Really looking forward to this film.. some really good casting too. Good to see with Jax they've gone a more realistic approach. Needs to be someone you'd expect to see in the special forces, not someone straight out of the WWE.

Casting Notes

Yes! I'm loving this cast too!

Still think that Michael Jai White is probs best Jax imho

That actress should be playing Jade or Tanya.

So if Mileena is in, Kitana has to be in also.

I love the cast so far. I watched Power Rangers and thinking that Liu Kang played the role of Zach very much like a Liu Kang.

I think the problem with Michael Jai White, Terry Crews, a cast like that is that they are now in their 50s.. if this movie is successful they will be mid 50s by a sequel. Works against them.

Even though I have little to no expectations that this'll be good, I admit the casting has been pretty fine so far.

All I have to say is that is 100% NOT Mileena.

Mileena is Kitana's clone and Kitana as we now know is an Asian decent. Whoever plays Kitana in my opinion should also play Mileena since they are supposed to be the same person with of course that one small difference. ( Those Teeth! ) If they are wanting Sisi Stringer to stay in the film they need to recast her in a different role.

I've slowly lost interest in the film just a tad unless they recast Mileena.

If you want to see Michael Jai White in his prime, check out his film, Blood and Bone.

As mentioned, he's too old and washed-up. Desl with it.

Again, with Mileena, the Edenians are of an exotic race. Who do you have in mind to play her that you have to be so opposed?

I know there's a thread going on about ethniticity and people have used screenshots from games to claim Sub-Zero is white because, hey it was cheaper to use their friends who were white . Read the bios from the first video game, ignore all that Threshold shit, Sub-Zero is Chinese. And he's 32. Sonya, FYI was 26 in MK1.

Now, I'm not sure why Mileena is in it but I guess the lore never stated that Kitana and Mileena didn't exist during the tournament depicted in MK1 so if they can make it work I'm open to it.

FYI, using the SNES manual, there was no mention of the MK tournament in MK1 being the tenth tournament or all that straight victory crap Threshold utilized. There was a MK tourney 500 years ago, corrupted by Shang Tsung and Goro, who killed Kung Lao.

Of course, Russo said this movie will not be what we've already seen before, so it's hard to tell if they are revisiting the first game or combining all the lores from all the convoluted storylines.

I'm not expecting sex appeal but I suspect it will be very violdnt and gratuitous there.

For Mileena I'd like to see anyone play her that looks more like her. Recast Sisi as Jade. She resembles Jade a lot more than she does Mileena. Ever since we met Mileena back in MKII we learned she was a clone of Kitana made from Tarkatan blood so she should look very similar to the Princess and not look too much different. That is also one reason I hated MK: Annihilation. Kitana was played by Talisa Soto and Mileena by her stunt double and you could tell they looked nothing alike.

As far as the story for this series of films from what I've heard is that they're going to supposedly going to follow MK9, MKX and MK11 so the first film is an adaptation in a way of MK9 so we'll all get to see our favorites from the first 3 games hopefully.

We heard that fatalities and gore will be in this film and we as fans of the series can guess at least one Fatality already and that would be to Sub-Zero to turn him into Noob if they truely follow the story that is. Until the film is made we won't know.

Twins don't have to be identical to look alike but yes, there were huge differences between Talisa and Dana Hee.

Please file all of this under "Fan Speculation." I posted updates, that have went unnoticed by MKO in the Media forum, and from everything I have read, from the reliable sources as Greg Russo himself or The Hollywood Reporter or Variety, there are no specifics as to what games this new film will be based. That was just an assumption by a couple MK9-MK11 era fans and making a movie based on this era would warrant an entire MK cinematic universe, which I said we needed all along just under different names like "saga" or "series" or "franchise" because until Marvel and DC came along, "Cinematic Universe" didn't exist.

AMAZING

So after woke MK11 we will have an even more woke MK movie. Great! Raiden was always white, just like Mileena, and now they are turning them into Asians? This diversification of MK made already great harm to the MK11 sale numbers (which are way smaller than MKX). I'm not too optimistic for the movie either. Get woke go broke!

Anyone who says woke is an idiot..

Raiden was never white.. he is an Asian god. Mileena was never white, she was an alien. They were portrayed by white actors yes, but they were never meant to be white. It was just cheaper.

"They were portrayed by white actors and actresses and yet they were not white." :\
Cool story bro!

But it's true. Read the bios from the games. Many of these characters were meant to be Asian, not white. But it's cheaper to have a white guy who is already a designer from the game and thus passionate about it to play a character who is already covered up in a costume, a paid actor wanting the check and could care less. Until we seen photos of the actor back in the day it was very convincing to believe Raiden was Asian. We couldn't tell otherwise.

Christopher Lambert was white... and French... in the first film, followed by a white Italian (I'm guessing) in MKA. But... living in that time, through GamePro and EGM, people bitched about the change, proclaiming Raiden was Asian not white. And especially not French. But Christopher Lambert was New Line's ticket into the French and Scifi market as was Talisa Soto (another hispanic) was to the Spanish / Brazilian / Porteguese market and Shou to the Chinese and Trevor Goddard to Australian market and Sonya to teen boys everywhere (Sonya was never meant to be hot, just a 26 year old with a military physique, not a Miss Teen Model turned Playboy (non-nude) like Wilson was) and Cage to older fans who loved Wyatt Earp. Not to mention Sub-Zero was played by another French guy... and don't forget thd token black guy, Art Lean, who was used to draw the African crowds. People were still pissed but MK turned out to be a good movie and we moved on. Oh and how could I forget the director who was British.

And the first Mileena isn't "white." Her ethniticity is Hispanic, her race / skin color is olive skin. Not white. The Mileena in the reboot is being called black but she's definitely a mix.

Fact remains, the MK reboot isn't doing anything different from the first movie except actually aligning the true races with the game's original lore. That should have never been fucked with. Now all these youngsters grew up to Threshold's shitfest and want everything to be the same as it was there.

They're saving money by usjng Australian actors, and although there are a shit ton of better looking American cast members for the roles, I'm not going to bitch until I see more and give it the same chance I did the original in 1995. I can be convinced the new Mileena is exotic and I can deal with the new rough-skin Sonya being an older Australia version of the original, not the fit version portrayed by a much older than 26 actress in the original game (no one bitched about that then) or the model type of girl from the first movie who couldn't convince anyone but teen boys she was in the military.

You must read stuff like this and just go with it: https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/08/17/james-wans-mortal-kombat-film-race-swaps-raiden-and-mileena/

My suggestion is to stop white-washing everything because some cheapskates done it back in thd day to save $$. Yes, like the article said above, it's weird Mileena and the new Little Mermaid are being "black-washed" but embrace it. Like the article said, it could mean the film is unrecognizable to MK fans. Maybe some of the lore will be changed and this could serve as a franchise reboot?

Guess it becomes something new then.

I wanna know... why was Mileena missing in MK11 but is in this film with no word about Kitana and why do we know all 7 original Kombatants yet we know there will be Mileena, Shang Tsung, but no word about Reptile or Goro but we have an unannounced casted role? Will Kung Lao be used in a flashback scene or will Tan play the dreaded Kung Jin or whatever and piss off those of us who would like to ignore MK9-MK11 as another universe in a realm of parrelel universes that should stay there so we can return to THE MK universe.

And don't be a dick and purposely misquote Rojo. He didn't say it how you misquoted. Stop trying to start flame, hate, and race wars and just GTFO of this site period.

So, if I'm pointing out facts, that's flame? Cool story!

"Hate", "Race Wars"? I always laugh when people flip up these sjw cliches and stigmatize others who disagree with them. It simply shows their lack of argument.

Tell me, if I'm so "full of hate" and "racist", then why I don't have problem with Jax, Liu Kang or Shang Tsung, or Li Mei or any MK character who did not go through the woke process?

BTW I'm on this site since it's inception and this is not the first hot topic which creates controversies. I just expressed my opinion, If you don't like it, that's your problem. One thing is for sure, I'm not going anywhere.

I simply don't like this woke era destruction of an almost three decades old franchise, nor will I fell for these lame excuses like "they were always meant to be Asians" etc. At least come up with a better excuse... Also, isn't it strange that only those characters were racially changed who were originally portrayed as whites? It's so blatantly obvious that they are pushing this cultural marxist propaganda which is ruining MK at this very moment...

Your "facts" have no relevance to your admitted opinion.

In your opinion, those characters should be white because either their game or movie counterparts were played by white actors, despite the FACTS aka story bios state Asian.

That's what's racist.

Throwing the argument about you not questioning the other races is like saying "I'm not racist because I have black friends."

You're still racist. Because you bring race into it.

Why not just accept these characters will be played by people of different races. In fact, why care at all? Race doesn't matter. They're the same characters. As Ermac says, "We are one."

Learn to look past race. The characters are being brought to life by real human beings. It could be worse - we could have had a CGI film.

So open your eyes, welcome color into the world, and get "woke.'"

Now, if you want something else to be pissed off about... rumors are abound to who he's playing. The first is the most credible whereas the second is the most controversial:

1. Kung Lao

2. Johnny Cage

source: https://www.mortalkombatonline.com/t/media/rumor-lewis-tan-is-either-kung-lao-or-johnny-cage/6yL1yfLpkZ0E?page=1#message-052R0iLq4A8e

Well said gorostilllives

If race was the be all and end all to a character's portrayal, Kano would still be a Japanese-American like he was in Tobias' comic and the first game. But this is a tournament from the best fighters from around the world.. not just the best fighters from North America :D

Yes! I keep forgetting Kano was supposed to be Japanese-American. Funny how the movie really went far from that and everyone loved it!

Pretty much the only TWO kombatants from the original first game intended to be white and American were Cage and Blade (who both have cool last names that reflect many of the movie titles from the '90s) and quite diverse: a Hollywood actor and military special forces unit.

Funny no one has challenged the stereotypes in MK1:

Asians were the bad guys.

Americans were good guys.

The whole "God of Thunder" mythos

The ninjas were Asian.

An asian has to be a bodyguard (Reptile to Shang Tsung)

That old Asians had to have white or gray hair and goatees.

That Sonya couldn't be sexy and had to look manly because its a stereotype for military women

That Liu Kang had to be a monk. From the Shaolin Temple. Why couldn't he be the actor?

That Johnny Cage had to wear shades and the kind blind people wear, no less

That Goro, a monster, had to live underground

That only Asians can afford an island

Goro was half-human, half-dragon, the dragon being a popular symbol of China. Why not something from Greek or Roman history, why only Chinese?

The list goes on.

Also... I meant to say this above: from MKA movie... who the hell said Quan Chi was Thai when he was played by a white guy in MKM? Oh that's right... New Line because it was cheaper to cast a day player than an actual actor.

And who said Kitana was hispanic (Talisa) and Mileena was closer to Italian (Dana Hee) in terms of looks?

Yup. It's funny that people are forgetting MK1 was almost a heavily satire influenced game with those things you mentioned.

Partly became it's Van Damme and he is more a comedy than serious actor but also it was the creator's nods to pop culture at the time. As society has grown to be aware of a wider world, the creators are able to take more "risks" in their storytelling without having to explain things to people

Nope, I'm not racist because racists hate everyone out of their race. I however don't hate anyone. And if race doesn't matter, than I suppose you wouldn't mind at all if Jax would be a white guy in next MK. Why not? Jax supposed to be an American hero and a military kinda (or to be more exact, a special forces kinda) guy. Considering that majority of Americans are white, it would be an realistic approach... From the perspective of social justice warriors like yourself, when they turn whites into other races, it's ok and the race doesn't matter, but when they turn other races into whites, than immediately it matters and it's racist. Hypocritical much? True examples of this kind of hypocrisy are the last Dragon Ball movie or the Ghost in the Shell movie...

As a fat, white educated Republican... I can care less if they make Jax another race. Guess what... there were no rules established he had to be black except the "SJWs" of that day and the demand for black character in games. He can be white. He can be Asian too. Race doesn't matter.

I'm also not a SJW and could care less.

But I am open to RESTORING MORTAL KOMBAT back to its 1992 ASIAN roots.Why does race matter here? Because the established rules from the '90s say so.