- Welcome back to another episode of "Scenic Fights,"
"Fight Scene Breakdown."
- I'm Chad Vázquez.
- I'm Logan Lo.
- We're looking at the final fight scene
of the 2021 "Mortal Kombat" film
based on the very popular fighting video game,
which I love very much,
between Sub-Zero played by Joe Taslim.
- [Logan] And Scorpion played by Hiroyuki Sanada.
- As well as Cole Young played by Lewis Tan.
- I really love to see myself
because there's just so many weapons involved.
We have modified tonfas,
of course the katana, another Japanese weapon.
We have kind of like an ice version
of the Chinese jian or gim.
And then finally we have our first flexible weapon
and we can talk about some of the shortcomings
and benefits of that as well.
- [Chad] All right here we go, the famous Scorpion line.
- Alright, let's hear it. - Get over here!
- Not you. - I'm sorry. Alright
- I wanted Scorpion to say it.
- I thought it was my cue.
- Scorpion whipped out his katana
and then we've got the jian.
It makes sense that the Chinese character Sub-Zero
is using a Chinese sword, basically .
It's a single-handed sword.
Versus Scorpion, he's using a double-handed katana.
so that makes sense.
This is good in-character universe stuff.
And a little roll action. Cool, cool.
You know, normally when I fight,
I don't spin this much, I have to say.
Nice disarm. So that's a classic disarm.
We should break that down.
Sub-Zero comes in with the number one attack,
and Scorpion passes it,
comes in, flips Sub-Zero around,
and basically sandwiches Sub-Zero's arm,
and then finishes with an elbow attack to the head.
Now that Sub-Zero is stunned,
Scorpion then immobilizes Sub-Zero's arm,
does a disarm
(sword thumps)
and then ambushes him with his kunai spear.
I normally want to disarm against the blunt edge of it.
Now, of course I could disarm against the edged part of it,
but if I have the opportunity
and there is this much available to me,
I could do a disarm here
like that.
I prefer disarming from the handle
just as Scorpion did to Sub-Zero because I find it safer.
So that was a great disarming by Scorpion.
- Good job, Hanzo. - Good job.
Oh, hidden weapon.
Stabs him. - I love that sequence.
- Bam. - Boom.
- So cool. Scorpion's so cool.
- He grabs it in this reverse grip.
Usually with reverse grip,
it's only for a moment and then you switch it.
You don't keep it in a reverse grip,
and I think he's gonna pay for that.
And there, see, he pays for it.
- Nice. - And dude,
there's a blood knife.
That's awesome.
So here in this very first scene,
we see Sub-Zero open up with a number three attack.
Now, if you remember,
we talked about the number three attack in "Raid 2"
with Hammer Girl.
And that's essentially a right-handed upward slash.
So the number one attack,
it's a very natural movement.
It's the number one attack because it's so natural,
basically from the right side, slashing downward.
The number three attack is something that's learned,
but once you learn it, it's a very good attack
because still coming from your dominant right side,
if you're right-handed, as most of the world is.
So Sub-Zero opens up
with this right-handed number three attack.
He is met by the blade.
He immediately comes down and tries to finish again.
He's met with Scorpion's reverse grip blade.
Now here's the thing: that's not bad defensively,
but notice,
Chad, can you hold that out and touch me with it?
Boom, like he's barely touching me,
and it's a longer weapon.
Whereas here I don't even need to try.
I'm clearly reaching him.
So we talked about this in our very first video,
the "John Wick" video.
When you have something in a reverse grip,
you generally don't want it longer than your palm,
and you can see why.
It's very unwieldy here.
It can be used defensively,
but offensively, not quite as much.
So why would you have something in a reverse grip?
Almost exactly as we saw here.
Because of how Scorpion retrieves his weapon,
it just happened to end up in a reverse grip.
Usually this is just by chance.
You happen to grab a weapon,
happen to have it in a reverse grip,
you want to defend just long enough to switch it
so that it's in an orthodox grip
because I can adequately defend myself and attack.
Whereas when it's in a reverse grip,
realistically, you're not launching the best attacks here.
And he pays for it later on by having his weapon
basically neutralize by Sub-Zero.
What Scorpion should have done is as soon as he was able to.
So do that same move again. The number three, boom.
Do the number two.
Here. Follow through.
He would immediately come through and switch.
So now he's ready with this longer weapon.
Because the katana is a longer weapon with greater reach,
he's now able to be very offensive with it.
And we see later on, that is indeed what Scorpion does.
- This is awesome, so Sub-Zero made his famous ice wall
that we also see in the video game.
- Cool. Threw him right through it.
And now we're seeing the kunai spear for the first time
as wielded by Scorpion.
I'm not a flexible weapons expert,
but there are definitely pros and cons to a flexible weapon.
And there's a reason why they're not used
as often in combat, right?
How often do you see a flexible weapon used?
- I'd I say very little.
- Very little.
And we'll talk about that,
and we'll talk about the limitations of it as well.
Here, we have espada y daga.
That's what we call it in kali,
where you have a longer weapon with the right hand
and a shorter weapon with the hand.
I don't often see that in Asian martial arts
and the reason why it's a ton of so long,
that you really can't have a shorter weapon.
But the kunai spear is interesting
because it can extend to a longer weapon.
So here we see some great espada y daga concepts
utilized by Scorpion.
What is espada y daga?
Basically it's dealing with a longer weapon
and a shorter weapon.
Now, why would you want that?
Because you're managing all the distances.
You're managing the long range distance
with the longer weapon
and the short range distance with the shorter weapon.
You're also able to be lethal with both hands.
I will note though,
that this is actually the first time
I've seen a katana used as an espada y daga.
Scorpion is obviously super powered,
so I don't think it matters to him
that it's a two handed or single-handed sword.
The cool thing about Scorpion's weapon
and his use of essentially the daga
is that the daga becomes a longer weapon.
It's called a kunai spear.
It looks like a dagger,
but it can be longer than his katana
just by throwing it out and then retracting it.
He does his, "Get over here!" with it.
It's a great use of the concept of a long and short weapon
where the long weapon becomes a short weapon
and the short weapon becomes the long weapon.
Fascinating.
If I had that power, I think that would be amazing.
Scorpion uses his kunai spear,
which is essentially like a rope dart.
This is a rope dart.
Someone armed with a flexible weapon is often disarmed.
Scorpion's weapon was made out of metal.
Does that make a difference? Not too much.
Even if you brought a metal whip,
most people would just take that strike,
grab the weapon and then pull it away.
With that amount of adrenaline,
it is probably not as damaging as you might imagine.
Let's contrast the flexible weapon with a rigid weapon.
Here, a blade.
Note that with a flexible weapon,
you need a certain level of velocity
for this to be dangerous.
Otherwise it's just a piece of rope.
But with an edged weapon, I don't need much velocity at all.
In fact, if I just went like that to you on your face,
I'm cutting your face.
In terms of lethality,
I would generally choose the rigid weapon
over a flexible weapon.
Again, we're not in the "Mortal Kombat" universe,
so it is different for Scorpion,
but still if I had my druthers,
I would generally choose the rigid weapon
over the flexible weapon.
- All right. Scorpion's wrapping him up.
Throw him into the cage.
Oh, that's awesome.
That's a really cool Sub-Zero ice clone.
Very annoying, my brother used it on me a lot
when we played against each other.
- Man, you played a lot of video games.
- We did. We did.
- More ice weapons. Hey, it's Cole.
- [Chad] Cole Young.
- Cole's using the tonfa.
This is like a modified tonfa.
In one of them, it's a traditional one.
The one he has in his left.
But the one that is right, it looks a lot more offensive.
It looks like it's sharpened on both ends.
- Like a blade. - Yeah, that's really cool.
He's wearing like kind of an Aquaman type thing
going on here, right?
- [Chad] Yeah. You're right.
- Oh, see. Sub-Zero's not scared.
He's got his- - He's kinda tired, though.
- He's a little tired.
A little tired. Lots of spinning action going on.
- [Chad] That was pretty cool.
- Bam, threw him against the cage.
Froze Scorpion. Now it's just him and Cole.
Cole is really going at it with those tonfas.
So this capture that Cole does of Sub-Zero's arm and weapon,
it's only possible because he's wearing the Arcana armor
and it prevents his shoulder from getting cut here.
And that allows him to capture the person
and then kind of ratchet up for that punch.
Cole is using his weapons properly.
He's using it as a boxer,
but he's instinctively understanding
how he can use it offensively
and defensively against Sub-Zero.
Here, Sub-Zero's launching a number one attack.
Cole catches it in a sandwich with his two weapons,
and because it is Arcana armor,
he's not injured here with the bladed part of the weapon.
He flips his tonfa over for a capture.
Chad, can you pull out?
Right. So with this I've now captured him.
He then cuts down, boom,
and plunges the first of several finishing blows
into Sub-Zero.
Overall, great use of the tonfa by Cole Young.
I mean, really, it's a good capture
and it was a good transition to an attack
with the other version of the tonfa.
But to be honest, you can't do this move
unless you actually have the Arcana armor, right?
- Or unless you have these awesome new
"Scenic Fights" rash guard from xmartial.com.
- Check it out.
- Then with these, you'll win every single fight.
- That's right. It's true.
In terms of weapons work,
Cole used it much like Chad used a push knife.
As we saw in our "Borne Identity" breakdown,
you'll note that he basically threw punches with this.
And here are the lethality of the blunt version of it
is still pretty lethal.
But with the sharpened portion of it,
he actually finished Sub-Zero
by shoving this into his heart.
It also changes length.
From here, I can also have greater reach.
Again, that same push knife concept
where I can literally punch a person,
but I can punch him with this long weapon.
Defensively, they're even more effective. Why?
Because you have this longer hard weapon
as the shield portion of it.
And this can change from defensive to offensive.
You can also use it this way to capture and pull.
Chad, you've never used a tonfa before, right?
- No. - Okay.
So let's imagine that you had something
that you had that in your hand.
If you got into a traditional boxing stance,
your traditional boxing stance is just like this,
and please don't hurt me. - Okay.
- But if you threw some punches,
just throw, what would your normal combination be?
- Let's see here. Boom, boom, boom.
Yeah, I guess straights here.
If I do a hook, I feel like I'd wanna use the end of this
if I'm gonna do a hook-like movement.
So I guess those are my basics.
- So I think that's interesting because,
correct me if I'm wrong,
but Cole was a fighter, right?
I mean, he's a boxer. - Yes, within the storyline,
Cole Young is a MMA fighter.
- For the character of Cole,
it made sense that they gave him this weapon
because he doesn't have a steep learning curve, right?
If I give you a sword, you would-
- I'd probably cut myself.
(Logan laughs) I'd probably hurt myself.
Yeah, that's mostly what would happen. Yeah.
Don't give me a sword.
- So I think that for this character,
and again, Cole is new.
He wasn't in the game, right?
- No, no. And I'm not gonna get into that, but yes.
He wasn't in the game at all. At all.
- (laughs) One thing that I liked about it
was because they made this new character,
they made it so they gave him a weapon
that he could instinctively use.
So you, as a boxer can instinctively use it.
I have no bias against Cole, unlike some people,
but I think that it makes sense
for this character to use these weapons.
- All right, cool. So Cole Young does a fireman's carry.
That's a term used in wrestling.
In judo, it's also referred to as a kata guruma.
And he did a cool launch and pass to Scorpion.
Oh, he's not having a good day.
- (sing song) Toasty!
All right, let me explain. I know that sounded weird.
- What's that? - Let me explain that.
So in the video game, if you would do an uppercut,
this guy's face would show up
and he would actually make that sound.
- Get outta here. - But it's also
the name of Scorpion's fatality.
- Wait, wait. So it sounds like that?
- Yeah, it sounds like (sing song) toasty.
Around that pitch. Maybe a little higher.
- I just learned something new today.
- And fatality. Scorpion wins.
- Clearly. - And Cole Young.
- And Cole. - He did his thing, sure.
Towards the end of the battle now,
we have Sub-Zero versus off against Cole Young and Scorpion.
And Cole Young,
it's his opening for a very common well-known takedown
referred to as the fireman's carry.
In judo, a kata guruma.
Cole Young with his left arm
connects to Sub-Zero's right arm.
It seems like possibly he's using his tool
to connect towards his arm here.
With a straight grappling context, without weapons,
you'd be using your palm like so,
and the other hand would be connected to the neck here.
And so you're using a pulling mechanism
to create a setup and opening.
And from here, there'll be a level change,
which Cole Young did to a certain degree
and a shot entry to the scoop grip here.
And then immediately with momentum,
there's a lift action.
Like so.
Now Cole Young, he just-
- Chad? - Yep?
- Can I come down?
- One second.
So Cole Young, he just tosses Sub-Zero right in the air,
and with the help of Scorpion, slams him like this.
- Jesus - But we just can't do that
for now because of a safety reasons.
The move is totally legitimate.
There is a danger.
If you can recall in our "Ava" episode,
we went over the crucifix position.
- Oh, yeah. You almost broke my arm there.
- Ah, yes I did. - Yeah, fun times.
- You know what I mean? - What we do for you guys.
He almost broke my arm.
- Exactly, and it's why you guys
really have to like, subscribe, and comment below.
- Seriously, man. - To kinda keep putting
Logan in danger, 'cause some of you like that.
I know you do.
But also just to give you better content there.
- That's true. - But that position
is a risk when doing this technique.
And it's a bit of a debate because the move does work,
but some coaches don't like it because of that reason.
Overall, valid move, and a pretty cool combo
that Cole Young did with Scorpion.
- Resulting in- - (sing song) Toasty!
The famous toasty fatality by Scorpion,
one of my personal favorites
and really cool how they did it within the movie.
- I actually, I enjoyed this scene.
The really cool parts of it
were the wide variety of weapons.
You have flexible weapons.
You have the introduction of the tonfa.
You have the katana, you have the ice sword.
I also liked the fact
that Sub-Zero used his single-handed sword
the way a Chinese fighter would
because he's Chinese, right? He's a Lin Kuei.
Also the Cole character was cool as well
because he comes out of nowhere.
Apparently he's not part of the original game,
but I liked that they gave him weapons that suited him.
'Cause he basically used his weapons
like a boxer would use the weapons for.
In terms of what I didn't like.
I didn't really like how Scorpion used his katana
because he used it in a way that was sub-optimal.
And again, he's a trained fighter.
He wouldn't have kept it in the reverse grip for so long.
It should have only been a momentary thing
and switched right away.
With all of this said, I give it a solid
B
It was a good fight scene.
I felt it could have been a little bit better,
but overall, a great updating of the "Mortal Kombat" genre.