Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi were rival martial artists in Japan and both loved a woman named Tang Shen. Shen, who loved only Yoshi, persuaded him not to fight Saki honorably; instead, they fled for the United States. Saki followed them to New York City and murdered Tang Shen alone in her home; when Yoshi returned from his construction job and discovered Shen's body, Saki ambushed and killed him as well. Yoshi's pet rat Splinter escaped during the fight and clawed Saki's face. In return, Saki sliced a small part of Splinter's ear with his katana and left. After this incident, it was said that Saki is never heard from again. The comic book adaptation of the film retains the original comic book origin story, with Oroku Nagi being slain and Saki coming to America to seek vengeance.
Saki, in the "Shredder" persona, establishes an American branch of the Foot Clan. With the aid of his second-in-command Tatsu, he manipulates and recruits troubled teens as brutal yet Machiavellian leader and father figure, teaching them ninjitsu to make them into skilled thieves and assassins. Shredder sends the Foot Clan to "silence" April O'Neil when she reports on the Foot Clan's connection to the recent crime wave, inadvertently leading them to the Turtles' hideout when Raphael saves April. Shredder had Splinter kidnapped and imprisoned him in his warehouse hideout, and has the Foot Clan hunt the Turtles. He beats Splinter while interrogating him about how the Turtles learned their fighting techniques.
After the Turtles successfully defeat the Foot Clan in a final assault, Shredder confronts them on a rooftop. He defeats all of the Turtles with his superior skills and threatens Leonardo with his yari to force the others to toss away their weapons. Splinter, freed by Turtles' allies, Danny Pennington and Casey Jones, intervenes and reveals to Shredder that they met years ago, as he was Hamato Yoshi's pet. Shredder unmasks himself, revealing the scars that Splinter gave him, and charges towards Splinter to impale him. Splinter counters with Michelangelo's nunchaku to vault him over the edge of the building and he falls into a parked garbage truck far below. Casey Jones then activates the crushing mechanism; the viewers are then shown a closeup of the Shredder's helmet being crushed, implying his death.
The Turtles believed that since Casey had crushed him in the garbage truck, the Shredder was dead. It is soon revealed that Shredder had survived the crushing and revitalized his Foot Clan to get vengeance on the Turtles. After finding the Foot "fallback" headquarters (a junkyard), he sent a member of the Foot to follow April, hoping to find the Turtles through her. When April's team was doing a report on T.G.R.I. in New Jersey, Freddy (a member of April's team, and Foot agent) found some mutated dandelions and sent one to the Shredder. He then orders Tatsu to obtain a sample of the T.G.R.I. mutagen that mutated the Turtles, as well as kidnap researcher Jordan Perry. Using the last mutagen and Perry's research, the Shredder creates his own mutants, Tokka and Rahzar, from a stolen snapping turtle and a brown wolf respectively. Though initially enraged at their infant-like intelligence, he soon plays it to his advantage by manipulating the mutants as they imprinted him as their surrogate parent.
After a failed attempt to kill the Turtles in the junkyard using a captured Raphael, Shredder unleashed Tokka and Rahzar onto a city street to "have fun" and destroy it. The Foot spy then gave April a message for the Turtles: that the Shredder would turn the mutants loose on Central Park next if they did not accede to a rematch at the construction site. After the Turtles de-mutate the two mutants (with help from Perry) and defeat Tatsu in a nightclub, the Shredder appears and threatens to mutate an innocent woman with a small reserve mutagen vial (the canister was knocked away by the Turtles' new human ally, Keno). Before he can mutate her, he is stopped when the Turtles play a keytar at full volume, sending the Shredder flying through a window from the force of a blown speaker. When the Turtles follow him outside on a pier, they discover that the Shredder has used the mutagen vial on himself. He is transformed into a massive "Super Shredder," an almost mindless giant-mutant being with immense superhuman strength. During his fight with the Turtles, Super Shredder knocks down the pier's pilings in a mindless rage, which then collapses onto him with the Turtles falling into the water below. Though the Turtles survive, the Shredder meets his demise from getting crushed by the destroyed pieces of the pier.
Forms:
The Shredder
Super Shredder
