‘Mortal Kombat’s Ludi Lin and Max Huang on Fatalities, Friendships, and More

With director Simon McQuoid’s Mortal Kombat arriving in theaters and streaming on HBO Max this weekend, I recently spoke with Ludi Lin (Liu Kang) and Max Huang (Kung Lao) about making the R-rated video game adaptation. During the interview, they talked about their characters’ “Friendship“ (even though they aren’t in the movie), who they think has the most brutal fatality in the game, who is the strongest character in the game and in the movie, and more. In addition, Lin reveals how he got Liu Kang’s iconic headband in the movie, while Huang talks about how Kung Lao’s costume affected his fight choreography. The new Mortal Kombat movie is about an MMA fighter named Cole Young (Lewis Tan) who discovers he has a personal connection to an otherworldly group of fighters, who band together to defeat supernatural villain Shang Tsung. If you’ve seen the red-band trailer, you know the movie is loaded with the characters from the video game and doesn’t shy away from the blood and gore. The film