Speculation has been rife about what Mortal Kombat: Rebirth**, a glossy short film recently posted anonymously on YouTube, is actually for.
Latino Review have the answer: it's a test video, produced by Warner Bros and directed by Kevin Tancharoen (the Fame remake), designed to prove the potential for an R-rated reboot of the videogame franchise, originally brought to us in PG-13 form in the mid-90s by Paul WS Anderson.
In its current form, Rebirth shares a lot with the DTV sequels to Walter Hill's Undisputed: Michael Jai-White (as Jax) starred in Undisputed 2, and Lateef Crowder (Baraka) and fight choreographer Larnell Stovall are both Undisputed 3 alumni.
No guarantee that any of the short-film's cast and crew will continue to the big-screen version of course, but if the full-blown film were to see the light of day in its current form, we'd be looking at, as well as the above-mentioned, Jeri Ryan (Star Trek: Voyager's Seven of Nine) as Sonja Blade, Ian Anthony Dale as Scorpion ("c'mere!!") and Matt Mullins as Johnny Cage (signature move: paralysing punch in the balls). Given what happens to Cage in the short though, Mullins might already be looking for a new job.
This is presumably the same project, formerly known as Devastation, that Shimmer Lake writer Oren Uziel was drafting for Warners last year. Rebirth's fights are strong, even if its dialogue is a bit weak. But this is only a test, and its morphing Mortal Kombat's fight-tournament structure with a kind of Batman idea of mad supervillains running rampant, isn't bad. Is this on the right lines? Flawless victory, or babality? Do you want to see more?