"Everything we wanted to do in the first movie and couldn't, we
did in this one," says producer Larry Kasanoff, chairman and CEO of
Threshold Entertainment, the company responsible for managing the $3 billion
Mortal Kombat franchise. "This is not a sequel -- it's the next bigger
and better chapter in the adventures of a group of phenomenally popular
characters in a universe called Mortal Kombat."
Even more visually groundbreaking and action-packed than the first film
-- which earned more than $23 million its opening weekend and achieved the
second highest August opening in film history -- Mortal Kombat Annihilation
is a true extension of the original motion picture that will both satisfy
and electrify those who have eagerly awaited this new saga.
Ever since the first Mortal Kombat hit theaters worldwide, the Internet
has been a-buzz with rumors and speculation about how the characters from
the phenomenally popular film would evolve. Following on the first film's
huge success, the Mortal Kombat Web site debuted as one of the top ten most-visited
sites on the Internet. Since then, 300 unofficial Mortal Kombat Web sites
have been working overtime trading speculation about the characters' further
development in Mortal Kombat Annihilation.
Returning from the original film, Mortal Kombat Annihilation features Liu
Kang (ROBIN SHOU), the brave leader who triumphed in the Mortal Kombat Tournament
by facing and fighting his greatest fear; Sonya Blade (SANDRA HESS), a special
forces member who is Earth's fiercest female warrior; and Johnny Cage (CHRIS
CONRAD), a Hollywood action hero whose courage was tested in life-and-death
battles on a South Seas island and in the grim reaches of Outworld.
Their chief allies are still Princess Kitana (TALISA SOTO), a beautiful
refugee from Outworld, and Rayden (JAMES REMAR), the God of Thunder and
Lightning and protector of the Earth realm, who assists his hand-selected
warriors by instructing Earth's champions in the ways of a hostile universe.
The newest members of the team include Sonya's partner from her days as
a special forces member, Jax (LYNN RED WILLIAMS), whose arms are equipped
with cybernetically controlled titanium strength enhancers; Jade (IRINA
PANTAEVA), another beautiful refugee from Outworld; and the Native American
shaman Nightwolf (LITEFOOT).
Aligned against Earth's champions are their new foes, including the Emperor
Shao-Kahn (BRIAN THOMPSON) and his fantastic and fearsome legion of generals:
Sindel (MUSETTA VANDER), once a beautiful queen, now a ghastly vision of
living death; Sheeva (MARJEAN HOLDEN), a four-armed female fighting machine;
Motaro (DERON McBEE), a monstrous centaur; Cyrax (J.J. PERRY), a cyber-Ninja
with a rocket launcher built in his chest; and Mileena (DANA HEE), Kitana's
evil twin sister.
Also returning from the first film are Sub-Zero (KEITH HIRABAYASHI) and
Scorpion (J.J. PERRY), deadly opponents whose most lethal enemy is each
other.
Adding to the scope and wonder of Mortal Kombat Annihilation are the far-flung,
foreign locations that the production uses as a global backdrop -- locales
ranging from a temple in Thailand to an abandoned copper mine in Wales to
a lost city in the Jordan desert. Not only were the locales exotic, sometimes
they were historic. It was the first time that a production had shot in
this Jordanian city, and the first time that filmmakers unified a Jordanian
and Israeli crew to work together.
Beyond this epic, truly global backdrop is an extraordinary cache of state-of-the-art
special effects created by two of the industry's foremost innovators, Chuck
Comisky, (Terminator 2 3-D, The Addams Family) and Alison Savitch (Mortal
Kombat, Terminator 2.)
John Leonetti, who served as director of photography on Mortal Kombat and
The Mask, makes his directorial debut on Mortal Kombat Annihilation. His
brother Matthew Leonetti, who shot the hugely successful Star Trek: First
Contact, replaces him behind the camera. Brent V. Friedman and Bryce Zabel
("Dark Skies") wrote the screenplay from a story by Lawrence Kasanoff
and Joshua Wexler and John Tobias. Alison Savitch, Carla Fry and Brian Witten
are executive producers, and veteran effects maven Chuck Comisky serves
as visual effects supervisor. World-renowned stunt coordinator Pat Johnson
steps behind the camera as a second unit director and Kevin Reidy is co-producer
and production manager.
"Mortal Kombat Annihilation is about self-empowerment, but it's also
about being a family," says producer Kasanoff. "The team behind
the cameras is really a family, too. That's why we've moved so many people
up on this production."
The Leonetti brothers, who come from one of Hollywood's leading technical
families, helped their famous father, Frank Leonetti, develop the Ultracam
35. Seasoned in the ways of digital magic by his experience on The Mask
and Mortal Kombat, John Leonetti also learned about the art of directing
from the likes of John Frankenheimer, the veteran director for whom he shot
"The Burning Season" and "Against the Wall."
"I wanted to flesh out the characters and give them more depth,"
Leonetti explains when asked what he wanted to accomplish in his directorial
debut, "and I wanted the fights to be consistently bigger and better."
An admirer of Hong Kong films, Leonetti wanted to push the envelope by using
his technical know-how and proficiency with cameras to create "a new
genre of American martial arts film." To achieve this, he experimented
with different techniques and discovered the benefit of using wide-angle
lenses close to the action in fight sequences and taking lots of point-of-view
shots. Leonetti explains, "when an object approaches a wide-angle lens,
it gets bigger quicker than with other lenses, which makes the action much
more exciting -- almost three-dimensional. The only problem is that you
don't want the object to hit the camera." Even that caution was thrown
to the wind in a couple of shots where an insulated camera took blows like
a stunt man.
A very important technical innovation in Mortal Kombat Annihilation was
a motion-capture system which enabled Leonetti to direct the first fight
sequence between a CG (computer generated) character and an actor in real
time on the set, rather than directing the actor solo in front of a blue-screen
and putting the CG character in later.
Whether developing unique ways to utilize camera lenses or developing ground-breaking
motion-capture techniques, Leonetti and his crew strove for and achieved
what many industry observers thought impossible. At every juncture of production,
the Mortal Kombat Annihilation team pushed the envelope.
Perhaps one effect that captures this spirit is General Motaro, the half-man,
half-beast warrior from Outworld. Actual filmed motion of a tiger's tail
was used to help create the motion of Motaro's own tail. The result is a
heightened realism as well as a jaw-dropping effect that illustrates the
lengths the creative team went to develop fantastic characters.
"We never do a movie where we know how we're going to achieve more
than 80% of the effects," Kasanoff said. The other 20% was achieved
by Kasanoff and Comisky, the wizard who put together the film's bag of digital
tricks, who work with a team of technicians from all over the world, eager
to break new ground.
In addition to Motaro, other special visual effects technology made it possible
to create Annihilation's four-armed Amazon, Sheeva. "The sky is the
limit with 'motion- capture' and the other new techniques," says Comisky,
who believes that the possibilities for creating realistic CG characters
will be determined only by the "painting" skill of the technicians.
Motion-capture, a cost-effective computer animation technique that harkens
back to the days when Disney animators would film animal movements to help
create characters, refers to the technique of capturing movement or motion
on a computer, rather than on film. The motion, whether it is from a human,
an animal or a mobile object, is then applied to the CG character in the
computer. This process almost entirely replaces the need for the traditional
frame-by-frame animation of the past. Also, the "on-set" motion-capture
technique allows the director to look at the movements of the CG character
and his interaction with the live actor to help the director determine if
it's going to work within a minute of shooting the scene.
This unique blend of visual effects and filmmaking was combined with one
of the most popular film genres of all time, martial arts cinema. Created
in Hong Kong, American-trained director Tsui Hark first experimented with
techniques that combined the traditional artistry of combat with supernatural
special effects that were within the limited capacities of the Hong Kong
studios. Kasanoff took the genre to the next level with Mortal Kombat, which
marked the first fusion of martial arts with state-of-the-art effects technology
in a science fiction environment, and Mortal Kombat Annihilation raises
the bar even higher in this area as well.
After conducting a three-year search that ranged through North America,
South America, Asia and Europe, Kasanoff assembled the most accomplished
team of martial artists ever used in any movie. The team includes the 1988
United States Olympic Medal Winner in Tae Kwon Do, Dana Hee, along with
several world champions. Almost 20 different forms of martial arts -- including
Wing Chun, Tae Kwon Do, Ninjitsu-Do, Capeira and Wu Shu -- come together
in Mortal Kombat Annihilation for the first time ever to create a new style
of martial arts: the Mortal Kombat style.
Legendary stunt director Pat Johnson was promoted to second unit director
on Mortal Kombat Annihilation, and Robin Shou, the young Hong Kong star
who again plays Liu Kang, choreographed the fights.
"For the first film I choreographed the fight scene between Johnny
Cage and Scorpion and Liu Kang against Reptile," said Shou, "and
it turned out so well that they asked me to choreograph the sequel."
He adds, "Each fight scene has a different style and flavor. But they
all incorporate the Mortal Kombat style, which is very fast and in your
face."
"Fans are very attuned to the characters in the game in terms of the
moves that each can do," says Chuck Comisky. "In this film, we're
taking those moves, which had already evolved in the other movie, and carrying
them further with digital technology."
He adds, "Thanks to motion-capture, we now have world-class martial
artists battling CG characters. In this movie, we'll also be doing advanced
martial arts, including lots of exciting aerial maneuvers and flying kicks,
which will subsequently be digitally enhanced."
The success of the first Mortal Kombat film has also permitted the filmmakers
to search out the kind of truly exotic locations needed to take the spectator
on "an adventure you've never had before," says Kasanoff. Starting
on the soundstages of the U.K., traveling to Jordan and then returning to
Thailand, which served as a location for the first film, the production
truly went around the world.
"If people have half the adventure watching the film in theatres that
we've had making it," says Kasanoff, "then we've achieved our
objective."
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