Mortal Kombat Conquest
A series of supernatural ninjas & planar-politics shackled by the state of Florida.
Mortal Kombat: Conquest, produced in 1998, is your standard 90’s action-adventure TV show. Airing on TNT, following WCW Monday Nitro, the show’s a by-the-numbers episodic voyage into the world of Mortal Kombat (at least for the first two-thirds of its only season), and I’m here to happily confess that I loved it. MK: Conquest is a quaint 22 episode show that out of the gate doesn’t quite work because while it is substantially a Mortal Kombat show, it isn’t the Mortal Kombat most of its proposed audience would recognize. Instead of following the impossibly easy structure of the movie/games themselves: a fantastical martial arts competition on an island with magical characters; MK: Conquest instead attaches itself to the prequel story of the first great Kung Lao, the original champion of Mortal Kombat for the Earth realm.
As a result, due to its chronological placement within the wider MK setting, the show doesn’t follow fan-favorites like Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage, and any of the other contemporary, mortal combatants within the game series. Instead, we have an assortment of impossibly 90’s TV characters: some original, some adapted from the games. And while that familiar element of the Mortal Kombat series is missing, MK: Conquest is determined to bring everything else it can into its show. The Black Dragon organization, folks like Noob Saibot & Quan Chi, and entire episodes dedicated to the plight of other realms like Edenia. This is clearly a TV show made by & for Mortal Kombat fans, which only serves to highlight the obvious handicap it begets itself by not just adapting the story most people are familiar with. Try to imagine if someone made a Super Mario Bros. television program but didn’t include the actual Mario bros. 22 episodes about the Mushroom Kingdom and Bowser’s tyranny, but with no mention of the Italian plumbers.
Now, I mentioned this is a 90’s action-adventure TV show, so that should really be enough to establish what kind of programming you’re getting with these 22 episodes. In terms of quality within that sub-genre (one of my absolute favorites), MK: Conquest isn’t a Xena Warrior Princess or Stargate. It’s more akin to if Xena was produced by the Relic Hunter folks. This critique is drawn from, and directed towards, the show’s more limited resources. Filmed in Florida, it’s a show that simultaneously feels like it has no money (because they never travel beyond the same five or so sets) and has as much money as possible for costuming and fight choreography (both which this show does tremendously well). It’s a problem that something like Xena gets around by disguising different locations of New Zealand, and that a Star Trek show would avoid by constructing an illusion of traveling to new planets (even though entire plots can happen just on the ship). Without that sense of continuous voyages to new places, MK: Conquest begins to feel dull for a show with ice-summoning ninjas.
Now let’s turn our eyes forward, to review the characters that bring to life this very weird tale. On the good, virtuous side of this story: our obvious protagonist, Kung Lao. Played by Paolo Montalban, he starts the first episode off with the classic game costume (the vest & the hat), but very quickly discards them for a less-exciting monk garb. It’s a BIG NEGATIVE. If this Kung Lao was rocking the classic, razor-rimmed hat for every episode he’d be far better than what we are given. As he is though? He’s a sad boy who is depressed his girlfriend got killed via a fireball to the chest (listen, it happens). He just won Mortal Kombat and his disappointed step-father, Raiden, is hassling him to already start training new fighters for the next Mortal Kombat tournament. Raiden, god of thunder and Earth realm’s defender, doesn’t believe in honeymoon periods, or even in a return to mundane living, as he strongly recommends Kung Lao stop having a girlfriend and instead focus on the next tournament. Two things: I thought the MK tournament was “once in a generation” so Raiden not letting Kung Lao have time off to hangout with his smokeshow girlfriend is a bit rude. Secondly, Raiden is your varsity soccer coach who yells at you every week to dump your partner because they’re distracting you.
Ultimately Kung Lao is our central protagonist, which is unfortunate because he lacks neither the charisma to carry such a job or really the character to maintain it. I won’t compare his performance, or any of the performances to the 1995 movie because that’s unfair. What I will compare is their development of the “chosen one” martial artist archetype, a mantle shared by Robin Shoi’s Lui Kang and Montalban’s Kung Lao. The startling difference, for myself, is the never before seen recognition that should go towards Shoi’s Lui Kang being an absolute asshole out of the gate. It was always confusing to me why Lui Kang, the traditional hero of Mortal Kombat, was written this way for the film. Now I know! The contemplative monk is a boring character. Montalban’s Kung Lao drifts too far towards that archetype. He, and we the audience, would have been better off if Kung Lao was a bit of bastard.
Speaking of the god of thunder, Jeffrey Meek’s Raiden is the best character in the show. Is he an asshole? Yes. Does he speak like he grew up in downtown Chicago? For sure. This version of Raiden is a very casual, laid-back god who is fairly quippy with everyone (except when he’s yelling at Kung Lao). Ideally this Raiden would rather be spending his time consuming wine coolers and watching The Golden Girls. Meek’s performance, coupled with the writing for the character, elevates a potentially boring character into a scene-stealer.
On Kung Lao’s journey to train the next generation of Earth realm defenders he is paired up with Siro, a disgraced bodyguard of Lao’s ex-girlfriend. Siro is played by Daniel Bernhardt, the agent Morpheus fights atop the semi-truck in The Matrix Reloaded, and star of Bloodsport #4: The Dark Kumite. He’s got a Swiss accent, is dressed like a swashbuckling gym rat, and just wants to have a fun time. He’s great and it’s a travesty that Bernhardt wasn’t given more TV projects after this one to demonstrate his talents for syndicated storytelling. Kung Lao’s second companion is Taja, a thief from the streets who gets rolled up into the narrative for… for reasons? She’s just there! She’s played by Kristanna Loken, who audiences might know from being the T-X (Terminatrix) in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and as Rayne in Uwe Boll’s Bloodrayne. She’s spunky and is, like Bernhardt, a lot of fun. Siro & Taja are both far & away more interesting than Kung Lao, and effectively serve as the Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage to Paolo Montalban’s diet-Liu Kang.
On the flip side, we have a few antagonists. There’s Vorpax, a prisoner within the Cobalt Mines of Shokan. She is initially a character who doesn’t quite belong in this show. There are sorcerers and gods and emperors of realms, meanwhile Vorpax has all the sensibilities of a sitcom character from the UPN. That said, I’m a big fan of what she brings to the table and as the series progresses Vorpax has the best character growth of anyone in the show. Vorpax will deceive, sellout, and betray anyone to better her station. Sadly she starts the series off in a real bad spot, as she falls under the iron fist of every shitty middle-manager mixed with every shitty ex-boyfriend: Shang Tsung. This version of Shang Tsung is a Starscream to Emperor Shao Kahn. Possessing dark sorcery and a wicked hair-do, he chews on scenery like the villain of a 1980’s Saturday morning cartoon. Also, buckle up because this Shang Tsung fucks.
Beyond those two regulars, we have the other immortal folks you’d expect from the Mortal Kombat franchise: Shao Kahn, Scorpion, the Lin Kuei (and thus, Sub-Zero), Kitana, Mileena, Reptile, and my personal favorite: Quan Chi. All of these are very fun and adapted pretty well for a prequel series to the games. Scorpion & Sub-Zero’s dynamic is fantastic, Mileena’s personality is tremendously developed in one episode, and Quan Chi commands his own trio of assassins akin to an evil Charlie’s Angels. Jeffrey Meek pulls double-duty in playing Shao Kahn, a performance that works on every level even when the actor’s face is hidden behind a skull mask for the entirety of their time on screen.
Peering simply at the structure of every episode, MK: Conquest generally has two types of stories. The first is where an established macguffin must be found or destroyed by our heroes before Shang Tsung gets to it first. The second is a new, sinister threat that tries to kill Kung Lao. That’s the first 16 or so episodes of the series. Which, it’s a 90’s action/adventure TV show. That’s what they are, and I don’t aim to discredit them but once the concluding story, told over the last eight episodes of the series, reveals itself, the first fourteen episodes almost come across as filler compared to what follows. But if there is one guarantee for any single episode in this show it’s that any new scene has a 75% chance of a martial arts fight erupting during it. These fights go on a bit longer than I’d prefer, but they are done very well. Compared to Xena or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which display a faux-Kung Fu, MK: Conquest has actual martial artists performing actual martial arts. This is one of the key virtues of hiring someone like Daniel Bernhardt to be a principal actor in your show.
Returning back to lack of geographic mobility in the series, every scene takes place in one of the following environments: the trading post (which is the primary residence for our heroes), the market place outside of the trading post, the woods, a temple in the woods, Shao Kahn’s throne-room, and the caverns of the Cobalt Mines of Shokan where Shang Tsung broods, schemes, plots, and chews scenery. Sometimes the show will design a new environment but that is a rare occurrence, and as a result I started to become bored with such familiar sights. This criticism over time morphs with the meandering plot and begins to become the millstone around the show’s neck. Case in point: at a certain point the characters, who have been living in a trading post, start working it. It’s as if the show at times forgets its urgent mission: the training of new fighters for the next Mortal Kombat. Audiences don’t want to watch kung fu warriors run a trading post!
I’ve mentioned the show improves once it hits the last eight episodes (and it does, drastically so) but the first fourteen episodes only serve to highlight the inability of the show to really achieve its intended narrative goal. A more successful version of MK: Conquest would have Kung Lao traveling around Earth meeting, recruiting, & training potentially new warriors to defend the realm. Instead our heroes, and us the audience, are marooned in the five-miles surrounding the ancient city of Zhu Zin. Raiden explains that Zhu Zin is an access point for the different realms and as such attracts supernatural incidents. But after having watched twelve seasons of Renaissance Pictures trick audiences into believing New Zealand is ancient Greece, Egypt, Ireland, China, and more it becomes steadily apparent that setting up shop in Florida is a bad choice for producing the kind of show MK: Conquest hopes to be.
Now, it sounds an awful lot like I hate this show. But I only critique it because I know with a few adjustments this enjoyable show could have been something much better (and potentially been picked up for a few more seasons). This is a show where every scene is accompanied with either techno-music or occasional monkish-chanting whenever the dry-ice machine is running. It’s a television program in which 99% of its characters are gorgeous supermodels with allergies to the midriff portion of their costumes. The CW network has nothing on MK: Conquest and its ancient city full of “LA 6’s.” In one episode, a captured ninja chooses to comically snap their own neck instead of giving up information. This show is vibrantly dumb in the very best ways. And without spoiling how the series unfolds, it also may have the boldest season finale I have ever seen. It may have been riddled with location-stagnation, but MK: Conquest certainly knows how to end a season on its own terms.
Would I ultimately recommend the series? Yes, but perhaps only to a fan of 90’s action/adventure shows or to a Mortal Kombat fan (hopefully they’d be both). Divorced of its subject material I don’t know if MK: Conquest can truly compare to its genre peers, but with how the series develops & concludes it serves as a fantastic one-and-done season of 90’s television.
