Review: Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind

With Earthrealm now an apocalyptic wasteland, the greedy and power-mad, half-cyborg overlord King Kano (David Wenham) is determined to take over Earthrealm, one village/town at a time. Assisted by his Black Dragon mercenaries, he embarks on a brutal assault from town to a defenseless town. The choice is simple: Submission or death. But when the cocky and talented but undisciplined Kenshi (Manny Jacinto). doesn’t take a knee, Kano’s goons proceed to beatdown the young warrior and is left further broken, and after another of Kano’s men, Shang Tsung (Artt Butler) uses him to open the Well of Souls taking his eyesight and his confidence in the process. Kenshi then comes under the tutelage of Kuai Liang (Ron Yuan), the now-former Sub-Zero, who is reluctant to train Kenshi – but is also the only fighter powerful enough to challenge Kano. Along the way, Kenshi rediscovers the hope he had lost and a possible path to redemption… but will that be enough to stop Kano and save Earthrealm?

On the technical side, the film was produced and directed by Rick Morales (Mortal Kombat Legends franchise, Injustice) from a script by Jeremy Adams (Supernatural, Justice Society: World War II), who also wrote the screenplays for the series’ first two films. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation in coordination with NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. Games. With the cast members consisting of Manny Jacinto (Top Gun: Maverick, The Good Place), David Wenham (Elvis, 300, The Lord of the Rings franchise) and Ron Yuan (Mortal Kombat 11, Mulan) spearhead a terrific voice cast as Kenshi Takahashi, Kano and Kuai Liang/Sub Zero), respectively.

Much of the animation and artstyle remains the same from the previous two films Scorpions Revenge and Battle of the Realms which is a good thing, but now added with the scenery of an apocalyptic desert wasteland setting in combination with gloriously extreme martial arts violence and acts of barbarism that often gave off serious Fist of the North Star vibes, yet sets itself apart with a unique attention to detail in gloriously bloody and shocking ways.

 The promotional material makes it come across as a Kenshi Story but the heart of it is also its own “Old Man Sub-Zero” story with the cliche tropes you’ve come to expect about a story of redemption, humility, overcoming one’s disabilities and regaining one’s sense of honor and purpose when they’ve thought they’ve lost them due to traumatic failures from the past…

Predictably in stories like this, it plays into the typical relationship dynamics of Kuai Liang and Kenshi as master & student with Kuai teaching Kenshi to rely on his four remaining senses while other times whenever Kenshi holds up his mystical sentient sword known as “Sento”, it gives him the ability to see mostly in outlined blue monochrome similar to Daredevil. But the story doesn’t pick up until Kenshi later gets his ass kicked by Tremor in combination with Shang Tsung making an appearance (as he’s prominently in the cover art) Who you’d think would be more of a focus as an upper-tier threat but he’s surprisingly downplayed during the proceedings outside of his purpose in Kenshi’s origin story.

Kenshi the blind swordsman is considered to be a fan favorite during the “2000’s 3D Era” of MK games such as Deadly Alliance, Deception, and Armageddon, he was popular enough to make it into a couple of the new WB MK games later on. Of course, he isn’t the only character who would be added to this, but for the sake of adding henchmen within Kano’s army, a plethora of other obscure low/mid-tier MK villains also make unexpected appearances throughout the film, with a good chunk of them coming across as either visual easter eggs for longtime fans, or reduced to background fodder from the aforementioned 3D era such as Kira and Kobra who despite having very little dialogue are sporting new designs that appropriately fit the film’s Mad Max aesthetic. And for the most part, I wasn’t expecting Kabal to be added into the mix given that the game’s writers either make him a hero or a villain depending on whatever story they want to tell, but many of the other Black Dragon members originated from older games within MK’s past such as the obscure action game “Mortal Kombat: Special Forces” which also included Tremor who made his fighting game debut in 2015’s Mortal Kombat X as playable DLC.

Overall, if you have already sat through the first two Mortal Kombat Legends movies, then go ahead and check this one out. Even if the by-the-numbers training montage with Kenshi felt cliche at times, it was a decent story that was effectively told. It may have felt like a completely different movie, but at the very least, it doesn’t forget that it’s a Mortal Kombat story while giving actual stakes with interesting and unexpected plot twists during its proceedings. And with the recent announcement of a 4th MK animated film on the way, I can’t wait to see what comes next!