Mortal Kombat: Conquest

After winning the Mortal Kombat tournament and defeating the sorcerer who threatened Earth, Kung Lao turns from competitor to coach. He sets up a martial school to train a new generation of fighters who can defend Earth Realm in the next competition, balancing discipline with battlefield experience. Meanwhile, Shang Tsung, stripped of power and exiled, plots to undermine those efforts by sending supernatural assassins like Scorpion and Sub-Zero to sow chaos. The series follows the training, the skirmishes, and the shifting alliances as students grow into warriors without revealing later twists or the final outcomes.

Premiered in 1998, Mortal Kombat: Conquest adapts the popular arcade fighting game franchise for television. The cast includes Paolo Montalbán as Kung Lao, Daniel Bernhardt as Siro, Kristanna Loken as Taja, Jeffrey Meek as Raiden and Shao Kahn, and Bruce Locke as Shang Tsung, bringing familiar characters to a serialized live-action format.

The show didn't receive major industry awards and had limited formal recognition from mainstream prize bodies. It did, however, earn attention within fan communities and at genre gatherings, where its attempt to translate game mythos and fight sequences to weekly TV was often discussed.

As an early live-action expansion of the Mortal Kombat universe, the series helped put franchise characters on television and provided one of the first serialized, character-driven takes on the games. It gave early screen exposure to performers like Kristanna Loken, and its episodic approach to tournaments and supernatural threats left a lasting impression on franchise fans who appreciate its ambition despite visible budget limits.

Critical and fan reception was mixed but leaned positive among genre audiences, reflected in a current user score near 6.97 out of 10 from 331 votes. Viewers tended to praise the show's action set pieces and mythic conflicts, while noting inconsistencies in writing and production values. The result is an entertaining, sometimes uneven, retro sci-fi and fantasy action series for Mortal Kombat enthusiasts.