! I'm guessing this will include how Kano messed his face up and where/how he gets the metal plate attached.

Why are you assuming he's british when the MK team is trying to make him come off as Australian? The accent may not be perfect but that doesn't mean he's not Australian, and it definitely doesn't mean he's british.


I personally think he looks a lot like Kano. A bit younger, a bit cleaner and less insane than the one in the games, which makes sense considering he's not scarred for life yet.

Well, I'll be first to admit I was half-wrong. I also assumed the pic was Raiden but then I added if it were Kano it would be him before the laser eye, so I was right there.

This series is proving to be quite interesting and if I may say it's about damn time we MK fans get the storyline we so badly deserved over these past nearly 20 years.

Also from his twitter...

Has anyone recently watched Dark City? It has unknowingly influenced so much.

Could this be an influence for MK or today's society?

I think Durden knows what he's talking about.

I'm not assuming he's British in the games, I know he's MEANT to be Australian. What I'm saying is the games have him Australian based off the assumption that in the movie he was Australian. When the movie was released, everyone assumed he was Australian because of his accent. That went off like gangbusters, everyone loved the portrayal and so Ed and the guys changed his nationality.

I know for a fact that in the Movie his accent is in no way Australian. British with a tiny hint of Australian at best. If people knew what an Australian accent sounds like then Kano in the games would be of British origin right now.

Also, I really loved Trevor's portrayal of Kano. I thought he did a brilliant job.

If anyone can provide proof, say in some production notes, a quote, anything that says he is definitely Australian in the movie, then I will happily retract my statements above.

Also if there are any British users on here, what do you think? Does Kano's accent sound very British to you?

Or maybe we are all wrong and it's in fact meant to be a hybrid accent. Picked up while Kano was traveling between countries "amassing" his wealth through illegal means.

The movie accent was meant to be Australian.. after his death, it got revealed Trevor used his impression of an Aussie accent to get work in Hollywood for TV/ Movies..

But yeah, I'd like to say it sounds British and not Aussie, but have you heard Aussies oversees.. they amp up the accent weirdly.. lol

Unfortunately, I think this will almost certainly prove to be false.
I think Shahlavi's Kano is going to have much less weight to him. He may even literally be cast as a more common crook -- a killer, I'm sure, but not a character with obvious gravitas. It could be argued that's appropriate, given Kano's course as a character in the later games, but the games really aren't the strongest reference, these days. Can't blame the movie guys for playing fast and loose when the games are dipping lower.

It'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds in the finished product.

I'd expect this Kano will probably be downplayed in an attempt to create a version of perceived urban reality. I'm not convinced it will actually come across that way, but the audience seems ready to attach itself to any implied sliver of 'realism'. I'd fully expect some of the same themes of subservience to return from the '95 movie, which seems a shame. It would've been nice to see a version that emphasised the individual strengths of characters, even while tying the plot together. Hard to shake the notion that losing his eye will be tied more directly to his involvement in the tournament, which seems a little obvious for my tastes, but has a logic.

Thought Shahlavi was awesome in Ip Man 2 and was very intrigued to see where his Kano would end up. Pics and clips seem to suggest it'll all be pretty much where you'd expect, but you never know. It was never going to be Trevor Goddard or the interpretive imaginary version I would think of from the games... fingers crossed it's worth the change.


For what it's worth; article references were carefully made to keep separate the incorporation of Goddard's misinterpreted accent into the character's video game canon, and the actor's actual nationality.

Not sure what the new game has to say about Kano's origins, but it's hard to imagine Shahlavi's portrayal will hammer home the Australian idea. A bit of a shame, I think. As fine as all the American-Japanese stuff was, I thought Australia gave Kano some nice texture. Made him quite unique in the scheme of things, and helped MK get a little bit of the 'world threat' credibility that it perhaps lacks (with it's cast of Americans and occasional Chinese).

As we get more info, it starts to feel apparent all the vagueness was ultimately masking a lot of inevitabilities. I guess you never know, though. Maybe this thing's going to surprise big time. Definitely too early to lock in any permanent opinions!


I can see the Jarek calls, but I thought Crow was on the money when he mentioned Mavado (elsewhere). Bit of the ethnic vibe coming through, with much more impressive hair than Jarek.

Again, loving what I'm seeing. The MK team has always seemed a bit confused with how exactly they want to portray Kano in the games. Sometimes he's brilliant, calculating, and more of a leader; other times he's bat-shit insane and almost rabid. I've always preferred the former, and it looks like they're going more for this angle.

Also, I enjoyed the (fake?) Australian portrayal from Goddard for that type of Kano, but let us not forget that originally Kano was orphaned by an American woman in Japan - and really, I'm having a hard time imagining an Australian accent from this actor, don't know why. I'd be cool with all the storylines going back more to a MK1 style (especially Raiden).

Not how I expected Kano to look but I'm all for different visions of the MK world.

Exciting!

It doesn't matter why it happened, it happened. The MK team means Kano to be Australian, he's Australian, because they're the ones who decide what's what in the MK world.
I still don't understand what you're assuming after all. Are you assuming he's british outside the games? You mean just in the first movie? Is that the Kano you're talking about? You clearly said ''for those who think Kano is Australian, he's not": I thought you meant the Kano from the games.

I get more and more excited with each new pic we see. The project looks to be very well shot.

Ahhh. My apologies Zentile. I should have specified in my original post. Yes, I was talking about the Movie Kano played by Trevor Goddard. It is accepted that this Kano was Australian. And it's from this portrayal that the MK team decided to also make the game Kano Australian. What I am contesting is that his accent in the movie is not Australian. Any Australian user on this forum will tell you this. Also I would say it is fine to make the game Kano an Australian character. No problem. Just that basing it off the movie Kano, if people understood the accent, it sounds more British than Australian.

I'm not ever really surprised by the confusion with accents. From experience, Australian, New Zealand and British accents get confused all the time. I was trying to set the record straight on Trevor's portrayal (even if he intended for the accent to be Australian) because all I have ever seen since the movie was released is how Kano is Australian when that is not what our accent sounds like.

But I'm probably now making this into a bigger deal than it really needs to be! I mean at the end of the day, whatever nationality Trevor was going for, for me he will always be the best Kano. But I do have the feeling this new guy can do something awesome with the character that knocks it out of the park. Loving everything of this web series so far :)

I always thought that Jason Statham would be the perfect Kano, there isn't really much to say about this picture untill we see this man in action playing Kano.

Im from England near London and the accent in the first film is definately British in fact its how people talk in the part of England I come from.
The UK has many different accents and no offence to all the Aussies out there but that Austrailian accent he has in DC does not work for the charactor one bit.
The fact that Kano is now talking as an Austrailian has to be due to confusion by the USA as the original accent in MKfilm portrayed by Goddard is Definately English.