Mortal Kombat: Shadow Reign

The Guangzhou scene made a Mortal Kombat fan film. Not a sketch, not a proof of concept. A full one, with a roster, real fights, and a body count. Then on 30 October we filled a cinema for it, a CCC Movie Premieres night (电影首映), the recurring format where the community takes over a screen of its own.

People showed up in cosplay. Sub-Zero and Scorpion walked the same red carpet as the cast who played them. The house was packed and loud, which is exactly what you want when the thing on screen was built by the people sitting three rows back.

The film

Mortal Kombat: Shadow Reign was directed by Adel Ali and Gianluca Matteo, and written by Adel Ali and Tre Williams. Produced by Avalanche Productions, in collaboration with Gemi Media and Fosence.

The story: Shao Kahn defies the gods and launches an unsanctioned Mortal Kombat, so Raiden rallies Earth’s best fighters, Scorpion, Sonya, Jax, Liu Kang and Johnny Cage, against the forces of Outworld. Alliances shift, the balance between realms goes thin, and one tournament decides the fate of every world.

Adel Ali did not pace himself. Co-director, co-writer, lead fight and stunt choreographer, editor, sound designer, and Johnny Cage on camera. One person, that many hats, on a passion project. You can feel it in the film.

The cast is a proper ensemble: Sebastian Mok as Scorpion, Lam Wu as Sub-Zero and Noob Saibot, Edward Okafor as Raiden, Levi Webb as Shao Kahn, Alia Haze as Sonya Blade, Tre Williams as Jax, Lika Toronjadze as Kitana, Vivien Green as Mileena, Anina Net as Sindel, Brono Bajtala as Nightwolf, Wu Yu as Liu Kang, and more. They shot across real Guangzhou locations. A boxing club, studios, a music plaza. The fights are choreographed and performed for real, not faked in the edit.

A note on the film

Shadow Reign is a non-profit fan film, made by fans out of love for the source material. It is not official and not commercial. Mortal Kombat and all of its characters belong to Warner Bros. and NetherRealm Studios, created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. CCC is not affiliated with them. This was the scene paying tribute to a game it grew up on, and nothing more.

The scene behind it

This came out of the same Guangzhou creative community CCC is built around, and it shows in the credits. Brono Bajtala, who also made the fantasy short The Warrior’s Tale, plays Nightwolf. Wing Hua, who leads the Guangzhou chapter, ran point as a production assistant. Tre Williams, Levi Webb and Anina Net are all in it too.

That is the thing worth saying out loud. When this scene decides to make something big and ridiculous and ambitious, it can pull together a full cast and crew, shoot it across the city, and then fill a cinema with the people who turned up to watch.

The night

This was a CCC Movie Premieres night, the series where the community books out a cinema and premieres a film on the big screen, and we do it more than once. This one was the Shadow Reign premiere: Thursday, 30 October 2025 at Pearl River Film Lumina Int. Cinema in Guangzhou. Doors at 7:30, lights down at 8:30. Tickets were ¥50.

There was a red carpet and a step-and-repeat, because if you make a fan film this size you earn one. The filmmakers opened the night. A set of short preview films ran first, then the main feature. After the credits we did a live Q&A with the filmmakers and crew, the kind where you actually find out how a fight got blocked and what nearly went wrong. Group photos. Then everyone carried the night over to Happy Monk for drinks and the afterparty, which ran the way these things should.

Watch it

Because it is a non-profit fan film, Shadow Reign is free to watch. The full film is embedded below. Put it on, full screen, sound up.

For what this community makes next, and the next time we take something over a cinema, follow CCC on our WeChat Official Account and on Xiaohongshu (小红书). That is where the day-to-day lives.