The best video game movies have ben released over the last few years, including Simon McQuoid’s pair of Mortal Kombat films. The sequel recently arrived on streaming for those with a HBO max subscription, and now fans like me can re-watch the R-rated adventure over and over again. Bodybuilder and actor Martyn Ford plays the villainous Shao Khan, and spoke to CinemaBlend about the “horrible” process of transforming into the beloved video game character.
Mortal Kombat II hit theaters in May, and now folks can stream the movie over on HBO Max. I had the chance to speak with the movie’s cast ahead of its release, where i asked Ford about what it was like becoming Shao Khan. He got honest about the transformation, joking it was:
Horrible. But the thing is, what a lot of people wouldn’t have understood through watching the film was the prosthetics and the level of prosthetics underneath the helmet was insane. Like three and a half, four hours just to get the face and and the body on. And then maybe an hour in wardrobe, and then obviously go into film throughout the day. Just the general problems that occur being in Australia in a film set with all the lights and the heat and and so on. Then you went in prosthetics then, and obviously the amount of fight sequences that Shao has in this film. And intense fight sequences, you know. That created so many problems and so much headache to be honest.
While Martyn Ford made playing Shao Khan look easy, the reality of becoming the Outworld antagonist was something very different. Namely because of the extensive prosthetics that were applied to his body and face for every single day of shooting. And the latter was used even though the character wore his signature helmet throughout almost all of Mortal Kombat II‘s 116-minute runtime. Talk about dedication.
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While Ford was honest about the difficulty of becoming Shao on the set of Mortal Kombat II, it wasn’t all bad. Later in our same conversation he spoke about why playing the video game character was still ultimately “rewarding.” He told me:
But never throughout the whole, that the whole sequences and the whole filming of it, did I ever feel that That was enough. I was done. I didn’t wanna carry on.’ It was so, so exciting, so well-rehearsed, such a good solid story and such an incredible character to, to play that even on those days where you are exhausted, dehydrated and physically beaten, are still turned a smile on my face and excited to do it. So it was tough. It was hard, but extremely rewarding.
Despite the hours of makeup and costumes needed before filming Mortal Kombat II, it sounds like Ford is still over the moon about his experience and the video game movie as a whole. And even though Shao Khan was killed by Kitana in the movie’s final fight sequence, we’ll have to wait and see if the actor ends up reprising his role if a third movie ends up being green lit by Warner Bros.
You can check out my conersation with Martyn Ford about his MK II role below:
While Mortal Kombat II’s writer has plans for four more movies, it’s currently unclear if Warner Bros. is planning to move forward with the burgeoning franchise. The movie made $129.5 million at the box office, which is significantly more than the first. If it performs well on HBO Max hopefully the studio will decide to green light a threequel. After all, there are tons of stories and characters to mine from.
Mortal Kombat II is streaming now on HBO Max as part of the 2026 movie release list. And it’s going to be different watching Ford’s performance knowing just how difficult it really was to become Shao Khan.