Exclusive interview with the director of the "Monster Hunter" movie: 80% of the content is real-life shooting, Capcom has been involved in supervision and guidance

The live-action version of Monster Hunter will be released in Taiwan on December 4. Recently, Taiwanese media Bahamut Online interviewed the film's director Paul Anderson and the heroine Mira, revealing some unknown details behind the scenes of the live-action film:

Now organized as follows:

Paul Anderson revealed that he had been in Japan for a long time, so he started playing the "Monster Hunter" game in 2008, earlier than many European and American players. He said that he had proposed to make "Monster Hunter" into a movie since 2009;

The film crew spent a lot of time adjusting the monster's tiny details until the eye color and claws were as expected, and Capcom also provided supervisory guidance during the adaptation process.

Although in most cases, the crew relied on the technicians' reference markers and the director's description of the monster to shoot the scenes, there were a few cases where there were more "specific" performance props, one of which was the scene where the hunters and Artemis fought against the horned dragon. The crew made a 1:1 model of the top of the horned dragon and installed it on the machine for the actors to perform on it. Later in the post-production process, the model and the machine were replaced by CG animation.

Although the performance of the monsters is bound to rely on computer special effects, Paul was determined not to use green screen or studio background as the main shooting location. Instead, he built the world of "Monster Hunter" in South Africa and Namibia, from rocky terrain to verdant jungles, vast deserts to gloomy underground caves.

He emphasized, "We all lived in a tent village in the wilderness, 150 or 200 miles away from the nearest town when filming. The shooting location had real sun, real wind, and real lens flare. Because the scenery is real, the monsters look more real. 80% of this movie are real scenes, and the remaining 20% ​​that is not real is the monster part."

Video Interview:

Q: Which one do you think is scarier, Mira, being chased by monsters or being chased by zombies?

Mira: In every aspect, being chased by monsters is more terrifying because zombies move slower, while monsters are faster and very large. The venue is in the desert, and running in the desert is quite difficult.

Q: How will the director convince these players that this is a real "Monster Hunter" movie?

Director: The Japanese and Chinese trailers emphasize game elements more, so there is less of a sense of real-world elements. I also want to emphasize to gamers that the people who are happiest to see this movie are actually Monster Hunter game producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and director Kaname Fujioka. They also supervised everything that appears in the movie to ensure that the movie is as consistent as possible with the game setting. When I saw the game producer and director both gave a thumbs up, I thought I didn't have to worry about fans' doubts.

Mira: Just like when we play games, we are also in the real world, so when we introduce this movie to others, we hope to introduce the world of Monster Hunter from a stranger's perspective. We are the real world, and then go to a different world, just like when we first play the game.

Q: Why did the director add realistic horror elements to this film?

Director: In the movie, the scariest parts are related to the shadow spiders, but in the game they are scary in their own right. As for the fire dragon, I wanted to convey an epic feeling.

The plot of the movie "Monster Hunter" describes that behind our world, there is another world: a world of dangerous and powerful monsters. When a sudden sandstorm teleports Natalie Artemis (played by Milla Jovovich) and her troops (TI Harris, Meagan Good, Diego Bonita, Josh Helman, and Ouyang Jing) to a new world, this group of elite soldiers is shocked to find that this unknown environment is full of huge and terrifying monsters, and these monsters are immune to the firepower of the US military. After a desperate battle for survival, the mysterious Hunter (played by Tony Jaa) appeared and showed his ability to deal with monsters. As Artemis and the Hunter slowly build trust, she then meets the Hunter team (played by Hirona Yamazaki, Yannick Schümann, Nanda Costa, etc.) led by the Grand Captain (played by Ron Perlman). Faced with great danger, these brave warriors will unite for the final battle.