Tan’s ability to perform his own stunts doubtless reinforces his employability – schooled in kick-boxing and Muay Thai, he competed on amateur circuits in his native UK for many years. His love for martial arts goes back to when he was just five years old. “My father would teach me how to kick and how to punch. It was an experience that helped us bond,” explained Tan. “We’d spend time together, watching movies and practising our moves. It’s just rooted in a love for cinema and martial arts.”

If it sounds like Tan has a great appreciation for his father you are not mistaken – the action star is soon set to make his directorial debut with a self-penned script about the life of his father, the Chinese-Singaporean actor and stuntman Philip Tan.

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“My dad’s lived a pretty incredible life. As a child he was abandoned and was basically living on the streets of Canton [modern day Guangzhou] until he was about eight years old. Against all these odds he ended up winning the national championship for taekwondo in London,” says Tan, enthralled.

The part about his father’s story that really makes Tan’s eyes light up was that Tan Sr defied the boring, responsible provider trope so commonly assigned to Asian males who achieved success after adversity – by winning a national disco dancing championship in England too.

“The Carl Douglas song from the 1970s ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ was a big hit at the time. My father added elements of martial arts to the dance. It was unheard of for a Chinese guy to be dancing for titles at discos and winning.”

After getting his big break as an actor and fight choreographer working with Peter Sellers on 1980’s The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, Tan Sr went on to work on big-budget productions such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Batman Returns in the 80s. And now his son wants to tell his full story on the silver screen.

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“I wrote it like a coming-of-age tale that tells his story in three segments,” says Tan. “One is as a child in China, then about him growing up in London dealing with racism, abandonment issues, anger and pain. Then the last segment is set in the 70s when he started to build a name for himself. That’s what we need – we need to be able to tell original stories.”

“When you cast one ethnic person, they can’t be flawed and there’s no room for nuance. They’re barely in the movie, they’re barely there,” says Tan. “When you see an all-Asian cast now they’re just people. That’s when we can dive into character mistakes and their flaws. So now that’s what we need. We need that nuance because that’s what is important in storytelling and filmmaking.”

Tan is relieved that casting is finally becoming more broad-minded in Hollywood. “When I was first starting out, people who were casting would see other ethnicities because they had to. So they can say that they’ve seen other ethnicities for this role, but then they would ultimately always cast a Caucasian actor and [as Asians] we would get little side parts. There’s definitely a big difference in the last three to five years.”

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And he’s seen this first hand. In Mortal Kombat, almost all the characters of the original game that had Asian names – like Liu Kang and Kung Lao – are played by Asian actors (in this case, by Ludi Lin and Max Huang).

Ultimately there isn’t much to the Mortal Kombat universe apart from the numerous realms which were created by an eternal and ethereal pantheon of divine beings, known as the Elder Gods. It was they who decreed that the living beings of one realm could only conquer another realm by defeating that realm’s greatest warriors in 10 consecutive martial arts tournaments.

In the film version, Tan plays the lead role, Cole Young, a character not in the original 1992 video game. Young is however a descendant of one the favourite characters in game play – Scorpion – who is seen as very likely to take on his Scorpion’s role in time. In this version of Mortal Kombat, Young has a family and hesitates about entering the fight. Rather than having the story and character benchmarked to the much-loved lore of the video game, Cole Young is seen struggling before he fulfils his destiny, giving the character depth and a development arc.

“We’re trying to make [the film] a lot more nuanced,” says Tan, “as well as culturally accurate but still with all the gore and blood, and all the fatalities.”

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Despite being released in March 2021 amid the pandemic, Mortal Kombat did quite well, grossing US$84 million globally, even when most US cinemas were shut. “It was the No 1 streaming feature out of all the Warner Bros movies that year and still did great at the box office – even though there were no theatres open in the US,” boasts Tan. “I was very proud of it but I think [the sequel] will do even more.”

Now that more Asians are being cast as characters given a meaningful story arc and development, Tan wants to push the envelope further with his script and upcoming directorial debut.

“I think maybe for years and years and years we’ve been hypnotised into thinking that we’re so different and our cultures are all so different,” says Tan. “It doesn’t matter what culture you’re from – you know about pain, you know about love, you know about grief, you know about joy, all these things. It’s these feelings that tie everyone together. These are very simple things that everyone can relate to but people just experience them differently and at different times and different depths.”

So now, away from the prying Elder Gods and back in the universe of here and now, one question remains. Asked if he would make the natural choice to play his own father, Tan is torn. “Me playing the role would be the logical answer and it’d be something that I would want to do, although I’d want to focus on being behind the camera and telling the story properly too,” he reasons. “So I guess we’ll see.”