POWER RANGERS Star Ludi Lin Is in Talks to Play Liu Kang in MORTAL KOMBAT Movie
Power Rangers star Ludi Lin is in negotiations to join producer James Wan’s new film adaptation of Mortal Kombat. If cast, he will take on the role of the classic character Liu Kang!
Lin will join the previously cast Joe Taslim (The Raid), who is set to play Sub-Zero. Liu Kang is one of the seven original characters who were introduced in the original 1992 game. There are no details on the plot of the film, but that games story centered on Liu Kang, a Shaolin monk “who tries to save the Earth by fighting for supremacy in a tournament.”
The movie is being directed by Simon McQuoid from a script written by Greg Russo. The movie is aiming for an R-rating and will feature the famous fatalities. It was also previously explained that fans will see “a lot of familiar faces” in the film, but there are some other popular characters that will be saved for the sequel.
When talking about the handling the characters in the film, Russo previously said:
"Yeah. You know the characters are ... One of the trickiest things I think with adapting the properties are there are so many characters, right. I mean there are, I think there's 70 something characters in this and we don't have the ability to stagger these films like the MCU does, right? We can't do a Sonya movie and then do a Liu Kang movie. So we're forced right into Avengers mode off the bat. So when that happens from a story perspective, you're naturally going to have to juggle a lot of different characters, and you realize very soon that you only have so much room in, what's hopefully, story one. I mean we only -- our mantra as the team behind this movie is always kind of, movie one first, you know, let's just make that great. Let's not think about anything else.
"So you only have so much room. And what one of the hardest things has been from a writing standpoint is saying, okay, who makes sense for this first film? And who makes more sense for what would be maybe a subsequent chapter of this world? Because once you really get into it, you realize that... I guess what I should say is, I don't think anybody wants to turn this into a, actually, let me back up and say this. I think a lesson we learned from Annihilation, the second film, is the more you try to cram into a movie, the more characters you try to cram in, I think they end up just getting lost and they feel like they're just thrown in for no reason. And that was something that we really wanted to avoid.
"If we're going to put characters into this, we want to make sure that they had a chance to really be developed, that they're fleshed out, and that they play a real role in the story. So that's kind of, in terms of the characters, that was, in terms of the actual choosing of the characters, it's just gonna be a lot of familiar faces for sure. Everyone, I think most of the characters that you know and love will hopefully will get in there. If a character is not in there, it's because it was kind of decided that it's better off saved for a later point where they can actually really shine and be developed appropriately."
Lin most recently had a role in Black Mirror Season 5. The episode was called “Striking Vipers,” and he played a Kung Fu fighter named Lance. The episode actually had a Mortal Kombat-inspired videogame central to the story. So, I guess that was good preparation for him to take on the role of Liu Kang!
Mortal Kombat is set to be released on March 5, 2021.