When the first Mortal Kombat film was released in 2021, Lewis Tan watched it solo from his hotel room in Thailand. He played Cole Young, an ex-MMA fighter in Scorpion’s lineage, thrust into an inter-dimensional battle where Earthworld’s fate hangs in the balance. In between mind-blowing fights featuring fan-favourite characters (like the cryomancer Sub-Zero), Young tries to save his family while unlocking special powers of his own. It was Tan’s first turn leading a studio picture, and yet he could only celebrate by raising a glass all by his lonesome. 

This time around, things are much different. I caught up with Tan from his hotel room in London, ahead of the UK premiere of Mortal Kombat II. Tan calls it a “super surreal moment,” and a culmination of the five years he spent working on both films (due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and the SAG-AFTRA strikes). And on-screen, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Earthworld’s heroes, now including Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage, must defend their realm once more in a no-holds barred battle against the sinister Shao Kahn and his warriors, including the fan-wielding Kitana. 

Although Mortal Kombat II just released on May 8, it has already surpassed its predecessor and become one of the highest-rated video game films of all time on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score, based on over 500 verified ratings, sits at an impressive 90%, while the critic score is at 68%. When The Hollywood Reporter called it “a tacky sequel that’s strictly for the fans,” Tan passionately hit back, saying, “…please sit down while we deliver one of the best fight films of the summer.” 

That same brash and unburdened passion peeks through in our conversation, too. On the criticisms surrounding his character, he quipped, “There’s a character in Mortal Kombat called Meat, and he’s just like a lump of meat. So everybody can just calm down with Cole Young.” On the “dying art” of actors performing their own stunts, Tan vowed that as long as he’s around, he won’t let it die: “Hopefully we can keep it alive for as long as possible before AI takes over and we’re all bored out of our minds watching slop or whatever.” 

This intensity clearly comes from a deep respect for his craft, which has undoubtedly been shaped by his father, Phil Tan. The world-renowned action director and stunt coordinator has worked with the likes of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, with a filmography boasting Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Tim Burton’s Batman and Showdown in Little Tokyo. Tan says his father, “a harsh critic,” remains a remarkable source of feedback. And despite Phil being in his sixties, he’s still doing backflips and still has many more upcoming films on deck. 

The same can certainly be said for Lewis, whose repertoire already includes blockbusters like Deadpool 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine, and hit television series like Shadow and Bone and Cobra Kai. Most recently, he worked on Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, which premiered at SXSW on March 27. Looking ahead, Tan has a new career milestone in store: an exciting directorial feature debut that he calls his most important work yet. As Tan continues fighting his way to the top, one thing seems certain: more and more eyes will be watching his journey. 

The audience reaction to your character, Cole Young, was quite strong, given that he was created just for the films. You’ve teased that fans will be “pleasantly surprised” with his development in Mortal Kombat II. What else can you tell us? 

Well, coming from a strictly non-biased fan perspective, I get the criticisms towards creating a new character in a game that already has a bunch of characters. Once the film came out, as we kind of expected, the diehard Mortal Kombat fans didn’t need a new character. That character was supposed to be for people that are maybe not as familiar with what’s going on in the Mortal Kombat lore, which is a long ass lore. It’s going to take me 20 minutes to explain the whole damn thing. That’s kind of what the producers were thinking. 

So in the next film, how it’s different is the producers, mainly Todd Garner一 shout out to Todd because he really cares about this一 took what we were hearing from diehard fans and our own feedback and recalibrated. Audiences were like, ‘Is Cole still going to be the main character in the second movie?’ It was never planned for him to be the main character in the second movie. The second movie was always supposed to have Johnny Cage as the lead. The first film ends with Cole going to find Johnny. He’s part of Scorpion’s lineage. He gets to fight an incredible character. I was happy with where the character goes and what I get to do. 

From the behind-the-scenes content, it looks like the cast hangs out a lot outside of production and gets along really well. Can you tell us more about this bond? 

When you’re stuck with these people in Australia,the farthest part of the world, and it’s during COVID and the [SAG-AFTRA] strikes, and you’re fighting with each other every day, naturally you bond. We all hang out at different people’s houses afterward. We get dim sum, Korean barbecue, pho or someone would cook. That happened like every single weekend, which is nice because you really want to create a strong bond with people that you’re fighting with and doing really violent fatalities with at work. [When you’re] covered in blood, tired and sore. 

We all got along really well. Then the new cast members came in. I was training with Martyn [Ford] in the gym. The girls, [Adeline Rudolph and Tati Gabrielle], and I were hanging out on the weekends. And of course, Karl [Urban] came in and did his thing. Everybody just became like a big family. 

Can you tell us about certain moves or even certain fight scenes that you personally really like best in Mortal Kombat II? 

My favorite fight in the whole movie is the Liu Kang versus Kung Lao fight. But man, there’s a lot. I think there’s almost 30 fights in the movie. There’s like two or three stages that are like my personal favorite, but I can’t give those away. The one that I fight in is in my top three. Even when I was playing the video game as a kid, I always loved that stage. 

There’s a couple moves in the film that I’m proud of because I personally got them into the movie. If you played the games at all, there’s a move that Raiden does where he charges forward with his hands and then front flips. I was trying to convince Todd Garner to put that in the movie for the longest time. And it’s in there. But that’s how it is on set. Everybody loves the game and loves the franchise. Everybody’s trying to get their ideas of what people would like, so there’s a lot of fan service in the movie, for sure. 

What do you like so much about the Liu Kang versus Kung Lao fight? 

I think the stage that it’s on is beautiful, but it’s simple. You have this emotional weight to two brothers fighting. And then you have the technicality of what they did with this fight. You get to see two of Mortal Kombat’s best fighters go at it. I know Ludi [Lin] worked his ass off for that fight and was rehearsing his ass off for it. Max [Wong] wanted to do some special stuff for Kung Lao, so he was training with Shaolin monks months before the film even started. And he’s already an incredible martial artist. 

The martial arts training and stunt preparation for each role is different based on the character you play. What was your training regimen for playing Cole Young, an ex-MMA player? Did it change in Mortal Kombat II? 

That’s a great question. The first movie was more of his MMA base. After he gets his powers, it’s pretty much at the end of the first movie, so you never really see him get to use them in a different way. He’s not really familiar with them. So in the second movie, the idea is he’s been training with these powers. He knows how to use the suit, he knows how to use the tonfas. 

Choreography-wise, it’s much more intricate, which is what I wanted. Also, he’s fighting with Shao Kahn, as you can see in the trailer. There’s no room for error in that situation. So he’s pulling out all the special moves that he can do. There’s some stuff that you’ll see in this movie that he never did in the first film. So there’s unlocking some secret powers, unlocking some new moves. 

What does your typical training regimen look like? 

Normally, if I’m home [and on my regular schedule], I’d say at least five days a week. There’s weight training, running, a lot of hitting mitts, a lot of bag work. I even do choreography all the time when I’m training. Arnold Chon, who’s an incredible world [martial arts] champion, also works in film. We’ll just do choreography for like two hours and then film it. If we like some of it, we’ll save it to use it for other movies. 

But we’re constantly doing choreography, constantly training. And that’s kind of what you have to do in order to stay at a high level and perform at a high level. I’m constantly training in order to be able to jump on a film and just do it. 

But I will say everybody in this cast, even the people that don’t do martial arts, took it very seriously and trained their asses off. If you can get to a certain level that’s believable and have the stunt double do really technical stuff for you, I respect that. It’s not like if you don’t perform your own martial arts, it’s not as good. That’s just something that I grew up with and something that I wanted to do personally. But some of the actors that came on, the newer actors that weren’t really familiar, killed it. They were fully committed and worked their asses off, and you can see it in the film. 

You’ve trained with a lot of martial arts legends, including 10-time World Muay Thai champion John Wayne Parr while filming Mortal Kombat II. Can you tell us more about this experience? 

John Wayne Parr is a Muay Thai legend. At the time, he was one of the only white foreigners who went to Thailand and was beating the Thai champions. I know he had a gym [in Australia], so I reached out. He said, ‘Come show up,’ and I did. And the next thing you know, he was kicking the shit out of me and training me. 

I also brought Tati there, because Tati is one of the actors who didn’t have a huge martial art background and she wanted to learn really bad. So I set her up with John Wayne Parr and she ended up taking more lessons from him than I did. She loved it. 

Some of the martial artists that you mention admiring, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Sammo Hung, have all worked with your father, Phil Tan. How has his career impacted your own? 

Just watching him work was what inspired me, and seeing that there was a lack of Asian actors in front of the camera. He was acting too. He got a role on Tango and Cash opposite Kurt Russell. [But] he’s always the bad guy. He’s played like 30, 40 different types of assassins, which is cool. But then I’m like, ‘Where’s the leading role for this?’ I don’t want to get into the whole representation talk, but it made me think, ‘I have something to offer. So let me work my ass off and try to build my skillset. And then I can hopefully give people a new perspective and I can add my own story to this legacy that he’s already made.’ 

On the topic of on-screen representation though, what do you hope that the future of Hollywood might hold for Asian actors? 

I hope that it holds for all actors in the same way that they can all play the spectrum of emotions, the spectrum of characters. Don’t get me wrong, I love action films. I will continue to make action films until I can’t anymore physically. But at the same time, you want to showcase all the different emotions that humans experience. That’s why film is so beautiful, because you get to live in this person’s shoes for two hours and you get to leave the theater with a whole new perspective. So if we’re only showing one small perspective of our culture, you’re only getting a tiny little glimpse of our culture. And then that’s how stereotypes are created. 

I like to watch all of those movies too, because I want to open my mind and see what’s going on and be inspired and learn. The more that we see these spectrums and the more that we see the broad variety, the more that you just feel more human and more connected to humanity. That’s the key. That is the end goal. 

You’ve obviously worked on a lot of action films, but you’ve also done thrillers (Lioness and Safehouse) and even a rom-com (About Fate). If someone sat you down and said, ‘Okay, your dream role, dream story, whatever genre you want to do, we’re going to make it.’ What would be your answer? 

I mean, there’s a ton. It’s more about working with certain directors. I would love to work with Paul Thomas Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Wong Kar-Wai, Bong Joon-Ho and Park Chan-Wook. To be a part of their filmography would be a dream. I think that would be the closest thing I could think of to what kind of dream role I have. It’s more about working with great artists. I don’t have a dream role, but I do want to play a vampire. I like vampire mythology. I don’t know if you were expecting me to say that. 

Let’s talk about your upcoming directorial feature debut. What can you tell us about this project? 

So this project is based on my father’s true story about how he grew up in London in the 1970s and was facing very, very difficult times. Coming from China and moving to London without knowing how to speak English, [he was] washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant and finding a space where he belongs in martial arts and in disco dancing. My father was one of the first ever Chinese disco dancing champions in London, at the same time when he was competing for the national title in martial arts. 

It’s a coming-of-age story, it’s a true story and it’s very personal to me to tell. No one else can tell this story but me. I’ve always wanted to direct. Not only do I just want to do it, [but] I would like to make this a very long career in directing. 

Nina Yang Bongiovi, who’s done some really incredible films and cares really deeply about interesting stories from diverse filmmakers, has been helping me. We just found the lead in the film一 I can’t say who it is yet, but it’s going to be an incredible film. Out of all the things that I’ve done, this is the most important to me. 

Mortal Kombat II is out now

Interview Haley Sengsavanh

Photographer David Reiss

Stylist Olga Timofejeva

Stylist Assistant Kitty Faulkner

Grooming Melody Chandler

Top Image credit: Total look Fendi