The Mortal Kombat movie is dropping its first trailer on Wednesday to finally show off what its stacked cast of fighters can do, but as made evident by the movie posters shared earlier in the week, the trailer alone isn’t the only reveal to take note of lately. Just hours before the trailer was supposed to release, the Mortal Kombat crew shared another image from the film that gives us our first full look at Scorpion, the iconic Mortal Kombat fighter also known as Hanzo Hasashi who is played in the new film by Hiroyuki Sanada.
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We’ve seen Scorpion on occasion through the Mortal Kombat movie previews shared prior to this reveal, but never in the way that the image below shows him. This look at Scorpion shared by Entertainment Weekly and Warner Bros. Pictures gives us our best look yet at the character who’s instantly recognizable even if it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a live-action version of Scorpion. Sanada’s character sports his signature hood and mask while being cloaked in flame.
Along with the image, some new details were shared to expand on Scorpion’s role in the film with insights from Sanada. We already knew before that the movie would open with a “pretty nasty” fight between Scorpion and Sub-Zero, another iconic fighter and a rival of Sanada’s character. Sanada admitted in the Entertainment Weekly interview that he’d never played a Mortal Kombat game before, but said he worked with the choreographer and the rest of the movie’s stunt team to make sure the opening fight felt authentic to the character.
I discussed the fighting style with the choreographer and the stunt team and just jumped into rehearsal,” Sanada said. “I tried to create an original style. Since Hanzo Hasashi is a character of Japanese descent, I tried to make authentic movements.”
It’s during that fight where we see Scorpion craft his signature weapon, the kunai affixed to the end of what’s typically a chain in the video games, though it’s not really “Scorpion” yet who’s doing the innovating. It’s the pre-Scorpion character Hanzo Hasashi who combines a kunai blade with a whip and starts unleashing violence centuries before the main timeline of Mortal Kombat where he’s then been fully transformed into Scorpion.
The first full Mortal Kombat trailer is scheduled to drop on Thursday at 9 a.m. PT, so it won’t be long before people are able to see Scorpion and others in action ahead of the movie’s April 16th release date.
