Mortal Kombat 2 director Simon McQuoid says the sequel's multiple deaths were vital to the film (and franchise as a whole), and names one as particularly moving.
Warning: major spoilers for Mortal Kombat 2 below!
"We felt with a title like Mortal Kombat and where death is such an important part of the makeup of it, that we wanted people to feel that and to feel the loss of the character, whatever character it was and however they died or exited," McQuoid tells GamesRadar+. "It needed to literally pack a punch, but emotionally pack a punch as well."
The sequel, which introduces Karl Urban's Johnny Cage as he finds his purpose after his acting career dries up, had a grand total of eight major deaths. This includes King Jerrod, Sindel, Revenant, Kung Lao, Cole Young, Saibot, Shao Kahn, Jax, and Liu Kang. At the end of the film, Jonny and Sonya are the only Earthrealm champions, Kitana is crowned Queen of Edenia, and Scorpion, Jade, and Kano are also alive.
Continues McQuoid: "Those various sort of pairings that were built and created by Ed [Boon] in the Mortal Kombat history, like Liu Kang and Kung Lao and Scorpion and Bi-Han and so on. They're all there, and every character in our second story needed to go on their own journey."
Of all the deaths in the film, McQuoid singles out the scene where Shao Kahn rips off Jax's bionic arms and effectively kills him as the most moving to film, as well as the one with the standout audience reaction.
"I actually thought Mehcad [Brooks] did an amazing job with Jax's death. He handled that so beautifully. I've sat in a couple of screenings where the audience really gasped at that moment. Mehcad really understood, 'Okay, I get why this is happening and I get why this matters, and it's important, and I get why Sonya needs to sort of see that happen and, and how that emotionally hits.' It was great. Amazing. It was quite sort of moving on set actually when that was happening. We were all kind of like, 'Oh, shit. What have we done?'"
As for Liu Kang's death, which definitely came as a shock, screenwriter Jeremy Slater previously said that it's meant to be open-ended... and that we will see him again in Mortal Kombat 3. The third installment hasn't been officially greenlit, but the script has been in progress since it was announced back in October 2025 at New York Comic Con.
Mortal Kombat 2 is out on 4K and Blu-ray disc from July 28. For a deeper dive into the movie, check out our Mortal Kombat 2 ending explained, or look ahead with our list of upcoming video game movies.
