Mortal Kombat: Legacy II (2013)

The second collection of shorts in the MK anthology has more of a serialised structure than the character-centric vignettes of Series 1. Each story is split over 2 episodes this time, which are in turn part of a larger whole connected by a very specific locale. The contrast between past and present becomes a kind of running theme, while offering up some back story for certain characters.

It starts well. Episode 1 is like a violent HK movie. It doesn't have much of a plot, but focuses instead on showing Liu Kang’s relationship with the world he swore to protect and the one he left behind. It’s like an intro more than anything else, but that’s okay because all episodes have been simultaneously released for stream, so you don’t have to wait from week to week to get your fix.

The quality drops significantly in the middle, with some poor acting from the ladies, but see it through to the end and you’ll be rewarded with some Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. There are a couple of other interesting guest stars, too.

Each episode of Series One had its own visual look, but things are more or less standardised throughout this time. The lighting that Tancharoen or his DP has opted for puts more emphasis on gritty realism than before. It’s certainly a more unified visual experience but consequently a less interesting one if, like me, you happened to like the fanciful parts of Series One.

10 episodes, approx 7 - 9 mins each (some are shorter, some are longer).

2½ ideals worth defending out of 5

Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1996)

Animated MK nonsense that did almost everything wrong from the get-go. The animation is awful but I suspect the budget was too, so it'd be wrong to expect something as sophisticated as what Marvel or DC put out. I’m willing to overlook that aspect of it, but there are plenty of other problems to focus on.

Being aimed at kids meant it was bloodless, but it was also soulless and guilty of flat, emotionless dialogue. Kids want to be Batman or a Ninja Turtle, not these clowns. If I ever meet a kid that wants to be Liu Kang, I’ll slap the parents.

The show had some familiar voice talent, such as the always reliable Olivia d'Abo, the bad-ass Ron Perlman and good old Clancy Brown (who’s in every cartoon ever), but the characters they had to voice and the stories they were squeezed into were scraped from the bottom of a very old barrel.

The combatants had a super-secret high-tech base from which they monitored 'dimensional rifts.'  The rifts appeared all over Earthrealm and enabled the bad guys to come through from Outworld (and various other places); they’d then cause havoc and upset the happy equilibrium. If the rift happened to be on the other side of the world, then the team jumped in their super-fast high-tech Dragon Jets (that can even go underwater) and traversed the globe in seconds. Then, destination reached, every episode they’d fight a horde of similar looking villains/creatures/brain-dead henchmen and win. If there was a moral lesson to be learned at the end of it… well, you’d be lucky to get that kind of depth.

The worst aspect, the thing that made me physically wince with pain, was the awful, unending techno music. It accompanied every battle and even sometimes the journey to and from the super-secret high-tech base. Any time a quick fix was needed to fill the emptiness of the story they’d blast the music. Bastards!

It managed 13 episodes before getting the chop, which, frankly, was an achievement in itself. Only 2 of those 13 episodes were passable.

1 pair of bleeding ears out of 5

Mortal Kombat: Conquest (1998)

I've always believed it ridiculous that in almost all TV shows aimed at a young adult demographic (Buffy and Angel are the worst offenders) everyone knows kung fu or some other kind of mixed martial arts, no matter their background. With MK: Conquest, however, there's a reason so many citizens know kung fu: it's key to their survival. Villagers that haven't learned how to defend themselves aren't going to be safe for long. They may as well carry around a sign saying 'easy prey!'

(Alternatively, if they can't fight but are important to the plot, they get temporally saved by the chivalrous heroes... and then usually end up dead anyhow.)

The show is set "...centuries ago, in a time of darkness and fury," which translates to an undefined pre-industrial era, in a place called Zhuzin. It's a market town surrounded by forests and convenient tombs. Despite being in the dark ages, hair gel, cosmetic surgery, and support bras seem to be widely available.

There are three main protagonists. Most importantly is Kung Lao (Paolo Montalbán), a monk who owns only one pair of trousers. It's he that fights in the MK tournament as the defender of Earthrealm.

Fighting alongside Kung Lao (but not in the tournament) is the hot-headed man-slut Siro (Daniel Bernhardt). Siro also owns only one pair of trousers, but he has two different shirts. The ladies like that kind of thing.

And finally, the female of the group, the ex-thief, Taja (Kristanna Loken). She's an anomaly in the MK:C universe. The show is filled with the kind of plastic female the media tells us we want, the kind with provocative clothing, shallow personality, fake tits, etc, but Taja is the opposite. She dresses sensibly most of the time, has an athletic physique, and can count to ten without using her fingers.

Together the three friends defend Earthrealm from the forces of Outworld that wish to conquer it for various underdeveloped and cloudy reasons.

Overseeing the trio like a part-time father is the Thunder God Raiden (Jeffrey Meek). He gives advice but is forbidden from taking direct action.

Expect at least two fights per episode, accompanied by bad music. The combat is completely unrealistic but at the same time it's some of the most impressive I've ever seen outside of a Chinese TV show. Some of the people prancing about and doing unnecessary back flips really know their shit!

22 episodes, approx 44 minutes each. The last 5 or 6 eps are the highlight.

3 impractical face masks out of 5

The Legend of Korra (2012)

With the Aang Gaang’s continuing adventures being told in various Dark Horse comics titles, The Legend of Korra jumps ahead by 75 years after the original Avatar:TheLast Airbender series. Korra, a bending prodigy and next incarnation of the Avatar must complete her training and bring order to a city plagued with ever growing corruption and social unrest.

Just like its predecessor, Korra’s voice acting is fantastic and many of the more known talent easily disappear into their rolls enough for you to not even notice them if you didn’t look up their IMDB. One was sort of jarring to hear talk though. Production wise the art design and animation are all sublime and never look rushed or short changed. While the music is an audible treat which sounds quite like Chinese Jazz from the roaring 20’s.

Unfortunately the series hits several large snags in the story and character department. Now the characters themselves are all lovable and cover a diverse range of backgrounds and archetypes.  And the story lines are a heck of a lot more complex than the standard fantasy road trip to save the world. But with so much content and only 12 episodes things get messy past the first few installments. Civil rights, terrorism, romance, friendship, spiritual empowerment, and moral ambiguity are all touched upon too briefly and then put to the side for next development. This leaves many of the cast not as fleshed out or likeable in the end as they were in the beginning. I also have to say that the fight scenes aren’t as good due to the way so many characters are taken down so quickly with just token resentence. 

With all its shortcomings I can still recommend Korra. However I can’t help but feel that I’d rather be watching the continuing adventures of Aang in its stead.

12 episodes. Approx 24 Mins each.

Episodes to See:

There’s only 12, just watch all of them.

Buyer’s Guide:

Not available on DVD or Bluray yet. But when it is I’d expect to pay between $30 and $50.  You can snag it on iTunes right now.

3 Sexy Older Ladies out of 5

Mortal Kombat: Legacy (2011)

MK:L is a prequel anthology mini-series giving a brief glimpse of the motivations behind some of the characters' eventual inclusion in the tournament of the first MK game. It helps if you're already familiar with their aesthetic and powers.

The opening episodes try to be gritty with moody lighting and an over-reliance on action clichés, slow motion debris, blood on the camera lens, extreme post-production colour correction, lens flare, etc; all that boring shit that teenagers love. It feels like a scene from a generic Xbox game. MK is based on a game series but it's a fantasy/mystical tinged fighting game, not a Splinter Cell bedroom infiltrator wank-fantasy. It may sound like I'm hating on this pretty bad, but I'm not. I just like to have a rant before I get to the good stuff. If it was a movie I'd judge it as such, but it wasn't, it was a series of Webisodes and as such I make allowances for the budget and format. In that respect, it triumphs.

It's shot in 2.35:1. The majority of the individual episodes focus upon just one or two characters. The film style changes to suit their background and given attributes. That po-faced forced realism of the beginning two-parter isn't representative of the series as a whole. It grows more diverse in how it presents people and places, eventually finding a balance between exposition and intrigue.

Anthologies are nearly always hit and miss, but happily MK:L has enough hit moments to recommended it to fans of the series. I liked it.

9 episodes, approx 10 minutes each.

3 Samurai don’t sing out of 5

Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 3 (2007)

"The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can touch the poison of hatred without being harmed. Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light."

Following the events of season 2, Aang and the others find themselves hiding on a Fire Nation ship preparing to defeat the Fire Lord. To accomplish this they blend in to the Fire Nation population to gather intelligence and prepare for the final battle. While doing so they will continue to help the less fortunate and learn there may be more to the people of the Fire Nation than warmongers and destruction. Also pretty much every character receives some form of character growth as they go on this final leg of the journey. Both sides are equally served here, villians and heroes alike.

The final season of this trilogy of seasons is bigger and better in all respects. Animation and story are kicked into high gear with smooth and consistent quality. Action is packed full with not one, not two, but three multi-part episodes. An excellent run of episodes building up to a huge finale with returning characters and tons of the elemental martial arts to be seen along with the show's fine sense of humor. Quality animation, action packed plot and some good character growth makes this the best season of the three.

Episodes to See:
The Beach - An interlude giving perspective from the villains' point of view.
The Western Air Temple - A big plot point comes to fruition here.
Ember Island Players - The production crew essentially making fun of themselves. Also serves as a nice recap of the series before the finale.

Buyer's Guide:
Available as four DVD volumes or as a box set titled "Complete Book 3 Collection"

5 exhaustion induced hallucinations of samurai duels out of 5

Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 (2006)

"It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements and the other nations will help you become whole."

Having sufficiently learned waterbending, Aang and the others make their way to the Earth Kingdom in search of an earthbending teacher and to bring crucial intelligence for the war effort to the Earth King in the capitol of Ba Sing Se. Along the way they are harassed by new antagonist, Azula. She is a Fire Nation princess, bending prodigy and a far more dangerous adversary. As Zuko's sister she is sent specifically to succeed where Zuko has failed. A recurring subplot is Aang attempting to master the Avatar State; a superpowered state that affords him the power of all the past avatars. This proves more difficult than bending since there are benders abound, but there are seemingly none who can teach him how to be an avatar.

This season continues the precedent of excellent animation and surprising depth for a kid's show set by the first season while bringing in a fresh batch of the new. New characters, stories, and new twists on old characters particularly on the part of Zuko as circumstance forces him to deal with a new set of problems other than hunting Aang that may change him forever. Any problems of the first season have been remedied and the show hits its stride if it hadn't already. Best of the old and a slice of the new equals some fine entertainment.

Episodes to See:
The Blind Bandit - Best character in the series is introduced and some funny digs at pro wrestling.
Tales of Ba Sing Se - Collection of vignettes that gives some personal perspective for each character particularly Iroh.
Crossroads of Destiny - Chilling season finale with some twists. 

Buyer's Guide:
Available as multiple DVD volumes or as a box set titled Complete Book 2 Collection.

4½ Manly Tears shed for Mako out of 5

Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 1 (2005)

”Although his air bending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he’s ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world.”

A 100 year war has raged between the 4 nations of the world; The Earth Kingdom, Water Tribes, and Air Nomads versus the Fire Nation. Each nation has their own “benders”; people capable of manipulating their respective element of earth, water, fire and air through the use of martial arts. Only the Avatar can bring peace. As the human incarnation of the planet itself, the Avatar can manipulate all 4 elements and is tasked with maintaining the balance of the world, but he has been missing since before the war began.

Two siblings, Sokka and Katara, from the Southern Water Tribe find a boy frozen in an iceberg, He is Aang, an airbender and the new Avatar. Free from the iceberg, Aang must now fulfill his duty as Avatar and bring an end to the war, but first needs to master the other 3 elements and become a fully-realized Avatar. This proves a problem as there are few who can teach him. They embark on Aang’s flying sky bison named Appa to travel the world in search of a waterbending teacher, but are constantly harassed by Zuko, a banished Fire Nation prince looking to restore his honor, and Zhao, an ambitious commander in the Fire Nation navy out for the glory that capturing the only threat to victory would bring.

The series proved a hit for Nickelodeon as it found an audience outside of its target demographic. Creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko created a show that was very archetypical and had all the trappings of a kids show, but it was done very well. The lack of blood, often cheesy morality lessons and G-rated violence don’t stop the show from having some interesting themes and events including separation of families during war, racism and genocide. The effort and detail is evident in not just the characters and story, but also the authentic martial arts and asian influence that that make up the aesthetic. So audiences get a well done Hero’s Journey with cool supernatural martial arts that can appeal to all ages. Excellent.

Episodes You Must See:
The King of Omashu - Great humor and action.
The Siege of the North - Pretty epic as it should be for a 2-part finale

Episodes to Avoid:
The Great Divide - It could be removed entirely and not affect the series one bit. Throw in some annoying characters and this one is a definite skip.

Buyer’s Guide:
Available in multiple DVD volumes or as a box set titled Complete Book 1 Collection. Outside the US it is called The Legend of Aang instead of Last Airbender since the word “bender” apparently has some negative connotations.

4 Lotus Tiles out of 5