James Wan on making 'Mortal Kombat' for cinemas: Action sequences best served on big screen

Based on the video game franchise of the same name, ''Mortal Kombat'' marks the feature directorial debut of Simon McQuoid. The martial arts fantasy movie is produced by Wan, along with Todd Garner, McQuoid, and E Bennett Walsh. The movie serves as a reboot of the ''Mortal Kombat'' film series, which released in the 90s. Wan said the team was aware that they had to make the film a big-screen experience because there have already been a lot of iterations, from games, comic books, to animated TV shows. 

''We tried to make this movie a full-on cinematic experience, something that audiences would really want to see on the big screen, from the fights to the effects. ''Taking these larger-than-life characters and creating these awesome action sequences and fights that are better served on the big screen; I think that's what's going to make this movie really exciting for audiences,'' the filmmaker said in a transcript provided by Warner Bros. 

The film features an ensemble of Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Joe Taslim, and Hiroyuki Sanada. 

Wan said he grew up with the Mortal Kombat game and was a fan of the two movies which released in the 90s. Paul WS Anderson's 1995 ''Mortal Kombat'' revolved around some of the game's classic characters, like Liu Kang and Johnny Cage, who are invited to a tournament on a mysterious island only to find out that the fate of the world hangs in the balance. 

The filmmaker said with the advancement of technology, it was the best time to reboot the franchise which was kept relevant in the gaming world ''but not as much in the feature world.'' ''It was a property that we were pretty gung-ho about, myself and Todd Garner and my team at Atomic Monster, and we wanted to get it going. We wanted to do another version of it for today's audience, who may not be as familiar with it as we were growing up,'' he added. The filmmaker said it was important for him to retain the essence of the game in its latest adaptation and ''respect'' the source material. ''I wanted to make sure that we were true to and respect the original material. I tried to look at what it is that people love about the original material, what they loved growing up, and be respectful to that and embrace those elements that really speak to them,'' he said. Distributed worldwide by Warner Bros Pictures, ''Mortal Kombat'' is set for release in India on April 23 in Hindi, English, Tamil and Telugu.