Contradiction Films, 2011

Mortal Kombat: Legacy is what mostly likely started off as a neat idea in someone’s kitchen and transformed into an interesting idea of “what if?” Legacy entertains but struggles slightly within the confines of the Mortal Kombat universe.

The premise of Legacy is “Let’s retell the story of Mortal Kombat but with some hot takes thrown in for good measure.” Kung Lao is the more sensible monk than Liu Kang! King Jerrod cowardly left his kingdom instead of fighting! Liu Kang fights for Outworld! Sure, the classic stuff is still there: Scorpion and Sub-Zero have an antagonistic past and Quan Chi is still involved with their arcs. But classic requirements aside, it’s a nice change of pace from some of the established lore that we know, and we get some decent acting out of the deal at the same time.

And we would be remiss if we didn’t mention that Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa returns after a slight absence to reprise his scene- and soul-stealing villain Shang Tsung. That gives Legacy some legitimacy and spices everything up immediately. Also of note is Mark Dacascos as Kung Lao. With those two powerhouses attached, one wonders what would have been if the show went beyond the two seasons it received.

Thankfully, it is only two seasons because Legacy does struggle a bit in the second season. Toward the end, some of the fights – mainly Ermac vs. Kenshi – feel a bit tacked on and filler-ish, and the show really began dragging by the time Scorpion exacted his revenge against Bi-Han. That fight technically doesn’t happen until the end of the Tournament, but by the time it happens in Legacy the Tournament hasn’t started. It’s not an unwelcome change, but it could have been set up better since it is a major plot point of every version of Mortal Kombat 1992’s origin story. Despite struggling a little to retell the story, Legacy leaves something good behind. – Lyndsey