＂Black Myth： Wukong＂： Are domestic game visual effects ahead of the movie？

1905 movie network news On August 20, the domestic role-playing game "Black Myth: Wukong" released a 6-minute real-world plot clip, which triggered heated discussions among netizens in terms of plot speculation and scene details. In recent years, the plot, clothing, and picture presentation of ancient costume mythology-themed movies have also attracted much attention from netizens, and the hot topics triggered by games and movies are highly overlapping. Why can this game video cause a heated debate? It is also a mythological adaptation. Are domestic games ahead of movies?

Regarding this video clip, Jin Yuxuan, a teacher at the Communication University of China, commented: The video is of high quality, with a cinematic texture, good rhythm control, and a strong sense of film. Secondly, the theme of this time is the theme of Pansidong in "Journey to the West". The place where the spider spirit enters is called Ruoxian Temple, and where does Ruoxian Temple come from? It is the 72nd chapter of "Journey to the West", "Seven Love Mystery Books in Pansidong, and the Eight Precautions of the Spring are Forgotten", so it has a very clear text source.

The video also uses the suspense skills of film creation to fully arouse the curiosity of the audience. The identity of the protagonist is deliberately hidden in the video, showing the audience a first perspective. The spider spirit is in front and leads the protagonist inside. Many netizens speculate that the old spider spirit is Chang’e, and the person who is led is Pigsy. These guesses are also based. There are judgments in the background sound of the video. The direction of these judgments makes it easy for the audience to direct the suspense of the protagonist of the whole story to Pigsy and Chang’e. When the old spider spirit appears, her entire character shape is very similar to the Chang’e shape of the 86 version of "Journey to the West", which also makes players and audiences curious about the direction behind the plot.

In this six-minute short film, the image of each character is so realistic that Mr. Xu Jingqing, who served as the chief composer of the 86 version of "Journey to the West", also gave a high evaluation after watching the video.

"It’s more terrifying than the monster in the TV series, and it’s more realistic."

@Communication University of China Teacher Jin Yuxuan:In fact, in the literary description of the original work, whether it is the protagonist team or the monster team, they present a hideous and terrifying appearance. So I think that in this "Black Myth: Wukong", it is really good to give us some clear presentation of some of the textures and images in the original work.

The cultural relics and ancient buildings involved in the short film have also become the object of research and popular science among netizens. Even though "Black Myth: Wukong" is an overhead world, the creators scanned the cultural relics and ancient buildings in reality in order to allow players to find a sense of commonality between the game and reality, and then put them in equal proportions into the game scene, which once again enhanced the authenticity of the experience. The production team of "Black Myth: Wukong" released a demo video a year ago, and some cultural relics appeared in the video, including a model of the twenty-eight constellations. The historical source of this model is in Shanxi, and even the local media in Shanxi used this video when promoting places of interest.

In recent years, many film creations have chosen the direction of mythological adaptations, including the "Journey to the West" series, the "New God List" series, etc. When these mythological elements continue to impact the audience’s mind, more or less aesthetic fatigue will occur. And this time, "Black Myth: Wukong" is also a work of mythological adaptations. Why is its situation so different?

@Communication University of China Teacher Jin Yuxuan:Our aesthetic fatigue is based on the fact that they are all telling similar stories, for example, they are focusing on a story about emotions. In fact, this is a very common way to deal with it. "Dark Myth: Wukong" I think captures something that has been less presented in previous adaptations and presentations, and that is the battle to defeat the Buddha and the Monkey King.

Sun Wukong used to be the unparalleled Great Sage of Monkey Heaven, but in fact, most of the time we see him, he is like a disobedient student in the class during the period of protecting Tang Sanzang to go to the West to learn scriptures, unable to hold up the class teacher’s mantra every day. In "Black Myth: Wukong", the creative team directly did one thing to make him return to the unparalleled world and regain the title of fighting and defeating Buddha. Although this spirit of resistance about Sun Wukong is reflected in many film and television works, the advantages of game videos and animations are greater than that of live-action movies. The sense of hypothesis it brings to us is completely different from the sense of hypothesis we watch live-action movies. "Black Myth: Wukong" and "The emotional impact it brings to us will be higher than that of live-action movies."

In addition, "Black Myth: Wukong" uses the Unreal Engine to improve the realism of the picture, and there are also many special effects in the movie that also use the Unreal Engine. In the post-visual effects processing, the Unreal Engine is used, which can restore the realism to the audience with the greatest appearance.

"I’ll write you an exciting one."

I hope this six-minute short film can inspire our filmmakers to learn from this "Black Myth: Wukong" when creating, how to attract the audience, how to impress the audience, and how to improve the realism of the picture. I believe that there will be more films in the future that can move the audience and give the audience a different visual experience.