Even for dedicated video gamers who dropped countless quarters and callused their fingers playing Mortal Kombat on arcade machines and home consoles, it has probably been a while since they thought about that nearly 20-year-old fighting series and its 1990s-era film and television adaptations.

Until last week, when a mysterious “Mortal Kombat” film began making making its way around the Web. In the eight-minute short, the mystical (and outlandishly gory) video games had been transplanted to an all-too-real world in which heroic characters like Jax and Sonya were everyday beat cops (played by Michael Jai White and Jeri Ryan) seeking villains like Baraka and Reptile, transformed from supernatural monsters into grotesque serial killers. With no credits on the video clip – which racked up nearly 4 million views on YouTube alone – viewers were left to wonder whether the trailer was a viral promotion for a new Mortal Kombat game or leaked footage from a new Hollywood movie.

In fact, the film is the handiwork of Kevin Tancharoen, a 26-year-old director whose credits include the 2009 remake of “Fame” and the reality series “The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll.” Sensing that no studio would let a music and dance guy make an action movie like “Mortal Kombat,” Mr. Tancharoen and his crew made the short in a weekend in April on a budget of about $7,500. (He swears on a stack of game cartridges that its leak to the Internet was accidental.)

Mr. Tancharoen spoke recently to ArtsBeat about the creation of this project and how he grew up as both a dance and video-game geek. These are excerpts from that conversation.

Q.

Were the Mortal Kombat games a big part of your adolescence?

A.

Huge, huge part of my adolescence. I was a very, I guess you could say, typical, Asian, nerdy child. So of course I loved Mortal Kombat. I would go to the Sherman Oaks Golf Castle. It’s basically a miniature golf place, but I never went miniature golfing because they have an arcade in there. I wasted so much money – well, I wouldn’t say wasted because I loved it – I put so much money into these Mortal Kombat machines. And my parents were cool with it. Yeah, it was very bloody, but they knew I was able to differentiate it.

Q.

What about the “Mortal Kombat” movies?

A.

The first film, I did enjoy quite a bit. Was it the “Mortal Kombat” that I wanted to see? Not 100 percent. Because they really watered it down. The one thing that surprised me was the fact that Christopher Lambert played Raiden. I was like, What happened? I thought Raiden, the god of thunder, was Asian or Japanese. There were no fatalities, and there was barely any Scorpion or Sub-Zero. They were such iconic characters that there was a part of me that was a little upset. I like to say it’s gratifying-campy. It worked for the tone of that movie. The second one, I think a lot of people have harsher opinions of.

Q.

How did you go from being a game-obsessed kid to a dancer and a director of dance-themed projects?

A.

When I was 5 years old, my sister was in a pop singing group, so they were all dancing in all these rehearsals. I took karate, and while they were rehearsing, because I was such a physical kid, I tried to learn their dance routines, and I learned how to do it well. That led to me taking more dance classes, and becoming a professional dancer. When I was working on N’Sync and Britney Spears tours, I was doing video editing and music remixes in the recording studio. I never wanted to be a performer, but I enjoyed being part of that world, because it was still creating something on a big, live stage. Because of that background, I ended up doing “Pussycat Dolls” and “Dancelife” and “Fame.”

I know a lot of people are like, Wow, what a weird genre shift, to go from “Fame” to “Mortal Kombat.” But to me, it’s not a shift – it’s what I’ve always been aiming to do. I just needed to find a way to get back to my nerdiness.

Q.

How long had this plan been kicking around your head?

A.

I’ve had this idea for probably about a year now. And everyone just responded to it. It was this serendipitous period of time where everyone was like, yeah, let’s do it – let’s just go for it. The equipment was available. The actors were available. The stunt choreographer wanted to create something cool. And we just shot it in two days.

Q.

Had you pitched the idea to any movie studios?

A.

Very casually. Nothing serious. It would be as simple as, You know what would be really cool to reboot? “Mortal Kombat.” The two things I used to say would be awesome to reboot would be “Mortal Kombat” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” because the climate has shifted to a much more gritty, realistic, darker tone.

Q.

Do you know who controls the rights to the “Mortal Kombat” films now?

A.

Warner Brothers owns – I think – everything that has to do with Midway. I know Warner Interactive is doing the new game. I imagine that they bought the movie rights as well. [Warner Brothers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this.] I had met with Warner Brothers on other projects, but nothing serious ever came up. It got to this point where I was sitting in my editing bay, and I kept doing concept art for “Mortal Kombat,” and I was like, you know what? I have all the equipment. I know the right people. Let’s do it. Because people will expect me to come out with another dance movie or a musical. If I ever want to make a genre picture, which I’ve always wanted to do, I’ll have to do it myself.

Q.

How did you recruit your actors for this?

A.

I went to each of them individually, and I think they had to chuckle a little bit, because I sounded like an excited kid who just loved “Mortal Kombat” so much. Michael Jai White was kind of a blind call. My fight choreographer knows him very well, and said, Here’s his number. And I gave him a call, and he responded so well. There wasn’t anyone in my mind except Michael Jai White for Jax, and Jeri Ryan for Sonya. I was very lucky, I’ve got to say, because it’s really hard to get everyone’s schedule to line up, especially when you’re not paying anyone.

Q.

Nobody got paid for this?

A.

Everyone worked for free. Everyone.

Q.

Who’s the actor who plays Scorpion?

A.

That’s a guy named Ian Anthony Dale, who came from a mutual friend. He just got his pilot on NBC – he’s one of the leads in “The Event.” So very exciting. And I’m always looking for up-and-coming, Asian male lead actors. I was devastated by the loss of Brandon Lee, because I thought he could have been an absolute superstar, and I don’t think we’ve ever really recovered from that.

Q.

There are many supernatural elements in the Mortal Kombat games and movies, and yet your film tries to take as realistic an approach as possible. Is there a contradiction there?

A.

Straight out, I’ll be completely honest on why it’s not evident in the short. I paid for this thing myself. I can’t have crazy special effects throughout the entire thing. I essentially said, I’m going to set up the world in a very grounded, realistic realm, and make this the prologue. I use the analogy of “Harry Potter,” where you have two universes that co-existed with each other, the real world and then you had the train that sent you to Hogwart’s. Well, that’s exactly what this is to me. Once they get to the tournament, there would be all that mysticism that the game created. But I don’t want it to be over the top. Because if you have these crazy fireballs, electricity, teleporting every five seconds, there’s nothing visually stunning about it or emotionally stunning about it.

To me, the first “Matrix” was the only “Matrix,” because Neo still had boundaries. And when he overcame the boundaries is when you got the most excited. But this second he became this guy who could do anything, any time he wanted to anyone and no one could hurt him, it wasn’t fun anymore. I want to make sure that in this film, the special moves are treated with integrity, not just, Yeah, let’s just do them to shock people and it will be cool.

Q.

How did your film end up on the Web?

A.

The online thing was a complete accident. I thought I put it on a private page to send to some colleagues, to be like, Hey, I need your opinion. But I guess I don’t know YouTube rules that well. I sent it to my colleagues and then a couple hours later, it was on some people’s Twitter and Web sites, so someone must have found it. At that point, I couldn’t really stop it. I was like, all right, let’s just see what happens. I was in no way prepared to have it blasted out into the universe.

Q.

When did you put up the post that you thought was private?

A.

Tuesday [June 8]. The Internet is a beast. It just really moves that fast.

Q.

Did the viral success of the video bring you any closer to making an actual feature film?

A.

I have no clue. I wish I knew. I wish you could tell me.

Q.

How have you been handling the online response from gaming fans?

A.

It’s been pins and needles. And very exciting, and also a little stressful. Fanboys can rip you to shreds or embrace you, because it’s either hit or miss for them. There’s no lukewarm. There’s no, “Yeah, yeah, he’s kind of O.K.” Thank God it worked out. I knew what I made was good for me. But who knew if my fanboy mentality was part of their fanboy mentality? I was very pleased.