{"id":449181,"date":"2026-05-14T22:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/449181\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T22:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:02:10","slug":"mortal-kombat-ii-inside-the-baraka-fight-scene-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/449181\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Mortal Kombat II’: Inside the Baraka Fight Scene, Ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn the fall of 2021, just weeks after Mortal Kombat opened in theaters, director Simon McQuoid<\/a> created a document examining what the movie did right, what it could have done better, and what he wanted in a sequel. Among his dream characters: Baraka, the sharp-toothed mutant from the games.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe character is now among the highlights of Mortal Kombat II<\/a>, which has grossed $65 million globally since its May 8 launch. Baraka\u2019s fight with Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) <\/a>is one of the movie\u2019s centerpieces, bringing humor to the proceedings, and he also returns for the film\u2019s coda. <\/p>\n

\n\tMaking it all happen took months of planning. McQuoid struggled to find the right actor to play the role \u2014 someone with the imposing size but who could also nail Baraka\u2019s mix of humor, violence and sweetness.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m looking at all these different tapes and everyone\u2019s just playing it [straight]. It just doesn\u2019t feel otherworldly. The longer we went, I\u2019m thinking, \u2018It\u2019s gonna be really hard,\u2019\u201d says McQuoid.<\/p>\n

\n\tLuckily, assistant director P.J. Voeten had just filmed Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and remembered of actor CJ Bloomfield, who had a small role as a member of Chris Hemsworth\u2019s biker gang. Bloomfield came in for an audition and nailed it on the first try.<\/p>\n

\n\tNext, McQuoid and his team spent months developing the signature fight scene at the Tarkatan village, in which Johnny Cage mouths off to Baraka.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMortal Kombat II<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWarner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wanted it to feel like a society that has lived there for a long time and has their rituals,\u201d says McQuoid of building the set practically, and even including Tarkatan children, something that is not in the game.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also wanted to lean into the humor, something that McQuoid got Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon\u2019s blessing on. \u201cI said, \u2018You sort of gotta trust me, Ed, that I think we can balance that,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile McQuoid blocked out the dramatic scenes with assistant director Voeten and cinematographer Stephen Winden, the stunt team, led by Kyle Gardiner, worked out the fight, using cardboard boxes to re-create set designer Yohei Taneda\u2019s Tarkatan village at the parking lot at Village Roadshow headquarters in Australia.<\/p>\n

\n\tThose weeks of prep work meant there was no second guessing when they arrived on set to shoot, which required hours in the makeup chair for Bloomfield.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s much less waste, and you can put more on screen,\u201d McQuoid says. \u201cWhen the actors arrived, I wanted them to completely immerse themselves in what they\u2019re going to be wearing and have conversations around their character.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSimon McQuoid on the set of Mortal Kombat II.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWarner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of McQuoid\u2019s favorite shots in the movie is of a little Tarkatan girl, whom the camera follows through the village to show the audience its scope. \u201cIt took us like 17 takes or something with a bit of gear called the Trinity, which is a very sophisticated Steadicam,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll in, the team took three days to shoot the fight. Along the way, the actors contributed their own ideas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cKarl\u2019s very good at improv and added lines like, \u2018Not the face,\u2019 and \u2018I got Saturn for the best fight,\u2019\u201d recalls McQuoid.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actors did much of the fighting themselves, while Urban\u2019s stunt double, Garreth Hadfield, performed other aspects, training for months on wires to perfect the twirl in the air, followed by the trademark split nut-punch. (Hadfield also played Cage in countless videos the stunt team created to develop the fight.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie ends<\/a> with Johnny regaling Baraka with tales of his heroism. Screenwriter Jeremy Slater<\/a> had something similar, but after seeing the chemistry between the characters, he shifted to focus even more on them.<\/p>\n

\n\tSays McQuoid: \u201cOnce Karl and CJ had developed this lovely relationship, it helped us then go, \u2018OK, I know what we need to do.\u2019 It sort of just fell off the truck.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the fall of 2021, just weeks after Mortal Kombat opened in theaters, director Simon McQuoid created a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,16263,270,195240],"class_list":["post-449181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mortal-kombat-ii","tag-movies","tag-simon-mcquoid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}