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Trivia: Actor and stunt performer Steve James was reportedly cast (or at very least was the favorite pick) for the part of Jax, which was originally meant to be a larger role. Tragically, he passed away from cancer nine months before filming started. The part ended up going to Gregory McKinney.

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Trivia: The producers desperately wanted the techno and electronic dance music featured in the film, but reportedly many record companies fought against it and turned down the project. One record company even suggested that instead of techno and EDM, Janet Jackson should provide most of the music, and that it should all be pop based. The producers persisted, and it eventually worked out - they got the music they wanted and the soundtrack album ended up going platinum.

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Trivia: Reportedly, Tom Cruise happened to be near the set one day, and wandered over to see what they were shooting. A medic who worked for the crew reportedly got in Cruise's face and refused to let him pass. The cast and crew were both mortified but also highly amused when they found out what happened later on.

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Trivia: The film had a rather peculiar tie-in produced - a thirty-minute animated short-film called "Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins." The short film was initially released on VHS and Laserdisc in 1995. While it was described as a "prequel" to the movie, it actually takes place during the events of the film... although it contains numerous contradictions that don't fit in with the movie. The short was eventually included as a special feature on the movie's Blu-Ray release.

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Trivia: The producers interviewed fans of the video-games in pre-production to get feedback on things like the story and costume designs. These interviews also inspired one scene in particular - Johnny Cage punching Goro in the crotch during their fight. Kids kept asking the producers during interviews if Goro "had balls," so the producers threw in the scene to answer their question.

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Trivia: The film's iconic theme song ("Techno Syndrome") has often been misconstrued as being created for the film. In actuality, it was created for the compilation album "Mortal Kombat: The Album," which was released to promote the video-game series a full year before the movie came out.

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Trivia: During the Liu VS Reptile fight, there are some circles with symbols inside of them visible on the wall at one point. The symbols are actually a secret cheat code for the video-game "Mortal Kombat 3," which came out around the same time as the movie. They were added into the film as an easter-egg for fans of the games. They could watch the movie and pause it at just the right moment to see the code.

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Trivia: Much of the cast suffered injuries during the filming of the fight scenes. Most notably, Robin Shou broke three ribs while filming the Liu VS Reptile fight and Linden Ashby suffered a kidney injury that caused him to urinate blood for a few days while filming the Johnny VS Scorpion fight.

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Trivia: Christopher Lambert had such a great time working on the movie, he routinely would pay for the cast and crew to eat diner at nice restaurants after filming, and even personally funded the cast and crew's wrap party when principal photography was finished.

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Trivia: When he was cast as Raiden, Christopher Lambert's agent only agreed for Lambert to appear on-set for a few weeks, and stipulated that Lambert would only film in or near Los Angeles. As the bulk of the film was being shot in Thailand, the producers intended to use a body-double for Raiden in wide-shots or filmed from behind, and then just film closeups of Lambert later on during reshoots, using a crew-member as a stand-in for the other cast members. However, when Lambert heard about the stipulations his agent made, he was furious. He wanted to actually work on-location with the other actors. He personally paid to fly himself to Thailand so he could properly shoot the movie, and worked on it longer than his agent agreed to, just because he wanted to.

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Trivia: Much of the film was shot in Thailand, where temperatures would regularly rise to over 100° Fahrenheit. This caused a peculiar problem - it was so hot out that makeup and prosthetic appliances wouldn't stay on and would just "melt off." This caused some major issues during the filming of Sonya and Kano's fight scene, as Kano's face-plate kept falling off.

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Trivia: The character Goro was mainly accomplished through the use of a large animatronic suit that would be worn by the actor. The Goro suit weighed over 125 pounds and cost roughly a million dollars. It broke down so often, cast and crew began to jokingly refer to the Goro suit as a "diva" who "wouldn't film his scenes."

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Trivia: The entire Liu Kang vs "Human Reptile" fight and the second half of Johnny Cage and Scorpion's fight (taking place in the underground necropolis) were added in reshoots after test-audiences reacted very positively to the film and especially the action. The studio decided to spend extra money to add more action to the movie and give fans more of what they wanted.

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Trivia: For many years, there was a longstanding rumor that Brandon Lee had been cast as Johnny Cage before his unfortunate death on the set of "The Crow." Director Paul WS Anderson has since confirmed that the rumor wasn't true.

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Trivia: The director on the set of Johnny Cage's movie bears a pretty striking resemblance to cinematic legend Steven Spielberg. Spielberg, who famously is a big fan of video-games, was reportedly approached to film a cameo, but was unable to free up the time. Thus a lookalike was cast as a bit of an inside joke.

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Trivia: Brief mentions are made of Liu Kang being a descendant of a warrior named Kung Lao, and a statue of Kung Lao can be seen faintly in the courtyard that is filled with statues. In the games, Kung Lao is actually the name of two characters - one an ancient and famous warrior, and the second one of his descendants, whom is both related to and good friends with Liu.

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Trivia: The original script reportedly had much more violence, which the studio had removed for a PG-13 rating. The original script also made Liu Kang and Princess Kitana's potential romance a bigger focus, whereas in the finished film, it's more subtle and implied, and the romance doesn't fully play out. (Although they are implied to be in love and entering into a relationship by the end of the sequel).

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