I have a unique life path, having dabbled in many arts. I started as a martial artist as a kid, paused, then picked it back up at eighteen, turning it into a passion. A few years later, I pursued acrobatics in circus class, aiming for a career until injuries led me to study cinema.
This makes me a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. However, with over twenty years of dedication to storytelling and writing, I find myself in a unique position. Unlike professionals in the film industry, I'm not too busy to delve into the details. Fortunately, I have enough insight to effectively break down fight scenes.
One of my childhood favorite movies that led me to pick up martial arts is Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Watching it again as an adult leaves me cringing, as the end product falls into the "good for a student movie" class. However, it's undeniable that it's so bad it's good. Still, the film is not without merits: there are multiple lessons to be learned from it, and I do occasionally enjoy watching the fight clips on YouTube for a quick bit of entertainment and nostalgia.
In this post, I will break down the fight scene where Sonya "rescues" Jax from... a hospital, I think? Cyrax attacks them with a squad of ninja warriors. While the post will include screenshots, here is the scene in question for anyone who'd like a refresher: Click Here.
Keep in mind that because the film is older, the quality loss makes a frame-by-frame analysis more difficult.
Story
The story in this scene is, like the rest of the movie, rather nonsensical. At this point, the group—originally composed of Liu Kang, Kitana, Sonya, and Raiden—has to split up to cover more ground as they are limited in time.
Sonya is tasked with finding Jax, who is in a hospital or cybernetics facility of some sort to get his metal arms. In this incarnation of Jax, however, they are an exo-frame rather than prosthetics, since Jax can remove them without too much difficulty. This undermines the reason for his being in this facility: why is he kept secured on an operating table? It's not like he has undergone surgery.
It seems like the filmmakers didn't think it through too hard and just wanted to convey the idea of a secure high-tech facility. Which is fair, but where is everyone else? Is it the weekend? Are the technicians, scientists, and guards on their lunch break? Maybe the facility has a great employee benefits program. Who knows.
It's also unclear how Shao Khan knows about Jax, since neither was at the first Mortal Kombat tournament. Yet, Cyrax clearly knows a lot. To quote: "Major Briggs. Sonya Blade. Shao Khan will be pleased."
Cyrax: Badass android mode activated.
Jax: Oh, shit.
Sound & Music
The sound effects are alright, being typical of a late 90s martial arts movie. You have your wooshes on missed attacks, your thwarps on hits, and Cyrax has entertaining robotic sound effects on most of his movements. His voice delivers his line "Death is the only way out" in a threatening way.
I appreciated the music of the scene, and looking at the YouTube comments, it seems viewers have fond memories of it too. I actually used to have the unedited version of "Two Telephone Calls and an Air Raid" on my training playlist, and I discovered it thanks to the movie. Overall, both songs used for the fight have a techno and (for the time) futuristic genre, which is appropriate for a fight with Cyrax. The somber music when the bad guy first shows up is ominous and fits the atmosphere well of a deadly enemy coming to attack them.
Martial Arts
Now we get to the fun part!
It's immediately clear which actors are expert martial artists and which ones aren't.
Cyrax, played by J.J. Perry, is an expert Tae Kwon Do practitioner. Watch the scene: save for some grappling and explosives, he exclusively uses kicks. He does not throw a single punch in the whole fight. But who needs punches when the kicks are so clean? The only "unfortunate" part is that he needs to hold back, probably to avoid outright killing the actor playing Jax (Lynn Williams).
Speaking of Jax, Lynn Williams' performance shows a lack of martial arts training, as his attacks are rather basic punches that any athletic man could throw. Fortunately, with his background as a football player, he no doubt knew how to make the most of his musculature—and let's admit it, his body shape at the time was amazing.
Tae Kwon Do, bitch.
On the other side of the facility, we have Sonya fighting the goon squad army. I feel bad for saying this, but this scene is hilariously terrible. The actress, Sandra Hess, does not have a background in sports or combat. She certainly kept in shape, as she had been modeling since her teenage years. While there are some highlights, and it's evident she trained hard to reach the physicality needed for the role, it ultimately falls flat. Her strikes lack dynamism, and her body does not have the core strength required to deliver a convincing performance.
Her enemies often have to bend over in objectively bad and hilarious ways to allow her to deliver her attacks (I'll show you what I mean in the detailed breakdown in part 2), and they all seem to have forgotten how to wield a weapon. Ultimately, they are muscular men who can't fight. How these guys were meant to be elite warriors is a mystery to me.
Acrobatics
Despite the impressive Tae Kwon Do kicks from Cyrax, there are only two notable acrobatic moments in this scene.
The first occurs at 2:20 when Jax throws a table at Cyrax, prompting him to perform a back-full, a 360-degree backflip, aided by a mini-trampoline. This move is impressive, especially given the constraints of his heavy costume.
The second instance is at 3:40, where Sonya uses Jax as a stepping stone to cover the distance to Cyrax and performs a Barani, a 180-degree front flip. This sequence involves multiple takes and cuts. It ends with a Judo throw called Tomoe Nage.
We'll delve into the specifics in Part 2 of this article.
Acting
Jax absolutely steals the spotlight here. The interesting thing is, I don't think he's acting. I think that's just Lynn Williams roleplaying. I don't have any concrete proof of this, yet I know it in my bones. The actor was generally very charismatic and used his natural charm to spice up the character. It's been theorized that a lot of his lines were improvised by Lynn, and I believe it. There's a lot of playful banter that's inconsistent with the rest of the film, but it's a good thing.
Unlike the rest of the characters, Jax actually speaks during the fight here. When he first gets his ass kicked, he raises his hand to seemingly ask for a pause. "Yo, I take it this ain't something we can talk about..." is immediately followed by "Guess not!" when he gets thrown around once more. There are also short one-liners that add character to the scene: "Let's do this," "Nope!" "Good shot!" "Now what?!". There's also no way the scriptwriters wrote "Damn, you barbecued his ass." I firmly believe it was Lynn's line.
He does have a weird quirk that he does twice here, and later again in the movie. When he gets hit and wants to show that he's stunned, he quickly shakes his head as if to ward off dizziness. I don't think anyone would actually do that in a real fight. Correct me if I'm wrong.
As for actual acting, there are some nice moments. I like when Jax asks "Shao what?", Sonya glances at Jax instead of staring at Cyrax. When the ninjas burst through the back door and surprise Sonya and Jax, the protagonists don't immediately react. They wait for a second and a half to simulate reaction time—which is something not all actors do!
There are a few mistakes I'll cover in Part 2. While the main actors have their share of blunders, the biggest offenders are the extras. I'm not sure whether they were told to do this or if it was something they came up with themselves, but when Sonya is on the ground, twice they bend over to make their face easily reachable for a kick. There's just no excuse for this. And yes, I will keep bringing it up because it's just that bad.
Now sounds like a good time to take a break. Would you please get closer so I can kick your face?
Cinematography
Ouch. There are quite a few errors here. Do you smell something burning? Because I don't, yet I should. The building is clearly shown being on fire, yet if you pause at 1:06, you can see that while Sonya is going in the opposite direction, there is no fire behind Cyrax where there was mere seconds ago. The director also didn't insist on Cyrax and Jax fighting at full power when the cameras are focused on Sonya and the ninjas—you can see the two of them just messing around in the background at 1:36 (and once again, you can clearly notice the distinct lack of flames).
But it's not all bad. While I suspect the quick cuts were mostly meant to hide mistakes, they do add to the urgency of the scene and create a sense of action. The strategic use of slow-motion, particularly during Cyrax's flip, really enhances the cool factor of the characters.
I also have to give praise to the location. It looks like a high-tech laboratory with an operating theater. There are a bunch of medical devices I wouldn't even begin to guess what they do. It seems fitting. You can see some IV drip devices and what appears to be a fully metallic skeleton toward the end of the fight.
The lighting is generally good. There is a noticeable mistake at 0:52 if you pause, as you can sort of see the projector's beam on Cyrax, but the quick edit makes it not particularly perceptible unless you really pay close attention. They chose to go with mostly warm orange colors to reflect the supposed fire in the lab. It adds some drama to the scene.
They also don't shy away from breaking equipment. At the beginning of the scene, both when Cyrax throws bombs (maybe he should have saved them for his enemies though?) and when he uses his sound shockwave attack (it's not exactly clear what it is), there's plenty of shattered windows. They also don't refrain from throwing computer monitors at enemies or having the protagonists collide with the set when their attacks miss.
I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed with the special effects. The flames at the very end of the scene (when Sonya uses her fire kiss, a nice reference to her in-game fatality) look very, very low-budget CGI. The massive concrete wall that Jax punches through is also made of cardboard, and no effort was made to hide that fact. You can clearly see how thin it is.
Conclusion
The main important question here is: "Is it entertaining?" And yes, while objectively the movie and to a degree the scene is bad, it's definitely entertaining. It's my second favorite fight in the movie, behind Smoke and Liu Kang.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where I will break down the scene in the tiniest detail!
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