Mortal Kombat: Bi-Han and Hanzo's Lore Explained

The main draw of a fighting game is rarely its narrative, but that hasn't stopped the Mortal Kombat franchise from developing a rich and thorough lore over its 30-year history. Ever since the original game hit arcades, the developers behind Mortal Kombat have fleshed out fighters, realms, and an extended history of the series that could rival properties like The Lord of the Rings. Even with Mortal Kombat 1 recently rebooting the MK timeline, those many years of lore remain a present and essential aspect of the franchise's storytelling.

Mortal Kombat would be nothing without its fights, and one fight that has been essential to the series from the very beginning is the one between Bi-Han's Sub-Zero and Hanzo Hasashi's Scorpion. The two ninjas are more than just Mortal Kombat's mascots, they've endured a vengeful feud for almost as long as the series has existed. Even through MK's sporadic reboots, Bi-Han and Hanzo always end up at each other's throats, creating a cycle of fateful violence that lasted until MK1 fundamentally changed Scorpion and Sub-Zero's origins. Their past is nevertheless unshakable, however, and worthy of a thorough exploration.

Before Bi-Han and Hanzo entered the feud they're most known for, the two fighters were part of rival clans, the Lin Kuei and the Shirai Ryu respectively. This created enough tension on its own, and that tension finally broke when Bi-Han and the Lin Kuei massacred Hanzo, his wife and child, and the entire Shirai Ryu clan. Hanzo was resurrected as the undead Scorpion by Quan Chi soon after, making him a servant of the necromancer and beginning his quest for revenge.

During the events of the first Mortal Kombat tournament, Hanzo sought out Bi-Han and exacted his revenge, murdering the cryomancer. This inadvertently leads to the creation of Noob Saibot, another undead servant of Quan Chi and one of MK's more iconic kombatants. Long after Hanzo's mission is complete, however, he learns that Quan Chi was actually the one who massacred the Shirai Ryu. Hanzo later succeeds in tracking down the man who manipulated him and executes him, but Bi-Han remains the sinister Noob Saibot, and his brother Kuai Liang takes up the mantle of Sub-Zero.

Mortal Kombat 1 thoroughly rejuvenated the MK timeline, offering fresh starts for many fighters. Perhaps where it switches things up the most is the relationship between Sub-Zero and Scorpion, as the two characters start out as brothers instead of rivals. To take matters further, Hanzo Hasashi isn't MK1's Scorpion, it is instead Kuai Liang.

Players eventually learn through MK1's tower endings that Hanzo does in fact exist in MK1's timeline, as he turns out to be a troubled kid who Scorpion and Smoke bring into the newly formed Shirai Ryu. Time will tell if history repeats itself and Hanzo finds himself at odds with Bi-Han yet again, but for now, the traditional Sub-Zero and Scorpion rivalry is firmly between Bi-Han and Kuai Liang.

Mortal Kombat is all about intense and gory battles, and the battle between Bi-Han and Hanzo is one of the franchise's most well-documented. Though Mortal Kombat 1 has altered some of its biggest names, MK1's ending suggests the fight between the Lin Kuei and the Shirai Ryu is just getting started. Fans will just have to wait and see if aspects of previous MK lore, like Noob Saibot or an undead Scorpion, make their way into a potential Mortal Kombat 2.