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Mortal Kombat Fans Say That Josh Lawson’s Kano Stole The Show

All the way through the buildup and promotion for the Mortal Kombat reboot, the key members of the creative team constantly hammered home the idea that they'd deliberately sought out accomplished martial artists for the cast, to give a balance between actors that could do justice to the fight sequences just as well as the performances, which always made Josh Lawson's Kano feel like a bit of an outlier.

Mortal Kombat Kano

All the way through the buildup and promotion for the Mortal Kombat reboot, the key members of the creative team constantly hammered home the idea that they’d deliberately sought out accomplished martial artists for the cast, to give a balance between actors that could do justice to the fight sequences just as well as the performances, which always made Josh Lawson’s Kano feel like a bit of an outlier.

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Lewis Tan, Joe Taslim, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano, Ludi Lin, Max Huang and Nathan Jones all have extensive martial arts training and experience, while co-stars Mehcad Brooks and Jessica McNamee have appeared in several film and television projects that require stunt training. Lawson, meanwhile, is best known as a comedic presence, with his most high-profile roles prior to Mortal Kombat arguably being Anchorman 2‘s Kench Allenby and House of Lies‘ Doug Guggenheim.

That being said, it turned out to be the right decision, with the 39 year-old positively revelling in the opportunity to be the only member of the ensemble to have a little fun with the ridiculous premise and heightened fantasy world of Mortal Kombat. Everyone treats the material incredibly seriously with the exception of Kano, which sees Lawson deliver a charismatic turn that finds him coming close to stealing the entire movie. Fans clearly agree, and the character has been getting a lot of praise on social media, as evidenced below.

https://twitter.com/TonysaurusReks/status/1385983292617396225?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1385983292617396225%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmovieweb.com%2Fmortal-kombat-movie-josh-lawson-kano%2F

https://twitter.com/banksburner25/status/1385857226858893314?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1385857226858893314%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmovieweb.com%2Fmortal-kombat-movie-josh-lawson-kano%2F

https://twitter.com/knowsworthy/status/1385834740800835585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1385834740800835585%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmovieweb.com%2Fmortal-kombat-movie-josh-lawson-kano%2F

https://twitter.com/BlerdNerdy/status/1385937700369305606?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1385937700369305606%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmovieweb.com%2Fmortal-kombat-movie-josh-lawson-kano%2F

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Kano isn’t a lot of people’s favorite Mortal Kombat character on consoles, but Lawson has made sure that audiences won’t forget his wisecracking Australian redneck in a hurry, thanks to the creatively-worded insults he regularly lobs at the rest of the characters whenever he’s on the screen.