Why does Scorpion go to hell in the new Mortal Kombat movie? Portrayed in the reboot by Hiroyuki Sanada, Mortal Kombat‘s opening prologue shows the bitter beginnings of the famed rivalry between Sanada’s Hanzo Hasashi and Joe Taslim’s Bi-Han, the two destined to later be known as Scorpion and Sub-Zero. The movie positions Hanzo as a more heroic figure with Bi-Han an outright villain, so it might seem surprising to some viewers that a character presented to be as much of a good guy as Hanzo should find himself in hell.
However, this is a big part of the Mortal Kombat lore when it comes to Scorpion. Where characters like Liu Kang or Shang Tsung fall into unambiguously good or evil camps in fighting for either Earthrealm or Outworld, Scorpion has long been much more of an anti-hero. Among the characters of Mortal Kombat, Scorpion has a background that could be the basis of its own movie, and even was with the 2020 animated film Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge.
In the games, the murder of Hanzo’s family and the entire Shirai Ryu ninja clan led Hanzo’s vengeful spirit to become a wraith in the Netherrealm, with Hanzo being revived as a willing assassin for the sorcerer Quan Chi, competing in Mortal Kombat and killing the first Sub-Zero Bi-Han, whom he believed to be his family’s killer. Hanzo later learned that his thirst for vengeance had been manipulated by Quan Chi, who had killed Hanzo’s family and framed Bi-Han for the crime.
Though Scorpion would become an anti-hero and periodic ally of Earthrealm’s warriors when he learned the truth of his deception, the fact that he was motivated by revenge is what places him in the Netherrealm in the first place. This is also one of the many areas where Mortal Kombat draws upon different elements of Asian mythology and religions. Hanzo’s descent into the Netherrealm and reincarnation as Scorpion derives from certain Chinese beliefs on the afterlife that those with unfinished business, such as revenge, can return to their former life to settle the score.
The basic idea is that unsettled matters such as vendettas can leave a soul unable to truly pass on into the afterlife, effectively placing them in hell until they are able to resolve the matter. Hanzo fits this description to a T, with his family and fellow Shirai Ryu ninjas massacred and his entry into the tournament being a quest for revenge from beginning to end. Of course, Hanzo is even more internally tortured when he comes to realize he killed the wrong man to avenge his family, making him one of Mortal Kombat‘s darkest and most complex characters.
The new movie seems to be changing Hanzo and Bi-Han’s stories up a fair amount, with Bi-Han murdering Hanzo’s family and the Shirai Ryu in the opening and later fighting for Shang Tsung as Sub-Zero, with no mention of Quan Chi in the entire movie. That isn’t to say he won’t be brought into the equation in Mortal Kombat 2, and it’s probably a safe bet that Bi-Han’s return as Noob Saibot is part of the plan. In any case, Mortal Kombat holds onto Hanzo’s history of descending into the Netherrealm and returning to avenge his family’s murder, a staple of the games that’s rooted in Eastern beliefs about how some might not pass on so easily into the afterlife.
