Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind

In a desolate land where hope is but a memory and the Wastelands are ruled with an iron fist by King Kano and the Black Dragons.  No one dares oppose him, save for one.  Blinded by betrayal, a young warrior named Kenshi must learn to harness new skills and powers under the tutelage of the last of the Lin Kuei, Kai Liang, formerly known as Sub Zero.  Together, they will seek justice and redemption against, braving a storm of brutal battles and impossible truths to restore hope to the future. 

When I first heard about Mortal Kombat Legends and heard the first title was “Scorpion’s Revenge” I naturally believed these animated features would be hyper violent stand alone stories, origin or otherwise, centered on a singular MK character with maybe an appearance or two from others.  Unfortunatley, as good as it was, Scorpions Revenge wasn’t a Scorpion focused tale and Battle of the Realms only had a couple of good character moments and awesome fight scenes to stop it from ending up on the same level as Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.  With the third entry of the Mortal Kombat Legends series I’m finally getting what I was hoping/expecting from these animated films and it’s easily the best of the three so far, even if it does tap into some unexpected corners of the MK universe that, to my knowledge, no ones really a fan of.
 
The sudden jump in setting and tone from the previous movies is a bit jarring but works pretty well.  There’s thankfully no motor mouthed Johnny Cage to try and make things as unfunny as possible every five minutes and the vibe of the Wasteland is basically what you’ve come to expect from your standard Mad Max movie.  It sets a level of seriousness that’s been lacking in the Legend movies and perfectly suits the story its trying to tell.  Honestly, the one character who has the most humor is King Kano.  Kano’s always a delight as both a villain and minor comic relief with his evil antics.  But there’s also a genuine threat to him this time around, granted Kano’s always been underestimated here and there and can be a deadly threat when treated right.  He’s having fun both playing around and not playing around with his rule of the Wasteland, quite the perfect big bad for a story like this.
 
While Kenshi starts off kind of bog standard street urchin a la Aladdin, once he loses his sight and links up with Kai Liang, he gets a lot more interesting.  Seeing this promising warrior fall so far and have to rise from next to nothing makes for a good heroes journey.  His arc intersects nicely with Kai, the former Sub Zero who is also learning how to conquer his past demons and learn to fight again, if not for his own redemption then for his unofficial pupil.  There’s such a level of depth to their scenes you don’t see often in Mortal Kombat features and it’s a nice change.  The connection between these two goes from necessary survival to proud student and mentor and there’s thankfully no several dozen other plot lines to get in the way of properly fleshing it out.
 
Then there is, of course, the action.  Just because this is a more character focused outing doesn’t mean it isnt Mortal Kombat.  Kenshi slices and dices like a true ninja samurai warrior once he’s set loose on the Black Dragons and there’s plenty of gore and body parts to fling around.  Being this is a post apocalyptic setting, the violence is even more ruthless than before, if that’s even possible.  Any bit of suffering inflicted by the Black Dragons gets paid back in full and then some once Kenshi and Sub Zero get down to business.  There’s some nice one on one bouts too with fan favorites like Kabal and Eeron Black and a special guest who’s intro into the final act is so freaking cool.  Plus you have that personal connection between Kenshi, Kai Liang and Kano that elevates these past standard brawl status.  Goes to show that even at the low points of Battle of the Realms, when the fights have personal stakes, the action scenes shine all the better for them.
 
While I praise the heck out of this one for living up to the potential of MK Legends, there’s one thing that holds it back: the truth of the Wasteland.  It did leave me scratching my head for much of the beginning as to how things could get so bad after the victory at the end of the previous film.  After a while though, I started to just forget about that because I was enjoying the scenes with Kenshi and Sub Zero and Kano’s evil machinations.  That said, they do explain the origins of why things are the way they are and while I wont spoil them in this review, it really is the weakest part of the movie, tapping into realms of recent MK lore that haven’t been well received (if that helps you guess easier, there you go).  It’s not the same kind of “are you freaking kidding me” and “why?” as the finale of Battle of the Realms.  But Snow Blind is really lucky it’s damn good otherwise this would knock it down several pegs.
 
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind is easily the best of the three rounds of animated features so far.  A more personal story, a well built connection between mentor and student, an entertaining villain and all the blood stained brutality MK does best is here and mixed properly after two tries (one pretty good and the other a near absolute fail).  Hopefully the big reveals towards the end don’t ruin the whole experience cause this is the kind of MK movie I wish they’d been making all along, especially with Scorpion’s Revenge.  Cold as ice and rock solid, this is truly Mortal Kombat at its most violent storytelling best.
 
8/10
 
Unfortunately, we do have one more Legends movie to cover and wouldn’t you know it…it’s all about the one character I can’t stand in any of these movies.  Keeping my expectations low and hoping to be impressed as we wrap up our time with the Mortal Kombat Legends series with Cage Match, Next Monday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.