How Mortal Kombat 2 Gives Iconic Villain More Depth Than Previous Adaptations Explained By Star

Mortal Kombat II is showing a whole other side of Shao Khan.

Mortal Kombat II is a sequel film based on the enormously popular fighting game video game franchise Mortal Kombat. After an adaptation of the popular 1992 video game came in 2021, the franchise is back this weekend with more characters and more action in store. The Mortal Kombat II cast includes Karl Urban, Adeline Rudolph, Tati Gabrielle, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, and Martyn Ford.

In an interview with ScreenRant‘s Ash Crossan, Ford details how Shao Kahn is treated with more depth in Mortal Kombat II. According to the actor, he aimed to “create empathy and understanding for the character himself.” He feels that it is simple to ham up a bad guy, but notes there’s a “lack of depth” in those cases. Check out the full quote from Ford below:

ScreenRant: What was important to you in portraying this character, Shao Kahn?
Martyn Ford: To try to create empathy and understanding for the character himself. I feel it’s very easy to overplay a bad guy, and just try to make him bad for the sake of being bad. But then there’s a lack of depth and interest in the character. So I feel like if it was possible, obviously there’s restrictions with the helmet and the arm and so on, but my objective was to try and make people almost feel, not sorry for him, but understand him and sort of understand why he does what he does. And also, try to find a part of them that may act the same way. So that was my objective.
ScreenRant: How was fighting in that?
Martyn Ford: Hard. Very hard. We had some days that were interesting and expensive.
Joe Taslim: Expensive.
Martyn Ford: The one day on set, obviously, I was in full prosthetics, and I was sweating through the gloves that we had on. And when I say sweating, I mean, it was disgusting. You could literally hold and squeeze, and water would come up. It was vile. And one day, we had this sequence where the hammer comes out and this massive swing through the air. And as I’ve swung through, just about here, I can feel it going. And the grip goes, there’s no grip. It’s like holding ice. And this huge hammer, it was the full weight one as well. It wasn’t the prop one, has gone flying through the air and smashed the light. And I just looked at Simon and went, “Sorry.” That was an interesting day.

Shao Kahn was an important character to get right in Mortal Kombat II. As in the case of the movie, he is the main villain and final boss in the Mortal Kombat II video game. This meant that gamers had big expectations of Shao Kahn going into the film. Making up a big part of the movie’s fan base, this was an important population to please.

The antagonist has also been an anticipated villain since the original release of Mortal Kombat in 2021. His appearance in the universe was teased towards the end of the film, and when Shang Tsung did not kill the Earthrealm warriors, it was clear that he would be the main villain. As such, fans of the movie franchise have been waiting for this for a while.

Video game final bosses are often put into the type of pure evil stereotypes that Ford describes. Especially in a fighting game like Mortal Kombat, where character depth is not so much the point of the experience, being “bad for the sake of being bad” is more acceptable. When transitioning to the film medium, it made sense for Ford’s interpretation to give the character more depth.

That said, Ford recognizes the limitations of this portrayal. Most notably, he was restricted by his costume. He sports a giant, armored head cover that conceals most of his face. As such, Ford’s performance becomes one of voice acting more than anything else, presenting him with an unusual challenge when trying to craft a deeper character.

Ford concluded his interview by addressing more elements of said armor that extend beyond the challenge to evoke emotion. During his fighting scenes, he sweated profusely, so much that one could squeeze water out of the gloves he had on. But through all this, Ford still made every effort to give Shao Kahn emotional layers under those many costume layers for Mortal Kombat II.