humour Review: Mortal Kombat Conquest

[GatorCountry]

Howdy all

 

I am a fan of absolutely horrible television and movies. My favorite film is Flash Gordon from the 80s and I have to say the same is true for TV. My favorite show is OG Flash Gordon from the 30s. Well, kinda a show. If you know what serials are good on you. If serials do not count then I have to go with OG Power Rangers before they lost the cast. I'm talking Austin St.John era. 

They need to be bad but not so bad it's just some youtube clowns missing their cues and punching air and stuff. Timothy Dalton can act, Brian Blessed can act, these guys being mixed in with some rando blonde cali-man is what makes Flash for me. Well, that and the absurd props, SFXs, and friggin Queen  it's great.

 

So, likewise, I enjoy me some Power Rangers, Japanese Kaijou, those old Hercules/Xena shows, and loads of Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy and basically anything the band Kiss ever did. I know loads of people are into Herc and say Firefly, I realize Kiss has real fans who think Paul Stanley is actually a good singer and Gene Simmons does not sound like Cookie Monster. I'm not trying to hate on your bag son, it's just all very funny to me....and Gene Simmons does sound just like Cookie Monster.

 

That said, let's talk about MKC because that's a show that delivers and hard. It's up there with original run Power Rangers. Which is better  not worse than Sentai because Sentai is super Japanese-y and PR has enough US influence to add a whole new layer of goofy over the already amply goofy Japanese show.

 

Firstly, casting, why is Raiden always some white hair'd white guy in 90s MK video media? It's just silly in my opinion. We all saw Big Trouble first....we know who Raiden is based on and if you played MK thinking that's a white god you friend are a racist. I'm just playing, I just never saw him as white and wonder why folks do. I like the new movie's Raiden way more than white hair'd white man raiden.

Kung Lao looks like Filipino Ricky Martin, complete with flowing blouse-like top and pants so tight you can see each butt cheek individually as opposed to your usual butt mound. Other dudes in the series have regular pants. I did not check if he is Filipino but just by looking at the dude you can see he's definitely hispanic and asian, so probably.

The big strong character, Siro, looks a lot like Sorbo's Hercules, and his pants fit like Sorbo's as well. He's got muscles and Fabio hair but Kung Lao has the sexy butt pants so the sexy award goes to Kung. Siro plays with swords and takes a beating all the time. I am not sure he ever wins one. He talks a big game and after a while it's funny because you know Siro's going to get spanked and saved by either Kung or the lady hero

Speaking of showing butt in every episode and ladies, this may be the most chauvinistic and misogynist show I've ever seen. I've seen all the old timey 30s-50s hardcore era of women are play things but this one really puts them all to shame. The only female character with any dimensions is Taja, our heroine. The lady who played Bloodrayne in the movie Bloodrayne. Everyone else, all the other ladies, are male character play things and the allusion to sex service is not very clever at all. It is allusion not inuendo. Ladies use their bodies to get ahead in MKC unless they are Taja. She's the only woman who is given the chance to speak her mind and make any changes to any male character's perspective without offering her body. She is super cute and I think giving her some ability and agency just makes her character more attractive. Plus, that woman's eyes are just soul stealers.

Shang Tsung has a sex slave servant. She does get some level of revenge on Shang but this is MKC, she uses her ridiculously hot bod to get there. These ladies wear the same exact clothes every episode, again except Taja who sometimes wears a shirt...yes, a boob covering shirt....amazing. I thought the scene where Shang's slave explains she's been preparing herself for Shang was funny as hell. By preparing they mean she's popped on a silky see-through cape over her normal fetish clothes. A cape she takes off seconds later to reveal....the same shit she's been in the whole entire show

Quan Chi has a three piece haram of sexy zombie slaves. One of them is Jamie Presley. Yeah, that hot blonde from Earl. She's great in this show. Struggling to balance goofy lines, a weird costume and setting with actual acting chops. I just love her. If they were smart they would have given Jamie some comedic comeuppance on Quan but this show is not smart at all.

All of these ladies wear exclusively bikini and fetish style clothing because in MKC only men ever get cold. Even Taja is running around fighting in her bra most episode. Most show loads of cleavage and butt.

The actresses are pretty gorgeous and credit to the costume designer; they all look really good in their MK kits. That said, the sheer amount of TnA and allusion to sex as a service is hilarious. If you're sensitive to it maybe do not watch this show, but if you can laugh at fellas who go all slack jawed and mumble mouthed over a pair of breasts squeezed into a leather bra this show is funny as hell. 90s teen boys bull at its finest. I may one day make some fan edits with the toasty gimmick timed to make it funnier.

The ninjas are played by all sorts of guys. Reptile's an asian fella. I thought that was cool. I never really considered the race of the ninjas but it makes sense and feels right when they're asian. Like how Scorpion and Sub Zero are always played by asian dudes now. In this show though, nah, two white dudes.  One has to wonder...why? Reptile could be white, he's a lizard man. I guess any ninja in a fantasy world can be white but let's be honest, Hanzo and Kuai being names on some asian fellas fits better.

Bi-Han is here, kinda, Noob is made into some kind of weird unkillable oil monster who smells, no connection to Kuai, played by a black man.  oily smelly black man. This show was made by horrible people! Black Power Ranger is racist? Peek my dude becoming a puddle of oil while Taj and Siro discuss the stink. Horrible, funny, but horrible and I'm a horrible person for thinking it's funny.

Rain plays a minor role as well, another white ninja. If you're paying attention the only asian ninja is Reptile. I'm not anti-white. I am white. I just think ninjas are best played by asians. When they're white guys they're more like Frank Dux, Ashida Kim, Count Dante, etc, the list of mystical american white ninjas is real long actually and they're all super goofy. So when I see white rain, scorp, sub, etc I laugh at those Frank Dux goofballs.

Shao Khan is played by the same guy playing Raiden. He's actually alright in this role. Someone more muscular would fit better but his voicing and acting are on par with the better actresses this show somehow got to squeeze their perfect bodies into fetish suits. Only so much the man could do with it but he did do as much as he could so you can't hardly hate on that.

How about them fight scenes? Bunch of poorly timed choreography from honest to god talented stuntmen and women. Power Rangers had kids who could hardly handle a kata, these folks could deliver a hell of a kata. It's too bad no one seems to care about the timing of strikes and reaction to strikes because the flips and such fancy nonsense is really, really, high level stuff. Kobra Kai is a better show, just, in every single way, except these stuntmen make the Kobra Kai kids look like the children they are.

MK Lore? It's not a cartoon, which if you ever watched the MK toon movies that have been coming out recently you know those are pretty good to MK lore and proper good movies. This is live action and like all live action MK it uses the characters and basically reimagines everything else. Worse than any of the movies, this is just using the characters fighting over realms bit and that's it. 

Redeeming qualities? None son, absolutely nothing about this show is classically good. It's a terrible show that teaches terrible morals and fantasizes way too much about having the ability to treat women terribly. The racism is subtle, plenty of white savior here and stuff like the questionable casting will not evade you, but the sexism is overt, scripted, and a planned part of the MKC world. The acting is bad, really, really bad. The main cast are fine and Shao Khan and Jamie are fine but everyone else is a model with a director shouting lines at them. I guess they show enough male skin some gays and ladies might be into seeing, there's plenty of male models playing minor characters as well, in skimpy fetish clothes like the ladies, but, they're never scripted to use their body to please a female master so it's a very small and disproportionate usage of skin. Most sexy dudes are just some bloke Shang Tsung's going to kill for their soul.

 

Twist? Let me spoiler this one bit:

Spoiler

Shao Khan wins. It's a total victory for him, everyone, including Raiden, dies.

That might be a redeeming factor there. It's a small one though....very small.

 

 

The only reason to watch this show is to laugh at it. I love the cast, they all endeared me in some way, but the show is just awful and so I love it and all its horrible aspects. It comes together as a real comedy fest. 

 

Cheers buds. Hope I did not offend anyone. It really wasn't my intention. I laughed so much at this show I wanted to share it.