Monday, June 17, 2019

Mortal Kombat: Federation of Martial Arts Review: The Videos

Click here to see the 1st part of the review.



Here's the 1st fight. The orange ninja aka Kitana's dad(sort of) and the military girl that ended up marrying Johnny Cage.
The letters appear like something out of a Newground flash. That doesn't look professional.


Ermac meets with her in the obvious green screen background and says, "We meet again". This is a reference to their fight from Mortal Kombat Annihilation, the 2nd movie.
He cheats and somehow produce Noob Saibot out of his body. This was years before the games establish Noob as the elder Sub-Zero reborn.

What in the world is with her face?

Did she took too many trips to the tanning salon? I couldn't tell due to the poor video quality but something is up with it. She does appear in a far later video with a better close-up and the part of her face is brown. Did she had too many chocolate ice-creams and never bother to wipe her mouth before the fight? I guessing it's camo face paint but which she never did use in the games till MKX many years later as an alternate skin.

They exchange blows for 20 seconds and the video was over. I'm not joking. The entire thing was 30 seconds long and 10 of those is their pre-fight banter.

Round 2, they exchange more blows and the video suddenly stops just when it starts. I notice Sonya going all like Liu Kang and shouting her attacks. I get Liu Kang does it since he's a copy of Bruce Lee but this is only time in the entire franchise that Sonya does this.

Alot fights are this short, I have a hard time imagining people waited a whole week and all they saw was a 30 second fight. Rounds 2 and 3 did aired the next two days that continued the fights even waiting a full day to see a continuation of a fight is still not enough.

He also has a teleport move. It's like Raiden version of teleport.

The entire fight ends with Sonya winning. This was lame fight. If you want to see a better fight with these two, go watch their fight in MK Annihilation. The fact I recommend something from the laughably bad 2nd movie shows this web series is the bottom of the barrel.

According to the imdb. Ermac is played by John Medlen, the same actor from the 2nd movie as well as the same costume. You can't really tell since he was in costume. According to it, he is a stuntmen with alot shows and movies under his resume.

Next fight is...
I have a hard time imaging that gods who are running the tournament has a girl in bikini announcing the upcoming fight. Things in the real world like flag girls and ring girls in sports events is believable but not with the fate of our world is depending on fighting tournment with ninjas, cyborgs, lizards, gods, mutants, etc. Also, she never shows up again in the entire web series. The intro of the fights went back to early Newgrounds type of animation.

Round 1 was nothing but Jax walking in circles and yells"WHERE'S RAIN AT?!" He yells and yells as he continues walking in circles.

Little does Jax know that Rain was slowly floating downward behind him like Sephiroth from FF7 or Monster X from Godzilla Final Wars. Also during the floating down, the green screen background flickered for a brief sec.

He smacks him and round 1 is over just like that.

If you recognize the actor playing Jax, that's because that's the same actor from MK Annihilation aka Sabre from American Gladiators. He may be the most easily recognizable actor in this forgotten web series since the rest are in masked ninjas or from a far lesser know TV series.

Back to the match, the two warriors actually fight in the next 2 rounds and during the fight, Rain for some reason is asking for mercy but Jax won't accept it. He does a fake looking ground pound.
I shouldn't see the shockwaves through Jax's body.

The attack looked billion times more real in MK Annihilation. I can't believe I still praising the 2nd movie.

Rain summons down lightning. That looks kinda fake but it was very quick and the entire screen went bright so it's a "better" effect than the ground pound.

At one point, Rain was a dozen feet away from Jax, then the camera showed a close up of Jax's face and he said, "Gotcha!" Suddenly, the purple ninja prince known as Rain had his neck wrapped in Jax's fingers and had his face pounded. So our hero is cheating using the powers of bad editing.

The pounding causes Rain go KO and hits the ground, revealing his underarm hair.

Then we got a another close up of Jax with him saying, "I'm the man", and he blows a kiss at the camera.
I don't want it.

For any non-fans of MK reading this, yes, the purple ninja Rain is based on Prince's famous song.

Well if I have to say anything at all positive about this web series, at least they treated Rain better than they did in the 2nd MK movie. His entire role was one minute all together and all he did is fail his master who punished him by throwing the ninja into a pit.
And they recycle this exact scene when Liu Kang kicked Baraka into a pit later in the movie. Weird that Baraka briefly morphed from a razor blade monster into a purple ninja.



Next fight is Shang Tsung vs Siann. I bet some of you are wondering who the Netherrealm is Siann.

She's the one on the left

MK Conquest was still recent in people minds when this web series came out. She and the other two girls are Quan Chi's assassins. Siann is played by the same actress from short-live series and she also played Mileena in MK Annihilation. She also been in alot movies and shows as a stuntswoman. The other twos are supermodels, actors, and posed for playboy. Yes people, MK Conquest was known for it's fanservice.

Quan Chi's assassins are loosely based on these three assassins from MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero.

So people who comes in and check on this web series may not be familiar with Siann. The show ended years ago for one thing and they are loosely based on a trio(who had completely different names) from a spinoff game rather than a main entry of the franchise.

The video starts with Shang Tsung practicing his moves, not noticing Siann was behind him.
After that, he looks up and down at her ant then she rams an elbow in his face.

And that was all of round 1, not really a fight. I can't believe Shang Tsung got distracted looking at her body.

The 1st pic is his assistant. 2nd is his ex before he turned to evil. The 1st girl had a love/hate thing with Shang. Sometimes, she tries to kill him. Yet he wasn't distracted with her outfit during her attempts to kill.

Round 2 happen and they change blows. Round 3 happens and Siann does this.
This distracts Shang and she starts to lay the smack down on him. She then pull out a knife out and one of the elder gods told Shang to either be killed or accept defeat. He accepts.

Final boss in the 1st MK game as well as Deadly Alliance. The 3rd last boss in MK2 and 9. MK champion for nine generations before the original Kung Lao dethrone him. The great demon sorcerer Shang Tsung got defeated by sex appeal. I have a hard time accepting this.


Next fight is Liu Kang vs Hikata. Unlike the previous fight, Hikata isn't based on some lesser known character from a short-lived TV show. Nope, this guy is a completely made up character for just this web series. He supposed to be a warrior monk.

Our opponent, Mr. Towelhead

Liu the caveman

Clearly, the victor is going to be Liu Kang. No way that the main hero is going to lose to a filler character.

They battle each other in front of two flame GIFs that you usually see at fan-made websites back in the late 90s/early 2000s.

During this shot, Liu Kang is dancing with the background music. Ok, he's not, he's just copying off of Bruce Lee and doing a battle stance.


The filler character summons a cheap CGI blade to kill our hero.

Liu avoid it and kicked it out of his hands. The battle went on and then ended with Hikata as the victor.

You got to be kidding me. The champion of Mortal Kombat, the one who defeated Shang Tsung, Shao Khan(Twice), and Shinnok got whooped by some lame forgettable filler character. This is the main hero of the series for crying out loud.


The next fight is Kitana vs Jimmy Cage

Fight starts with Jimmy acting all smug and not taking Kitana seriously. OK, I don't like him already.

She kicks the sunglasses off his face. He points to where they fell and said emotionless tone, "Those were $650 sunglasses." Gee, you can tell Johnny is the trained actor and not this guy. 😛
Also, I was half-expecting him to end it with "***hole." You muck up your brother's famous line from the 1st MK movie very badly.

The princess kicks him off his feet and then stomps on his glasses. I love her expression in the next scene. 
They got Talisa Soto's outfit from the movies but all they add was a cheap cloth for her mouth.

He got mad at her and started taking her seriously, "You don't mess with Jimmy Cage". Ok, now I have a hard time taking this dude seriously when a name like Jimmy doesn't sound threatening.

They fought but she ends up whooping him and he fell back on his butt.
Good, I don't like this loser.


Next fight is Scorpion vs Nightwolf. 

Unlike the others, instead of cheap fake looking green screen backgrounds, we got an actual location. However, even with that, they still did it the most cheapest way possible.


Scorpion comes out a wooden door and Nightwolf comes out of the bushes and fight on someone's backyard.


This looks like cheap fan-made video made from MK fans dressed up and posted this on Youtube. I can understand if this was actually fan-made but it's not, it's official somehow.

Also the camera shakes and it's not done as an artistic choice they made, it's because of how cheap the production is.

Well at least they got Chris Casamassa, the guy who played Scorpion in the 1st movie and MK Conquest. It ended with our favorite undead ninja winning the fight.


Next is Sub-Zero vs Sonya.

Sonya still has that weird mudface. Sub-Zero for some reason has Reptile's mask from the MK movie.

Reptile is at least a big lizard disguised as a human ninja. The "mouth" on the mask is kinda symbolic, so why does the ice ninja have a "mouth" on his mask?

I'm guessing Sub-Zero was supposed to flip from offscreen but here, he just magically appears onscreen.
Either Sub-Zero has teleporting powers or someone in the editing team wasn't paying attention.

Unlike the others fights where all of round one is the 2 meeting up and throw one punch, they go right at it. I was surprised a little.

At one point, the ice ninja grabs her and looks like he's about pile drive her.

But she manages to hit him in the snowballs and brakes free from his grip.
Seems Cassie got her ballbreaking X-ray attack from both parents.

They continue fighting and then Sub-Zero got the upperhand and used the powers of Windows Movie Maker effects to create a portal.
Actually, he was getting ready to create a ice blast. Looks like a portal here.

Suddenly Jax comes in and saves Sonya.
Afterwards, a loud blooming voice was heard and lightning hit near the kombatants. It must be Raiden. The gods were unhappy about the interruption. A text popped up and said disqualified. So is Jax or Sonya out? According to later videos, they are still around in later fights.



Next is Liu Kang vs Sub-Zero. Kitana ain't here to offer water as a weapon this time Liu.

The ice ninja sees Liu Kang just standing there, mediating.
Are we going to fight or what?

Liu got fed up with him invading his personal space and they fought.

During the fight, the ice ninja grab Liu's hand and you hear an odd noise. It seems he freeze his hand for a second. After that, he freezes the ground.
Looks weird he lifts his leg like that.

At one point, after putting Liu Kang on the ground, Sub-Zero waved arms in the air for a good few seconds. Err..ok. 

In round 3, he did a Micheal Jackson spin and then do the ice shower attack.
 The Bruce Lee clone counterattack with a Bicycle Kick.
And it looks silly. Then again, it was always look silly to begin with. Even in the 1st MK movie with it's higher budget, it still looked weird.


 Sub-Zero grabbed Liu and threw him on this mat that randomly appeared.
In the next shot, the mat was completely gone

The ice ninja grabbed his leg and Liu begged for mercy. The victor is Sub-Zero. Gee Liu Kang fail again, how is he the champion of Mortal Kombat when all he does is get his butt kicked?


Next is Jax vs Shang Tsung

In the middle of the battle, for some reason, Shang watch Jax slowly get up from the ground for a full 5 seconds.
For a man that's evil, backstabbing, and conniving, he isn't kicking him while he's down.


Jax did an uppercut that sent Shang skywards and we watch the sorcerer fly in the air with his arms rotating for a several seconds.
This reminds me of that one glitch from Assassin's Creed Unity where you stuck in the air.

Then Jax did a groundpound
At least we're not seeing it through his body. Still looks fake tho.

Later, he had the sorcerer's body in his arms and we hear an odd sound effect. I guess he squished him so hard, he may of turn his inners into mush or something.

He dropped him on the the ground and the weaken Shang threw a fireball at the Jax that knocks him off his feet. They were too weak to continue.

It ended in a draw.


Next is Kitana vs Scorpion at the pyramid of Argus.

Ok it's not Argus' pyramid. Not with that skull face on the side. For one thing, this web series came out years before the final game in the old timeline.

They fight and when the princess knocks the undead ninja to the ground, he says as he's getting up, "Is that all you got Princess?" Who knew Scorpion is the type of guy that makes petty taunts in the middle of the fight.

Like the previous fight, Scorpion did an uppercut and send Kitana flying. We see her float in the air for a few seconds.

Round 3 had Scorpion who clearly have the upperhand. Kitana has no strength left and the undead ninja is toying with her. Oh and he slaps her several times. Gee this is sound like abuse. The match ends with Scorpion winning as we see 6 long seconds of Kitana rolling in pain. Gee, these directors need to learn to edit.


Next is Shang Tsung vs Nightwolf.

The video starts with a long drawn out shot of the artwork of Shang Tsung's leather jacket.
Err..ok. Shang is kinda an old fashion type of guy sort of. He's either in robes or vests. Never in pimp out leather jackets.

Ok, I can clearly tell he doesn't fit with the background.

Yeah, these two wear black and you can tell it doesn't work on the black backgrounds.

The Sorcerer and Native American fought. One move Nightwolf did looked similar to breakdancing.

He hold up his tomahawk and...just stand there.

Shang got tired of him of holding that thing and shoot a fireball to knock the weapon out. 

 Nightwolf then shoot a spirit arrow.
Ok, why are they red and not green? Is this guy Cupid or something?

Anyways, the match ends with Shang Tsung as the victor. As he was standing over Nightwolf's body, I was half-expecting him to steal his soul but he doesn't. That's kinda out of character for Shang to not do that. Now I think about it, there's been no fatalities are in these videos. I guess it's for the sake the makers of the series didn't want to lose their characters. They seem to be recycling the same characters over and over so far.


Next is Sub-Zero vs Siann.

Ok, this is the most vocal incarnation of Sub-Zero I ever seen. Throughout the fight, he said in a Christopher Nolan's Bane's muffled voice, "Come on, you can't beat me", "You alive in there", "Come on, is that all you got", "What's a matter, need some help getting up","You can't take me".

Man what a jerk, is this really the younger Sub-Zero, Kuai Liang and not his more evil elder brother, Bi-Han? Well this is a sequel to both MK movies and the elder one died in the 1st movie. Also this was made years before the retcon that Bi-Han was reborn as Noob Saibot.


Shouldn't she be freezing in that outfit.

They fight and ice ninja used his ice clone move, where touching it causes you to freeze.

Looks more like leaded glass than ice


When she was on the ground, he mocked her and she responses with a judo throw. He screams like a girl while being thrown.

At the end of the battle, he deep freezes her.
Well it seems we finally see fatalities for once. He shatters her and...


Ok, I rather they don't have fatalities if it looks this terrible. Her head is in wrapped in plastic while Windows Paint was used to draw the blood.

Well she may come back since her and Quan Chi's other two assassins are undead.

Oh and Sub-Zero does a weird muffled evil laugh. Seriously, is this Bi-Han?


Next is Sonya vs Rain

Well we finally got the best shot of her face.

I get she has a military past and all but why does she have this. She didn't have face paint in any of the games(till MKX and that was an alternate skin). It just looks weird on her.

Oh and Rain is sexist, "This a man's world, why they send a woman?" Thankfully, he isn't as vocal like the last ninja in the previous fight.

They fight for a while and at the end of round 3, she rolls around in pain for a good 8 seconds. Eehh..cut? Do these directors know when to edit?



Next is Liu Kang vs Scorpion. The hero of the series vs the face of the series.

1st thing I notice is that they are playing different music for once. I haven't said this yet but every single fight so far has been the same exact music. I don't hate the music but it be nice to have a variety. The next thing I notice, it sounds very familiar. It's because it's the battle music used from animated movie, MK: The Journey Begins as you see tarkatans marching, Johnny backtracking, the good guys blocks the villains blows, tarkatans marching, Johnny backtracki.. and repeating the same stuff over and over.

Anyways, Liu is on a top of a tower waiting. A hole in the tower opens and Scorpion comes out like a cartoon kharacter out of the hole.

He rises the same way Poohie does when he was going to his planet from Itchy and Scratchy.


Scorpion performs a force punch on Liu.
Like the same exact way Luke uses a Force Kick

Scorpion looks weird with human eyes and a shocked expression

Then Liu Kang plays jump rope with Scorpion's spear attack.

The battle ends with Scorpion falling off the tower and exploding into a Windows movie maker effect.
At least it's a billions times better looking than the Sub-Zero fatality.

For next match is someone new finally. You notice a good number of kharacters are the same ones lately.

The next match Quan Chi vs Rain

But instead of an actual actor on the set, they have stock footage from MK Conquest.

You then see him used a spell on himself made out 90s TV CGI which is better looking than 99% of the effects of this web series.

Then he is invisible throughout the entire match.

A green figure of man attacks Rain.

So the entire match is nothing more than watching Rain fight the green screen itself. This series is so cheap that they use this method. 

The victor is fight is Quan Chi.

That's all the battles in this series. All the remaining ones are story based.


The gods of late 90s website GIFs called the fighters to session.

They either stay still or moved very little. It's obliviously stock footage from earlier fights.

The elder gods called the fighters for two things. One, they want to demote Raiden from elder god status. This is a sequel to both MK movies and the 2nd one ended with Raiden getting promoted. Also MK4 game was still new at the time where he ascended to elder god status(till Deadly Alliance where he cast aside his elder god status) The gods of GIFs are unhappy that Raiden is biased towards Earthrealm and he be a terrible judge for this tournament.

The other thing is Jax is wanted for the murder for the death of Ruby.

Ruby was an old friend of Jax who was secretly a spy for Shao Khan. She may of been based on Jade or a early prototype of Tanya.

The cartoon was a loose sequel to the 1st movie but then 2nd movie came around and overwritten it. So the cartoon isn't in the same continuity as the web series.

Well in the web series itself, Ruby was going to take part of the tournament but she was murdered outside of the grounds. She was fighting for Outworld but rumors were around she would defect to Earthrealm.

We heard the prosecution and defense of the case. They show footage of the very last thing that Ruby seen before she passes.

Jax covered in Window Paint marker

The gods of GIFs asked him to punch a steel plate.

I'm surprised he didn't damage his hand afterwards.


Raiden tried to help.
They used footage from MK Conquest and he speaks like a wooden puppet

Jax is found guilty and plan to be put to death by a death trap. Eh.., ok. Aren't these gods? Can't they blast him with their powers or something. Why are they putting him in a James Bond villain trap? Also, it seems the elder gods aren't omniscient since they assume Jax is guilty.

In the next video, as Jax is seconds away from death, Raiden uses his bolts to free guy. Several good guys teleport to help Jax while several bad guys appeared as well.

I notice something and it's the same matches from earlier. Liu vs Filler Towelhead, Nightwolf vs Shang Tsung, Sonya vs Ermac. They are using stock footage from the earlier matches. This series gets lazier and lazier.

Stock footage of MK Conquest Raiden enters the scene and his dubbed voice said Jax is not the killer.

Because we see the doppelganger.

He gets hurt and morphs into his true appearance.
Fake Smoke

No guys, that's is not really Smoke. It's just a generic ninja. So he going to be like the next Tremor and become a playable character decades from now? I mean they both originate from awful MK products.

He said to the others, "Death to Ruby, death to all traitors. Long live the Black Dragon". Then he did the same shocked expression Scorpion did from the fight with Liu Kang(Obviously stock footage) and Fake Smoke was squished by the death trap that was originally used for Jax.


Next part is the elder gods deciding who should replace Raiden.

One is the princess of Edenia, Kitana. I can kinda see her as god watching over the tournament.


Next is Fujin, the god of wind. That makes a good choice, he was going to be Raiden's replacement of the protector of Earthrealm when Raiden got promoted in MK4 but after Raiden cast away his elder god status in the very next game, Fujin been either had very small roles and cameos.


Next is Omegis. She was from MK Conquest. Seeing she's all flirty and barely dressed, I guess she be a love goddess like Aphrodite/Venus.

Last is the emperor of Outworld, Shao Khan. 

Suddenly, stock footage of Raiden from the TV show appeared and said his dubbed voice said he would not allow someone like Khan be an elder god. He told the GIF gods if they do this, then Raiden would declare war on them. OK, Raiden has balls to go against gods.

The last video was saying who be the new eldergod. As it showed stock footage of Omegis and Khan from the show while showing Fujin's character select portrait from MK4. Because they are too lazy to get actors on screen.


And the series got cancelled.

This web series is downright embarrassing bad. It may been ahead of the time to have a MK series airing online but still, it is embarrassing bad. Anything that came out of MK that people say were bad over the years like the 2nd movie was at least laughably bad and it is entertaining. The Journey Begins, if you ignore the bad animation, it does have good voice work and tells the basic story of MK1 well and explore other parts of the MK lore. The badly dated cutscenes of MK4 and mythologies, they still tell good stories, go play the N64 version mythologies to ignore the cheesy acting. This web series....It's equally as bad as MK: Special Forces. At least Special Forces gave birth to Tremor who reappeared years later.

Go watch MK Legacy to see a better MK web series than this collection of laziness.


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