Mortal Kombat Retcons Kano & Sonya’s Backstory For The Third Time

The 2021 Mortal Kombat movie changes up the origin of the feud between Kano and Sonya Blade, which has existed since the first Mortal Kombat game.

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Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie.

The 2021 Mortal Kombat movie offers up yet another retooling of the classic rivalry between two of its original fighters, the mercenary Kano and the soldier Sonya Blade. This marks the third distinctive version of the characters’ backstories to appear in any medium. Played in the new film by Jessica McNamee, Sonya Blade was a late addition to the roster of the first Mortal Kombat game in 1992. The developers decided to add Sonya into the game at the last minute after it was suggested they should include at least one female fighter.

The game established Sonya as a Special Forces soldier, who entered the Mortal Kombat tournament to save the lives of her strike team after they were captured while pursuing the criminal gang leader Kano to the island where the tournament was being held. Beyond that, the game didn’t give Sonya any special motivation, though later games would say she had a personal grudge against Kano. The details were expanded upon in the 1994 Mortal Kombat novel by Jeff Rovin, the 1994 Mortal Kombat comics series published by Mailbu Comics, and the 1995 Mortal Kombat film. All of these adaptations stated that Kano had killed Sonya’s partner.

The details of the feud were changed in the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot videogame, which set up an alternative timeline from the original games. Here, Sonya’s hatred of Kano was fueled by his being personally responsible for the deaths of many members of her Special Forces squad as they pursued his Black Dragon crime syndicate. Kano was given a personal reason for hating Sonya and her allies as well, with it being established that Kano picked up his trademark laser eye and facial scars after losing the original in a fight with Jax.

In the 2021 Mortal Kombat, this dynamic was changed yet again, with the longstanding rivalry between Sonya and Kano being discarded completely so that it could be built up anew over the course of the film. In the movie, Sonya and Jax are Special Forces soldiers who became aware of the existence of the Mortal Kombat tournament, whose participants acquire special dragon-mark tattoos indicating that they were chosen to act as a champion of Earth. Sonya and Jax began seeking out these chosen ones, with little luck beyond capturing Kano shortly after he killed one of the champions and, per the rules of Mortal Kombat, acquired the dragon mark for himself.

The film presents Kano as a comic, loutish figure, who belittles Sonya’s skill as a fighter and makes a number of off-color remarks about her, even after she easily defeats him in a one-on-one fight. This does nothing to improve her opinion of him, which was already quite low given Kano’s mercenary attitude and unwillingness to fight to save the Earth when there is no money in it. Kano, in turn, holds a grudge against Sonya over how he was held captive and makes a mockery of her ideals out of spite. While this isn’t in line with the original Mortal Kombat games, it does make for a more interesting and cinematic dynamic when the two face one another with the fate of the world in the balance.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/mortal-kombat-2021-kano-sonya-backstory-retcon/