As glimpsed at the end of the new Mortal Kombat II trailer, Scorpion will confront Noob Saibot, aka Bi-Han, in the highly anticipated sequel. As Sub-Zero, Bi-Han (played by Joe Taslim) was slain by Scorpion/Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada) at the end of the 2021 movie reboot. But Mortal Kombat fans always knew they hadn’t really seen the last of Bi-Han, especially since Taslim had previously confirmed he’d signed a multi-picture deal to play the character.
Considering that Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage is the main protagonist of Mortal Kombat II, just how much will the Scorpion-Noob Saibot subplot figure into the sequel, especially since Hiroyuki Sanada has become an even more in-demand (and award-winning) actor since the first film thanks to the success of Shogun?
“Without giving any plot points away, they have a very strong history that was unresolved in the first movie that probably needs to be resolved at some point and may or may not be resolved in the second movie,” Mortal Kombat II producer Todd Garner recently told IGN. “But their storylines are instrumental in the plot of the movie, which overall, does involve a tournament.”
Director Simon McQuoid confirmed that Scorpion “plays a pivotal role in this movie,” but added during his interview with us that “it’s really just about giving every character a strong reason to exist in the world and giving them a way that each of them can start in one place and end in another. So we did that with Scorpion as well. He does an amazing job, Hiro again, and there’s some pretty wild stuff he does with Noob, and it’s very satisfying. It’s exciting to know that the fans have got them waiting for them this wonderful epic fight that plays out.”
Garner cautioned that Scorpion is in the movie as much as Hiroyuki Sanada’s busy schedule allowed: “We would love to have had him even way more than we had him [in the sequel], but he has a huge career. He’s a legend, and so we understand the importance of his character and wanted to give him his due, but also understand that this is for the most part in this movie Johnny Cage’s journey, and that therefore, then we had to use Scorpion in the smartest way we possibly could think of to have the most impact on the story, which we hopefully have done, and give him his due in the fighting and the actual turns and twists of the story.”
“Making movies involves physics, it involves real life, it involves actors, it involves schedules, and it’s not like we can just pick and choose the schedules of people and get them as much as we would hope,” the producer added.
While Johnny Cage is the biggest of the games characters introduced in Mortal Kombat II, he’s not the only fan favorite making their debut in the rebooted movie franchise. Kitana is played by Adeline Rudolph in the sequel, while Tati Gabrielle plays her best friend and bodyguard Jade.
“Kitana is the ‘daughter’ in inverted quotes of Shao Kahn and Sindel. We tell that story,” McQuoid said of his movie’s incarnation. “So we play out her journey and from very early on to what that then means for our story we have.”
“Then we have Jade,” McQuoid continued, “and they’re just bringing a new feeling and a new tonal ingredients to the story and to the atmosphere of what we’re creating. And it just made it feel more exotic and beautiful and interesting and brutal. Not to say that our existing characters, I really wanted to respect them throughout it as well. So it’s just about fitting it all in and calibrating and balancing up all their stories.”
Given that the first film teased Johnny Cage’s character would be in the sequel, should fans expect a post-credits scene in Mortal Kombat II that could set-up another iconic games character that could be in a third film?
“No, it’s not that kind of movie. There is a coda, but again, what we’re very aware of, and this really comes to a real theory of New Line and why they’re so great, is they don’t expect to make a sequel. We have to earn that right,” Garner said.
“So we don’t assume that we’re going to get another shot at this because who knows, right? If we’ve done our jobs like we hope we have given the, again, restraints of physics and budget and everything else, and the audience tells us they enjoyed it enough to support it and give us the opportunity to make the sequel, then we will. But we’re not going to give you some post-sequence to be like, ‘Oh, this is going to happen in the sequel.’
Because hopefully, look, I will say in the same way that the first movie said, ‘Hey, we got to go find Johnny Cage,’ there is that idea at the end of this movie that this could continue. It’s not like we’re peeling off all the characters and saying, ‘Okay, we’re done.’ Obviously we could do more and we obviously have plans to do more and know what we would want to do if we’re given the opportunity to do more, and so if we’re given that opportunity, then we will, but we don’t want to assume that we can.”
Read our exclusive Mortal Kombat II cover story for more revelations from the filmmakers and star Karl Urban.
Mortal Kombat II opens in theaters October 24, 2025.
