STACK #194 Dec 2020

CINEMA FEATURE

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costumes and the weaponry. Fans of the game will recognise a lot of the game in the movie.” Described as a military sci-fi monster movie, Monster Hunter ’s plot sees a team of elite soldiers falling through a portal into a world full of giant creatures. Teaming up with a skilled hunter (Tony Jaa, Ong Bak ) within that realm, they must find a way home while fending off hordes of colossal beasts. Although no stranger to the physicality of action films – having played Alice in all live-action installments of Resident Evil, as well as kicking ass in movies like The Fifth Element and Hellboy – Jovovich says that keeping up with martial arts legend Jaa in Monster Hunter proved particularly challenging. “It was very intimidating,” she admits. “Obviously Tony is the closet thing you’ll find to a real life superhero. But I was ready to be inspired and I was ready to learn, and ready to be impressed. Tony is so full of energy and ideas and I can’t tell you how incredible it was to work with him, and I really hope that it’s not the last time I get a chance to be on screen with him.” When it comes to the stigma attached to Hollywood video game adaptations, Anderson says he finds it amusing. “My first Hollywood movie was Mortal Kombat , which was number one in America for three weeks. We then went on to make Resident Evil , which is the most successful video game adaptation ever made. So, you know, after $1.3-billion in business for Resident Evil, it’s very hard for me to take seriously a phrase like ‘the video game curse’. It’s absolutely possible to make very successful movies out of video games. I think it’s hard adapting them, and it’s hard to get it right, but then most movie adaptations are hard. It’s funny that video games get a lot of attention, but I’m sure if you did the math and worked out how many movies have been adapted from young adult novels, I’m sure the success to failure ratio is pretty stark.” While it remains to be seen if Anderson and Jovovich can replicate the phenomenal success of their Resident Evil series, one thing is crystal clear – Monster Hunter comes from a place of pure adulation for its source material, and a fervent desire to please long-serving fans, all while simultaneously introducing a whole new audience to Capcom’s highly celebrated video game universe. Monster Hunter is in cinemas on January 1

Director PaulW.S. Anderson and star Milla Jovovich speak with STACK about their new video game adaptation, Monster Hunter. Words Glenn Cochrane P aul W.S. Anderson is perhaps best known for his adaptations of popular video games; a peculiar reputation considering that Mortal Kombat and the Resident Evil series are the only game-based films he has directed. And regardless of Monster Hunter has been a passion project for Anderson over the past 12 years. “90 per cent of the

It’s absolutely possible to make very successful movies out of video games

movie is in the Monster Hunter world,” he tells STACK , “and we went to great lengths to get the world as accurate as we possibly could. We worked very closely with Ryozo Tsujimoto and Kaname Fujioka – the producer and director of the video game – to get the monsters 100 per cent accurate, the landscapes, the

him churning out movies like Event Horizon , Death Race , Alien vs. Predator and The Three Musketeers , it will be those gaming flicks that define his career for years to come. And yet it’s a reputation he happily embraces, and one he is poised to reaffirm with his latest extravagant dose of eye-candy, Monster Hunter , starring his real-life wife Milla Jovovich. Based on the popular Capcom video game series of the same name,

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