Shang Tsung

Shang Tsung is a fictional boss and player character from the Mortal Kombat series. A powerful evil sorcerer, he is a demonic shapeshifter who absorbs the living souls of those he defeats in order to maintain his youth and power and is able to change his appearance, including by morphing into other characters while retaining their abilities and movesets in-game. Shang Tsung is usually portrayed as the right-hand man of series archvillain Shao Kahn and the main rival and archenemy of the series' early protagonist, Liu Kang.

Shang Tsung debuted as the main antagonist of the original Mortal Kombat, serving as the in-game tournament's grandmaster and the game's boss. He has since appeared in several games and other media spawned from the franchise, and was received positively by game critics.

Character design

Shang Tsung (originally named "Shang Lao") was based on the Chinese sorcerer Lo Pan from the film Big Trouble in Little China. A character named "Kitsune", which was later developed into Kitana, "was going to fit into the story as Shang Lao’s (Tsung) princess daughter - the spoil of victory for winning the tournament", who would betray her father after she fell for Liu Kang.Mortal Kombat art director Herman Sanchez said that as the series progressed he decided to emphasize Tsung's air of "sinister regality."