Shang-Chi’s Simu Liu Shows Support for Mortal Kombat’s New Liu Kang Actor Ludi Lin

Information about the new Mortal Kombat movie is still trickling out and fans are still wondering how the new film will take shape. The film got its Liu Kang today in Ludi Lin, and another leading man made sure to shout out the actor from his social media. Simu Liu is going to be Shang-Chi in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and he took some time to congratulate Lin on Twitter after the news broke.

Lin played the Black Power Ranger in the recent movie and the role represents a big chance for the actor. He also played a fighting video game character in Season 5 of Black Mirror, so life imitates art once again. Both Lin and Liu are going to be really busy going forward with these respective franchises. Fans can expect some fists to be flying over the course of the next few years.

The new Mortal Kombat movie is scheduled to release on March 5, 2021 with James Wan producing and Simon McQuoid directing. This will be McQuoid’s big screen directing debut. Wan has had his hands in quite a few fan-favorites over the years. Saw, Dead Silence, Insidious, The Conjuring, and Furious 7 are all attached to him in some way. Greg Russo, is penning the script along with the screenwriting for the upcoming Resident Evil movie.

This version of Mortal Kombat is the third live-action effort after the first film debuted in 1995 and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation followed in 1997. 24 years between movies two and three seem like a gap, but Russo and the team are focused on delivering a great movie that will be well received by critics and fans alike.

No one knows what Russo is cooking up for the original story heading into this time, but whatever happens, fans can be sure that it won’t repeat what’s already been seen in the older movies.

ComicBook.com’s Adam Barnhardt spoke to Russo about the upcoming Mortal Kombat movie and asked how the writer approached the new film. The many games and two movies offer their own sources of inspirations and it can be hard to break from tradition. Russo is a lifelong fan of Mortal Kombat. He’s played the games and seen the films. Russo said the movie’s mission statement is to not repeat anything people have already seen somewhere else.

“And the mission statement for the new film has always been, we don’t want to repeat what you’ve already seen,” Russo explained. “That doesn’t really appeal to anybody, I don’t think. And they already have those films. So at the same time we wanted to tell a new story that’s going to be exciting, but that’s gonna be faithful to the lore and the games that everybody knows and loves.”

Elaborating on this mission statement, Russo said the goal was to have a feeling fresh film while still paying homage to the long-running series of games that serve as source material.

“So the mission statement was really just bring your passion to the project and let’s figure out what the best story is for a new film adaptation that feels fresh and at the same time pays respect to the game.”