The new Mortal Kombat movie, a reboot of the franchise’s cinematic branch, is set to have its premiere on April 16, 2021, in theaters and on HBO Max. And while we saw our fair share of Mortal Kombat materials in recent decades, the James Wan-produced movie seems to be a promising and refreshing take on the franchise that is going to attract a lot of fans. But, however that might roll out, the new movie certainly has its fair share of questions, one of which we are going to answer in today’s article. The movie’s protagonist, Cole Young, is a new character to the franchise and people have been asking a lot of questions about him. We at Fiction Horizon have decided to answer those questions for you so keep reading!
Cole Young is a washed-up MMA fighter with a mysterious heritage and also the protagonist of the new Mortal Kombat movie. His lineage, of which he is unaware, makes him a target of Sub-Zero, but also one of the participants of the new Mortal Kombat tournament.
Today’s article is going to reveal everything we know about Cole Young. You are going to find out who he is and how his story ties into the whole franchise. You are also going to find out who the actor playing Cole Young, whether the character appeared in any of the games and why he looks so familiar. We prepared a lot of interesting content so stick with us!
Who is Cole Young in the Mortal Kombat movie?
Cole Young is presented as the protagonist of the new Mortal Kombat movie. Sources reveal that he is an original character created for the purposes of the movie, as the producers believed it to be in accordance with the spirit of the games and a movie that would refresh the franchise and allow it to develop independently. Here’s what the trailer revealed:
Cole Young is still a mysterious character. We know that he is a washed-up MMA fighter. He is not without talent or skills, but he doesn’t have much luck and he is used to getting beaten to a pulp to earn some money. At one point, he is targeted by the assassin Sub-Zero (Bi-Han) for unknown reasons, which seems to connect him with Jax and Sonya Blade.
It is later revealed that Cole Young has a specific “birthmark” on his chest, which turns out to be the Mortal Kombat symbol. Jax explains to him that the “mark” means that has been chosen and that he would have to fight a life-or-death tournament very soon. This is all similar to former iterations of the franchise, where we had one chosen hero who had to win the Mortal Kombat tournament to save Earthrealm from the plans of the evil Shang Tsung.
As for Cole Young’s identity, much of it is still a mystery. He could, indeed, be a completely original character, but the trailer and the information we have confirmed that he has a rich(er) past that the movie is going to explore. Theories suggest that he could somehow be connected to Sub-Zero or his brother, Scorpion perhaps or even Johnny Cage, one of the franchise’s most important characters who – as it seems – won’t be appearing in the movie, which is something the fans find suspicious (there are even theories that Cole is, in fact, Johnny Cage).
Be that as it may, Cole Young is going to be the protagonist of the new Mortal Kombat movie and we are looking forward to seeing how his story evolves and how his history is revealed in the film itself.
Who is playing Cole Young and why does he look so familiar?
Cole Young is played by British-Chinese actor Lewis Tan. Tan was born in Salford, England, on February 4, 1987, to Philip Tan, a martial artist, and actor, and Joanne Tan, a former British fashion model. Tan took acting lessons and began his professional career in 2006, appearing in a small role in Mini’s First Time and as Kym Tanaka in CSI: NY; he also started work as a stuntman.
His credits mostly include supporting roles and/or guest appearances, but he did land roles in more prominent movies such as The Hangover Part III, Den of Thieves, and Deadpool 2 (where he played Shatterstar), as well as hit TV shows such as 24, CSI: Miami, NCIS: Los Angeles, Hawaii Five-0, and Iron Fist. Cole Young is certainly going to be his first important role and we are going to see how it reflects on his future career.
Why is Cole Young introduced in the new Mortal Kombat movie?
We have already said that the producers wanted a new character to refresh the franchise and to allow it to move forward without explicit ties to former iterations. This is a very practical reasoning behind the move and Todd Garner, one of the producers, had this to say about the decision:
“You know, having made a number of movies in our careers, the worry is when you have such a deep piece of IPs that like a video game that if you get too stuck in just the video game, you can sometimes ignore the rest of the world, and we have to acknowledge that not every single person in the world knows the game, (…) So we needed an access point for everybody to come into the game, but not to fuck with any of the canons of the game, not to mess with anybody’s backstory, so that in order to keep everybody pristine and keep the game true, we needed a character to come in and meet all those characters.”
– Todd Garner, producer
Was Cole Young in any of the Mortal Kombat games?
Since Cole Young is confirmed to be an original character created for the movie, we can confirm that he has not appeared in any of the Mortal Kombat games. This is as far as we know now as there are a lot of things we need to uncover about Cole’s past. If it turns out that he is actually another character “in disguise”, it would mean that he has probably appeared in some of the games, but we don’t know it yet.
Even if he turns out to be a completely original character, we are probably going to see him in some future game if the movie turns out to be a success.
And that’s it for today. We hope you had fun reading this and that we helped solve this dilemma for you. See you next time and don’t forget to follow us!
