The Mortal Kombat Cast: Who is Lewis Tan Playing? (VIDEO SCRIPT)

Readers, it’s kinda hard to believe that in this day and age it’s been 22 years since we’ve had a Mortal Kombat movie

Actually, no. No, it’s not; Annihilation was pretty bad

And not like WE CAN NEVER DO ANOTHER ADAPTATION IN ANY FORM OF TRADITIONAL MEDIA EVER AGAIN kind of bad. More like the LET’S WAIT ABOUT EIGHT YEARS BEFORE WE DECIDE TO GIVE BATMAN ANOTHER GO kind of bad.

Damn. Now that I mention it, Batman & Robin came out in 1997, too! W-Wha...what was in the WATER that year?

What ELSE came out in 1997?

Face/Off? Jackie Brown? As Good As It Gets? Fifth Element? TITANIC?? Oh yeah, y’all had NO excuse

But it’s not like we haven’t seen anything about Mortal Kombat outside of video games since then. We got a very well done short film that turned into Mortal Kombat: Legacy; a very well done web series by the now dead Machinima (Presses F on the Keyboard)

(pauses) Did you hear me press F? Because I TOTALLY pressed F.

And ever since it was announced that James Wan was gonna produce the film reboot after the creator of Mortal Kombat: Legacy had to bow out of the project, those of us who wanted to see Mortal Kombat take another chance at the big screen have been anticipating the combat

/So when the news of the upcoming film’s casting started to make itself public in mid-august, a lot of us were genuinely excited./ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/mortal-kombat-movie-adds-fistful-fighters-1232599

Ludi Lin who played Zack in the recent Power Rangers movie was cast Liu Kang, Supergirl’s Mehcad Brooks was cast as Jax, and Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano was cast as Raiden. Making him the first Japanese actor to portray a character that was inspired by Raijin the Japanese thunder god. (Zoom in at judgemental look).

And I mean, look; I’m not casting any shade to Christopher Lambert, because I love him.

Ask me which Highlander I prefer between Connor and Duncan, and I will choose Connor every day of the week.

But not only has every single live-action interpretation of Raiden been a white guy, but it’s even been presented that way in the rebooted video game series; this change is a VERY welcomed decision.

Anyway, fast forward about 10 days later, and we get ANOTHER casting announcement regarding the 2021 release

/This time involving the status of Sonya Blade and Kano, who are now being played by Jessica McNamee and Australian actor Josh Lawson respectively/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/mortal-kombat-movie-finds-sonya-blade-kano-1234513

But in that same Hollywood Reporter article, we learn that Lewis Tan of Into the Badlands, Deadpool 2, Wu Assassins, and a fan favorite pick to play Dick Grayson/Nightwing in the DCEU, is ALSO in final talks to be in the reboot

/Before confirming that he officially signed on the movie a day later in a very moving thread on his Twitter account/ Lewis Tan - Twitter 1

What’s weird about it, is that in regards to the character he’s playing, /nobody knows who the fuck it is!/ Mortal Kombat - Lewis Tan

Not even HE’s letting anyone in on early with subtle social media hints. Because so far outside of his role acceptance thread, the most he’s talked about it /Is when he corrected a fan on the spelling of Mortal Kombat/ Lewis Tan - Twitter 2

So that leaves a question to be answered -- which I’m sure will be answered in about a week or two after this video comes out, so if anything, I’m making this for ME -- is that considering they’re keeping the plot of the movie similar to at least either the first 3 games or the JJ Abrams style remake of the first three games presented in Mortal Kombat 9, who is Lewis Tan playing?

So with that, let’s start with the most popular one: Scorpion

Now Sub Zero was like, the very first announced character that was cast for the movie, who’s being portrayed by Joe Taslim

And the last time we saw a live-action Hanzo Hashashi was in Legacy, played by Japanese American actor Ian Anthony Dale as part of his community service work for agreeing to take part in that god-awful live-action Tekken movie

And it wasn’t like he NEVER should’ve played Kazuya. Honestly, if the script was better and they actually GAVE a damn about it, I truly think he could make a GREAT Kazuya. 

It’s just unfortunate that he played Kazuya in a Tekken movie that was just god-awful.

Now the reason why I mention Joe Taslim’s Sub Zero, is because Taslim is Indonesian-Chinese, and the Lin Kuei clan is canonically Chinese

/This -- and the fact that Liu Kang is being portrayed by a Chinese Canadian and Raiden is being portrayed by a Japanese actor this time around -- tells me there’s a chance that whoever is casting this movie not only has done their homework, but isn’t just casting any asian actors for the sake of filling any and all roles that should have asian faces; they know that there are multiple creeds, backgrounds and cultures to these characters that have to be taken into consideration./ MK11 Footage

So considering that Hanzo is Japanese and the Shirai Ryu are a Japanese clan, and considering Lewis Tan is half British half Chinese Singaporean, unless the theory regarding my reasoning is COMPLETELY wrong, I don’t think we’ll be hearing Tan yelling “Get Over Here!” any time soon.

And that goes DOUBLE for Johnny Cage, Jesus Christ

I don’t know; I feel like he needs to STAY an arrogant-ass white dude. Because it works

/Especially with how the games handle his character development from Mortal Kombat 9 onward and you’ve seen how much he’s grown./ MK11 Footage

Also, now that fellow Reader Michael Scally has successfully Incepted the idea of WWE’s The Miz playing Johnny into my head, I honestly can’t see ANYBODY else playing him.

So considering those possibilities of the storyline the movie’s gonna cover, who all has been cast, and the possibility of them purposely casting asian actors to roles that similarly reflect their heritage, cultures and ethnic backgrounds, my guess for who Lewis Tan is gonna be is Kung Lao.

He -- like Liu Kang -- was once a Shaolin Monk, who -- both in the game series and in real life -- are traditionally Chinese Bhuddists, and Tan himself is half Chinese Singaporean.

And surprisingly enough, the age gap between the two of them isn’t huge AT ALL. He’s only 9 months older than Ludi, so the friend dynamic between Liu Kang and Kung Lao can still work with the two and it be believable.

If the reason why I think they’re casting the roles for this reboot the way they’re casting them is legit, then I have to tip my hat at James Wan and the rest of the peeps behind the scenes to making sure proper representation of multiple south asian cultures and backgrounds is portrayed by who they cast for each role.

And if I’m wrong...then holy shit, is that just one hell of a coincidence.

But, I digress, Readers; your homework assignment for the day.

Write in the comment section who YOU think Lewis Tan will play in the upcoming reboot to Mortal Kombat