Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
I’m the poster child for the Mortal Kombat child. I was that perfect age bracket for when Mortal Kombat blew onto the scene back in the early 1990s. I was there when every parent was telling their kids not to play the hyper violent game, and of course snuck the game into my gameboy collection after wasting countless quarters at the local arcade button mashing (yes, I was alive when arcades were around). As a child hood martial artist I was pretty much forced to see the cheesy 1990s live action movies, and by the time I was an adult I was heavily into the lore. So to say that these sort of elseworlds “Legends” films were made for my generation is an understatement.

Most of the Legends films have been pretty solid so far. They take the world of Mortal Kombat out of the tournament world and flesh out individual characters in their own self contained worlds. Scorpions Revenge was a reimagining of the origins of the titular character, while Batlle of the Realms was basically a Liu Kang origins story with a reimagined tournament environment. However, instead of continuing the buildup to a full tournament, Snow Blind goes in a complete different direction. It instead decides to craft a post apocalyptic future world, decades past when the original time line is supposed to exist, and instead transplants Kenshi as the next origin tale (albeit slightly out of time)

It’s years past anything we’ve known about in the world, and the Wastelands of Outworld are now controlled by an aging King Kano (David Wenham) who is using his black dragon clan as warlords of the wastelands, bringing every outlying village under his control. It seems that the world fell when the Revenants destroyed all of the realms, tearing them apart and leaving nothing but a destroyed civilization in it’s wake. Most of the villages acquiesce out of fear, but a lone warrior named Kenshi Takahashi (Manny Jacinto) intervenes out of the desire for a combatant challenge.

Getting his butt kicked by Tremor, Kenishi ends up tricked by a weak Shang Tsung (Artt Butler) leaving him for dead and blind, with only the magical blade Sento to his name. Saved by an aging old man (Ron Yuang), Kenshi has to learn to regain his honor, regain his will to live, and figure out how to control the magical blade in order to gain some semblance of normality.

Snow Blind is an odd film. I LOOOOOOVE Kenshi in the game, and actually really loved his character progression (even though it’s WILDLY out of time), but it’s the second half of the film that really gets weird, not to mention that many of the twists and turns that led to this mishmashed timeline are barely explained (the twist at the very end clears up the HOW things got to the way they were, but it doesn’t reconcile past differences, or what certain characters are not the age they’re supposed to be, or even in the proper time line to where they were in the past). The first half is a nice story telling us how Kuai Liang became an outcast and gave up his Sub-Zero status, the hints and elements of past games (this series is based off of the Mortal Kombat 9-11 reboots) are shaky at best, and the awkward dialog and poor connective narrative tissues make it hard to really feel like you know what’s going on. While Scorpion’s Revenge and Battle of the Realms felt at least connected to the source material, this one feel like it took random characters from the games and just created a future story without thinking of how to connect it to past lore, let alone the lore of the two previous Legends films.




Rating:

Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore throughout, and brief language.




4K Video: Video:

The animation style for Snow Blind is a slight change of pace from the originals. Heavily line drawn, and fully hand animated from what I can tell, the Blu-ray is solid enough, but the 4K just has very little room for improvement. The animation style is so rough (and has some seriously janky line strokes) and simplistic that even though the 4K doesn’t show any PROBLEMS or artifacting, it just doesn’t have any more detail levels to eek out over the 1080p Blu-ray. It’s simply a case of the 4K capabilities just not being able to be utilized to their max here. Comparing both discs side by side the Blu-ray and 4K look nearly identical, just with the 4K clearing up the Blu-ray color banding and looking ever so slightly sharper in the colors. Which brings me to the last thing. The HDR. The upgraded color tones are mildly better (such as the well of souls greens, or the red of Kenshi’s costumes), but once again the HDR is not a massive upgrade as it has been in the past. Basically, solid enough looking film, but one that doesn’t really show massive improvements in 4K.





Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track, on the other hand, is exceptional. It’s powerful, punchy, and full of energy like one would expect for a Mortal Kombat sound track. Action is hard hitting and filled with tons of bass energy, and the surrounds get ample use with all of the powers and debris falling as our heroes (and villains) duke it out. Dialog is perfect in every way, with a centered mix and plenty of clarity. Simply put, this is a very good 5.1 mix that should please just about everyone.











Extras:

• Kenshi: From the Video Game to Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind (Featurette) – An in-depth exploration of fan favorite Kenshi Takahashi from his video game origins to his first sword-wielding animated appearance.
• Adapting Evil: Building the Black Dragon Clan (Featurette) – From King Kano to the evil ensemble of Mortal Kombat's deep cut characters, the filmmakers reveal the approach to bringing the sinister Black Dragon Clan to life.• Deleted Animatics – Get a behind-the-scenes look at a few intriguing scenes that were included in the initial assembly of the film, but didn't quite make it to the final cut.
• Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind Audio Commentary (Audio Only) – Join producer/director Rick Morales and screenwriter Jeremy Adams for a feature-length audio commentary revealing the creative choices used to bring the all-new animated feature to the screen.

Final Score:
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I did, however, like the inclusion of many characters that just weren’t portrayed in previous movies, or just bit characters in the game. The entire film is one giant petri dish of modern MK characters and seeing Tremor, Kobra, Kira, and even Ferra/Torr was really neat. It’s a bit awkward narrative wise, and the line art is kinda funky, but overall the movie itself is a fun elseworlds story that basically requires you to know the characters of the game, but also require you to shut off your memory of previous stories to enjoy. Decent watch for Mortal Kombat fans.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: David Wenham, Manny Jacinto, Yuri Lowenthal, Debra Wilson, Courtenay Taylor, Ron Yuan, Artt Butler
Directed by: Rick Morales
Written by: Jeremy Adams
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French, Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German SDH, Spanish, Dutch
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: R
Runtime: 82 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: October 11th, 2022

Recommendation: Decent Watch