Actor Ludi Lin, who plays Liu Kang, has revealed that the Mortal Kombat 2 team directly consulted saga co-creator Ed Boon to define the movie's stages and fatalities. According to Lin, the production sought Boon's approval for every bloody detail, ensuring the script respected the games' canon. This marks a change from the first installment, where certain elements took creative liberties that didn't convince purists.
The technical process behind consulting Ed Boon 🎮
Lin explained that the writing team held meetings with Ed Boon to detail the execution of fatalities and the selection of arenas. Boon, as creative director of NetherRealm Studios, provided precise data on the physics of finishing moves and the layout of classic stages, such as the Temple of the Elements. The production used this data to choreograph the fights with surgical realism, ensuring each move carried the weight of the combos from the original games.
Ed Boon, the boss who checks the actors' homework 😅
That Ed Boon has to oversee the movie's fatalities suggests the writers didn't trust their own imagination. Or perhaps they feared that, without his approval, Liu Kang might end up killing someone with a foam rubber punch. At least, if the result is a disaster, they already have someone to blame: the video game creator. Of course, if the fatalities turn out well, they'll surely take the credit themselves.