'Mortal Kombat II' Star Lewis Tan Teases More Action-Packed Sequel With Extreme "Fatalities" Actorsvaultpro

Martial arts movie fans are already drooling with excitement for the release of Mortal Kombat II, the 2026 follow-up to the 2021 film reboot of the widely popular video game series. The sequel is set to introduce new characters, but among the returning ones is Cole Young, played by action performer Lewis Tan. When talking about the film, Tan is teasing “gnarly” stunts, better fights, and horrific fatalities. Mortal Kombat II just got more exciting.

Tan is currently promoting his latest film, Wildcat, and the action star caught up with Comic Book to talk about Mortal Kombat II. The actor was careful not to reveal much, but he did mention that the sequel will go heavier on the action and gore. Although the first entry featured good fight sequences, it didn’t really reflect the violence that has made the video games quite memorable throughout decades.

“I think it’s worse. Some of the fatalities and some of the fights are worse. But they are way more detailed and way more complex, which is what I wanted… to step up the level of complexity and depth in the fights. It’s Mortal frigging Kombat. We should have the best fight movie of the year. That has to be the goal. I think we accomplished that.”

‘Mortal Kombat II’ Will Go Heavier on the Gore, as Well as the Action

Warner Bros. Pictures

The re-imagining of Mortal Kombat arrived in 2021, during a time when audiences were still getting used to the new model of theatrical releases after the COVID-19 pandemic. The film did decently in theaters, but not enough to represent a major success for Warner Bros. Despite this, a sequel was greenlit relatively quickly, with director Simon McQuoid returning to lead the project.

Everyone involved with Mortal Kombat II will likely pursue a sequel that tweaks the elements that made the first entry weak in some of its parts. According to Tan, the film will be gory, but the actor is also teasing a more thrilling movie, with plenty of action sequences and set pieces. As he says, they “learned” from having to “balance too many things” in the first:

“I had a bunch of bruises. I was pretty banged up on this one for reasons that will soon be discovered. I love this stuff. I love to get into the performance as much as I can and do all the fights that I can. I think in the second movie, there was only one big stunt that I didn’t do because it was pretty gnarly. My character does a double backflip and lands on the floor. Stuff like that is a little too dangerous for me to be doing. You are bound to take a couple of hits and bangs when you do fights, but it’s worth it.

“They really let the action team go crazy in the second one. Whereas in the first one, they were trying to balance the storyline with the fights. In the second one, it’s the tournament. We were already in… And they really gave the action team free rein to run with it, shoot it, and the way it was edited. When you do that, and you have a good team, and you trust them, you get gold. It’s not that they didn’t do that in the first movie, but I think they were just trying to balance too many things, and we learned from those moments.”