The Rise and Fall of Robin Shou / What happened to Mortal Kombat's Liu Kang?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_hLPASspqA
What really happened to Mortal Kombat's Liu Kang? In this video, I'll be discussing the rise and fall of Robin Shou.share
Known worldwide for playing title character Liu Kang in 1995s film adaption of the popular Mortal Kombat videogame, Robin Shou, was born Shou Wan-por on July 17th, 1960. Prior to Mortal Kombat, Robin had already been in the film business working as a stunt performer in Hong Kong for 9 years.
Robin Shou didn’t start training in martial arts until he was 19 years old. He first began classes and trained in Kenpo Karate while attending California State University Los Angeles. However, he soon realized that Karate didn’t do anything for him, so he decided to quit. A year and a half later, his interest in martial arts would explode after watching a demonstration by a group of Wu Shu practitioners from Beijing. Because he was so inspired by that demonstration, just before starting his senior year at UCLA, he sold his car and the used the money to begin studying Wu Shu in China.
After years of training in the martial arts, Robin become an international forms champion and member of the national WuShu team. He then took off to Hong Kong on vacation and Soon after his arrival, was offered a chance to appear in a movie as a stuntman. From there, he was offered job after job
Robin’s first real dramatic role was in the film Forbidden Nights (1990), where he played opposite Melissa Gilbert. Though only a TV film, this was his American debut and surely a huge step forward for Hollywood. He would then go back to Hong Kong and continued make movies there. By this time, he was more thorough about the roles he was offered, but soon became bored as it was more of the same. He returned to LA in 1994 to start an import business.
While working as an importer/exporter, he got a call from his agent, who was ranting about a perfect role for him in a movie called Mortal Kombat. Initially, Robin wasn’t interested and assumed he would once again just be playing a villain who gets killed in the end. His agent begged him to audition, which he did along with other top contenders such as Jason Scott Lee, Russell Wong and Phillip Rhee. 7 auditions later, Robin was offered the role of Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat.