You’ll hear the phrase “for the fans” a lot, if you’re wading into Mortal Kombat II discourse, and one aspect of Simon McQuoid’s that it’s very difficult to argue fits that assessment is in the violence. The story is – intentionally – quite thin, with fight sequences tying everything together, as you might expect from a movie about a tournament pitting Earthrealm’s champions against Shao Khan (Martyn Ford) and his band of bad guys. And those fight sequences come with real stakes, despite this being a universe where death isn’t exactly known to be final. In the end, there are 8 major deaths (9 technically, for reasons that will become clear), and they’re all soaked in blood.
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From the moment Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage is pulled into the tournament, death is an ever-present, even as he questions why an official tournament with rules and officials would be so fatal. This is, after all, a final fight for the sake of Earthrealm, as it teeters on the brink of a tenth victory that would hand control of the realm to Shao Kahn, who has come to take his bounty after twenty years. And in among the 8 deaths, there are some truly memorable Fatalities. But which is best? Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Mortal Kombat II. Read on at your peril.
8. King Jerrod – Killed by Shao Kahn
What’s a true Chosen One story without a bit of fraternal conflict? While Johnny Cage is marketed as Mortal Kombat II‘s lead, the heart of the story is actually Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), the adopted daughter of Shao Kahn, whose tragic origin story opens the movie. With her home Edenia on the verge of a fatal tenth loss to Outworld, the young Kitana looks on as her father, King Jerrod, steps up to fight Kahn as the last remaining champion of the realm. Naturally, it doesn’t go well.
At this point, Shao Kahn isn’t in his fully powered final form, but is still a hulking behemoth who is almost unkillable. Somehow, he shrugs off multiple sword wounds to overcome Jerrod and impales him with the stake end of his warhammer. It’s not a particularly showy kill, even if it’s emotionally important, and it feels more like a plot device than something hugely impactful. And to add insult to injury, after watching Kahn kill her father and conquer Edenia, Kitana is forced to become Kahn’s daughter (for reasons that aren’t entirely clear).
7. Jax – Killed by Shao Kahn
Jax (Mehcad Brooks) is back as one of Earthrealm’s heroes, bringing back his no-nonsense metal-infused boxing style to the tournament. He actually overcomes his official opponent in the tournament (Jade, played by The Last of Us‘ Tati Gabrielle) with relative ease, but in Shao Kahn’s Edenian stronghold, the veteran is undone by the villain. Jax’s death is actually the most surprising of the hero deaths, given it’s not particularly signposted in the marketing, but it doesn’t come with a fancy Fatality.
First, Shao Kahn rips off one of Jax’s arms, before smashing the other one so he’s entirely… unarmed. He then backs him against a pillar and stabs him through the neck with the stake end of his warhammer. Jax dies defiantly, but this death loses points because Sonya Blade – whose powers are literally shooting energy rings – forgets that she has everything she needs to help her partner and just meekly watches him die before suddenly remembering she could have intervened all along from across the room.
6. Noob Saibot/Bi-Han (& Saibot) – Killed by Scorpion & Johnny Cage
This one’s technically a two-for-one because when we meet the resurrected Bi-Han (Joe Taslim) again, he’s a Revenant known as Noob Saibot (as he was in the games’ lore), with a cool black makeover and a new set of powers. After his resurrection by the Necromancer Quan Chi (Damon Herriman), the never-named Noob Saibot reveals the power to separate a shadow clone from himself (confusingly called Saibot in the games) to fight independently from his host body. That means Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada), Kano (Josh Lawson), Jade (who reforms with painfully little explanation), and Johnny Cage have to fight on two fronts against a formidable zombie and his teleporting double in the Netherrealm.
Saibot gets the cooler of the deaths, as Scorpion fights both of the villains at once with his kunai spear and sword, and manages to split the shadow clone in two for a gruesome money shot. Seemingly unfazed by this death (other than being shocked), Bi-Han/Noob Saibot continues fighting, and it takes the combined might of Kano’s laser-eye blast, Scorpion’s fire breath, Jade’s staff, and Johnny Cage’s late-onset Arcana power to kill him. The first two hold him in place before Cage gets his moment and super kicks him off a ledge to his death, while simultaneously destroying the Shinnock’s amulet.
5. . Liu Kang – Killed by Shao Kahn
In the final round, Shao Kahn faces off against Liu Kang, supposedly Earthrealm’s most powerful warrior. They trade blows, but the monstrous villain fairly quickly overpowers Kang, and – once again – impales him with the spiked end of his warhammer. It’s a running theme – he actually only uses the heavy end for one Fatality (which feels conscious), which is coming up soon. Kang is forced to accept that he’s not the Chosen One, which he does with surprisingly good grace.
Unlike all of the other deaths, Liu Kang sort of goes out on his own terms. After realizing his fate is not to save Earthrealm, he vows that he will return to resurrect the realm’s lost heroes (including his friend Kung Lao), and disintegrates, phoenix-like, into thin air.
4. Cole Young – Killed by Shao Kahn
In the movie’s worst-kept secret, Lewis Tan’s Cole Young is killed off in fairly grim fashion. It’s tempting to say Cole is killed as a response to fan reactions to the character, who was created for the first movie, but that feels unfair to Tan and the character. Still, he’s so conspicuously sidelined that it’s quite hard to argue. In a terrible stroke of luck, in the second round of fights, Cole draws Shao Kahn in the acid-surrounded Deadpool fight stage.
The Earthrealm hero actually gets the upper hand against Shao Kahn, but doesn’t realize that his opponent has already used Shinnock’s amulet to steal Lord Raiden’s powers, making him immortal and basically a god. So he shakes off what would have been a fatal neck slice, disarms Cole, and in what feels like a slightly too-mean moment, smashes Cole’s head with his giant hammer. Then, to make sure he’s dead, he drags his corpse into the acid to dissolve him.
3. Queen Sindel – Killed by Sonya Blade
The Revenant Queen Sindel is introduced as Shao Kahn’s dark trophy from Edenia’s conquest (as well as her daughter Kitana, who isn’t killed off and resurrected) and is employed as one of Outworld’s champions. She faces off against Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) in a modified version of legendary Mortal Kombat level The Pit (it doesn’t have the bridge; they fight in the actual pit where spikes retract helpfully).
Sindel’s banshee-like scream power is almost enough to defeat Sonya, who uses a corpse to shield herself, before beating Sindel in close combat and slamming her head down onto a spike. It’s a great nod to one of the very first stage Fatalities (albeit with a twist), and it only really loses points because it doesn’t last and Sindel is resurrected almost immediately.
2. Kung Lao – Killed by Liu Kang
As MKII writer Jeremy Slater revealed exclusively to ComicBook, Kung Lao (Max Huang) was brought back from the dead quite simply because he’s an incredibly cool character whose razor-rimmed hat is primed for excellent fight scenes. And so the movie proved when former best friends Liu Kang and Lao face off in the second round of the tournament on Mortal Kombat 3‘s Lost Bridge or Scislac Busorez arena. At this point, Kung Lao is a Revenant, having been resurrected as a dark version of himself by Quan Chi and is hell-bent on killing his spiritual brother.
The fight sequence is by far the sequel’s most impressive, with the razor hat versus fireballs set-up adding more dimensions than any of the others. Ultimately, we get a loaded moment where Liu Kang has to put aside his loyalty to his former friend, promises to save him from death, and then tricks him into diving headlong onto his own spinning hat, turning his own Fatality against him. Bloody and very satisfying.
1. Shao Khan – Killed by Kitana
After Kitana’s secret is revealed and Kahn discovers she works as a double agent on behalf of Lord Raiden, she is chained up in a town square in Edenia as a reminder to the residents of the price of betrayal. Eventually, though, she faces off with her “father” after breaking out of her bonds. With Johnny Cage and Kano in the Neatherrealm working with Scorpion to retrieve the amulet from Bi-Han, Kitana is left to stand up to her Shao Kahn when he defeats Sonya Blade and Liu Kang.
Kitana uses all of her pent-up orphan rage (and the voice of her real dead father urging strength) to grab victory from the jaws of death, using her ribbon (a running symbol of her improvisational skills in battle) to disarm the monstrous villain before using her bladed fans to shred his head like cold cuts. If you’re scoring the fatalities on graphic violence only, this is easily the winner, but the emotional depth and sheer cool factor make it the overall best even without that.
Which Mortal Kombat II fatality did you like best? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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