`Monster Hunt` director Raman Hui talks about his movie

`Monster Hunt` director Raman Hui talks about his movie. November. 13, 2015 20:41. iamsam@donga.com.

“I have never expected that `Monster Hunt` would be such a success. I think that it’s because the movie has a factor that brings six-year-old kids and 70-year-old grandparents together.”

Some 65 million viewers with 430 billion Korean won (approx. 370 million U.S. dollars) of accumulated box-office profit. This is the track record in China of a movie “Monster Hunt,” released in July, which has exceeded the profit of “Inside out,” similar type of animation movie that was released worldwide around the same time. The Dong-A Ilbo had an email interview with director Raman Hui (aged 52) of the movie that was released in Korea on Thursday.

Having moved to the U.S. in his twenties, the director worked for DreamWorks Studio as an animator. Hui directed such movies as “Shrek The Third (2007),” “Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five (2008).” “Based on my experience in Hollywood, I always wanted to make movies that have something new and unique in Asian market,” he said.

For the movie, he took the inspiration from an old Chinese book of “The Classic of Mountain Ocean Script” and a collection of supernatural tales of “Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.” Long time ago when monsters and humans were still at war, a rumor had it that a legendary monster king was conceived and humans began to run after the news. Tianyin (Jing Boran) who runs an inn gets an egg from a queen monster and sits on it. With a monster hunter Huo Xiaolan (Bai BAihe), Tianyin gives birth of a monster king and raises him. On top of dancing and singing by cute little monster characters, the movie features China’s unique martial arts. Combining animation with live action, “Monster Hunt” was a new challenge for Raman Hui with zero experience in directing live action movies.

“I have made storyboards for every scene only to realize that things aren’t going as I thought. I took other crew aback by saying that I need five days to file a single scene. Usually, it takes three months to film an animation of similar length. Later, I found out that it only takes a half-day.”

Confessing that he is a fan of Korean movies, Hui says that he likes Jun Ji-hyun, Kwon Sang-woo and Kim Soo-hyun. He also praised his favorite movie, “The Host” as being creative and sophisticated.

“Having worked for DreamWorks, I was able not to make a mistake to underestimate the animation viewers. Today, kids are smart and emotional. It seems that my works become more challenging to kids as they are targeting more on grown-ups. What matters is to come up with an interesting story and characters that viewers can fall in love with.”