MOVIE NEWS – Fans of martial-arts cinema are already counting down the days to the 2026 release of Mortal Kombat II, the follow-up to the 2021 reboot based on the wildly popular fighting-game franchise. The sequel will introduce fresh faces while bringing back Cole Young, once again played by action performer Lewis Tan, who is now teasing nastier stunts, sharper fight choreography, and truly horrific fatalities, sending expectations for the film through the roof.
Right now, Tan is on the publicity trail for his latest movie, Wildcat, and during a chat with ComicBook he inevitably fielded questions about Mortal Kombat II. Careful not to give away major plot points, the actor still confirmed that the sequel is a more action-heavy, more blood-soaked evolution of the first movie. While the 2021 film delivered some solid fight scenes, it never really captured the level of graphic violence that has defined the games for decades.
“I think it’s worse. Some of the fatalities and some of the fights are worse. But they are way more detailed and way more complex, which is what I wanted… to step up the level of complexity and depth in the fights. It’s Mortal frigging Kombat. We should have the best fight movie of the year. That has to be the goal. I think we accomplished that.”
‘Mortal Kombat II’ Will Go Heavier On The Gore, As Well As The Action
The reimagined Mortal Kombat hit theaters in 2021, at a time when audiences were still adjusting to post-pandemic release models that blended cinema premieres with at-home viewing. The film performed respectably, but it was far from a runaway hit for Warner Bros. Even so, the studio moved ahead with a sequel, once again tapping Simon McQuoid to direct.
With Mortal Kombat II, everyone involved seems determined to refine what did not quite work the first time. According to Tan, the next chapter will not just be gorier, it will also be a more thrilling, fight-focused movie packed with large-scale action sequences and carefully constructed set pieces. As he puts it, the team has “learned” from trying to juggle too many elements at once on the original.
“I had a bunch of bruises. I was pretty banged up on this one for reasons that will soon be discovered. I love this stuff. I love to get into the performance as much as I can and do all the fights that I can. I think in the second movie, there was only one big stunt that I didn’t do because it was pretty gnarly. My character does a double backflip and lands on the floor. Stuff like that is a little too dangerous for me to be doing. You are bound to take a couple of hits and bangs when you do fights, but it’s worth it.
They really let the action team go crazy in the second one. Whereas in the first one, they were trying to balance the storyline with the fights. In the second one, it’s the tournament. We were already in… And they really gave the action team free rein to run with it, shoot it, and the way it was edited. When you do that, and you have a good team, and you trust them, you get gold. It’s not that they didn’t do that in the first movie, but I think they were just trying to balance too many things, and we learned from those moments.”
Source: MovieWeb
