Shao Kahn

Shao Kahn is a boss from the Mortal Kombat series of fighting games.

About Shao Kahn
Shao Kahn (frequently misspelled as Shao Khan), who resembles an Asian warrior-king in many respects, embodies evil in many forms. He is known for his godlike strength, extreme callousness, brutality and his fondness of personal executions, but rises above the level of a mere warlord through his intelligence and knowledge of black magic. Like his subordinate Shang Tsung, he has the power to consume other souls. His greatest strength is probably his ability to work towards his goals with great tenacity and his ability to organize, but his greatest weaknesses are his arrogance and his overconfidence.

Storyline
Shao Kahn originally served as an advisor to Onaga when he ruled Outworld as the Dragon King. Onaga's Empire had become the most powerful in the realms and so he began searching for a way to become immortal. Before his goal could be realized, Shao Kahn made his move by poisoning Onaga and taking his kingdom. Leading whatever troops that remained loyal to the Dragon King, Kahn continued many of the former emperor's plans. He continued to add lesser realms to Outworld, either through direct conquest or through Mortal Kombat.

A milestone in his military victories was the merging of Edenia with Outworld. After his warriors had won in Mortal Kombat, Kahn invaded the realm. On the battlefield, Kahn killed King Jerrod, and took Queen Sindel as his wife, raising her daughter, Princess Kitana, as his own. He had the young princess trained as his personal guard as an assassin. Sindel took her own life in an attempt to escape subservience to the Emperor. Unwilling to be denied, Kahn held her soul in Outworld, stopping her transition to the afterlife.

Many years later, Kahn chose his next conquest... Earthrealm. He sent Shang Tsung and eventually Goro to Earthrealm to prepare it for an invasion. A turning point came when Prince Goro defeated the Great Kung Lao and started a winning streak that would last for 500 years. Shang Tsung, a shapeshifter, supervised the tournament. The tenth Mortal Kombat however, saw the defeat of both Goro and Tsung by a Shaolin monk, Liu Kang. Because of this, five hundred years of work was ruined. Shang Tsung begged for his life with Shao Kahn, and came up with a plan to lure Earth's chosen warriors to Outworld for a second tournament. If Earthrealm's champions would be killed, they would not be able to cause further damage to Kahn's plans. With the captured Kano and Sonya Blade as bait, and enraging Liu Kang by sending Baraka and his troops to destroy the Shaolin temples, they confidently waited for the Earth warriors to fall into the trap. Despite Kahn's vast power, Liu Kang's determination saw him through, and he defeated the despot. Unwilling to accept defeat, Kahn called his armies to destroy the Earthrealm warriors. They fled back to Earthrealm, out of Kahn's clutches. By this time, Shang Tsung had good news for the emperor: he could resurrect queen Sindel in Earthrealm, and Kahn could reach across the border to claim her, which would merge Earthrealm and Outworld in the process. Kahn had Tsung proceed, and when he reached across, the realms merged, ripping the souls of every living being in Earthrealm from their bodies. Kahn's day finally seemed to have come. Lord Raiden had protected the souls of a handful of warriors, but Kahn sent extermination squads to kill them. In the ensuing fights, Kahn was confronted by Kung Lao, a Shaolin monk and descendant of the warrior Goro defeated to become champion of Kombat, but Kahn crushed him. Raiden brought Liu Kang to fight him again, and the Shaolin Monk wore Kahn down enough for him to recall his squads and retreat to Outworld, which stopped the merger and restored Earthrealm to its original status. To make matters worse for Kahn, many of his loyal soldiers had abandoned him. But worst of all, Kitana had succeeded in turning Sindel to her side, and restoring Edenia as an independent realm.

The emperor was now greatly weakened, and would remain so for a period of several years, remaining inactive during Shinnok's war against the gods. The Edenians had in the meantime made peace and military treaties with the Shokan, whom Kahn had always heavily relied on, and were ready to attack Outworld a few years later. It was only through his new commander Kano's ingenuity, and the stealth of his unreliable assassin Noob Saibot, who critically wounded Goro, that Kahn was able to save the day and force the Edenian army into a draw. Soon afterwards, the sorcerors Quan Chi and Shang Tsung entered his throne room, and swore false allegiance to the emperor. Quan Chi and Shang Tsung would catch Shao Kahn off guard and murder him. This was the demise of the mighty emperor.

Possible future
In the Gamecube version of Deception it is revealed that Kahn did not die, and that it was a clone that Quan Chi and Shang Tsung killed. Later, Kahn appears to the wounded Goro, and in his ending, the two assassinate Onaga, reaffirming Kahn as emperor. Whether these events will be considered canon remains to be seen, as both Onaga and Shao Kahn are confirmed as returning in the upcoming Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.

Fatalities

 * Human Nail – Shao Kahn hammers his opponent into the ground leaving only their head sticking out of the ground. He then laughs before hammering his opponent into a bloody explosion. (MKT:N64)
 * Home Run – Shao Kahn uppercuts his opponent, and smashes them to pieces with his hammer as they fall. (MK:D)
 * Human Nail – Shao Kahn hammers his opponent into the ground and then, when they are buried up to their torso, smashes their head off. (MK:D)

Other finishers

 * Hara-Kiri – Shao Kahn tosses his hammer into the air, and it comes back down on his head. (MK:D)

Movie appearances
Shao Kahn appears in both Mortal Kombat movies, although he is played by different actors. In the first movie, Kahn's appearance is only a bit part, as he appears only as a special effect (though he is referred to through the movie only as "the Emperor"). In the second movie, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Kahn is played by Brian Thompson; he is ultimately defeated and killed by Liu Kang.

Thompson, because of the movie being a box office flop, was often accused of overdramatizing his character in many scenes.

In Annihilation, as an attempt to shock the viewer, Raiden announced that Shao Kahn was his brother and Shinnok their father. He bore the same tattoo on his right shoulder as a sign of their family that Raiden wore. This has never been made official in the MK canon, and most fans have dismissed this as another example of how far-removed from the games Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was.

TV appearances
Shao Kahn appears in Mortal Kombat: Conquest, played by Jeff Meek. Despite having lost much of his physical stature from the games and movies, he has a much more threatening disposition, though he rarely interacts with the heroes of the series (due to his inability to travel to Earth). Jeff Meek's role is more interesting when one considers that he played Raiden on the same show, occasionally opposite himself.

He also appeared in several episodes of Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm.

Trivia



 * Kahn started out unmasked and with large gnashing teeth similar to Baraka, since everyone from Outworld was originally to be of Baraka's race. The idea of all inhabitants of Outworld being Tarkata was later dropped.
 * In MKII, Kahn was digitally resized to a taller height to make him tower over the playable characters. Ironically, the actor who played him, bodybuilder Brian Glynn, was not nearly as imposing in comparison; a photograph published in GamePro magazine of Glynn and Ed Boon standing side-by-side, which was snapped during production of the game, surprisingly showed that Boon was taller.
 * In many official depictions of Shao Kahn made by Midway, he is shown wearing a cape, which he takes off before starting a fight. Mortal Kombat Deception was the first game in which he wore the cape in-game.
 * Kahn was never seen unmasked in a game until Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks where, once he loses half his health, a scene plays in which he pulls out a hammer and throws it at the player, which the player throws back at him and smashes the mask to pieces.
 * His height has been changed considerably since the 2D Mortal Kombat games, in which he practically towered over most of the other opponents. His physical appearance has also been altered; Kahn had formerly been bigger proportionately than his foes.
 * Shao Kahn's voice is an ever present sound in the Mortal Kombat games. Even when is isn't present, he can be heard as a form of 'commentator' with phrases such as "Outstanding" and "Excellent".  He also 'orders' you to finish your opponent at the end of a match (supporting his character type). His voice can be heard in Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict, which featured Mortal Kombat themes.
 * A 1993 UK-published strategy guide for MKII described Kahn as being "dressed like a '70s disco queen."
 * Kahn's name was accidentally hyphenated in the closing credits of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation ("Shao-Kahn").
 * If time expired with a round ending in an even draw (both players sustaining no damage) in MKII, a disgusted Kahn shouted an expletive.