Resident Evil: Death Island Creatives Share Thoughts on Assembling the Team
by Kalai Chik,
The three filmmakers spoke to ANN on July 12, prior to the screening.
Mr. Fukami, you worked on writing the previous movie, Resident Evil: Vendetta as well the Psycho-Pass movies. Dylan, Death Island's villain, has no choice but to kill his friend. Did your experience on Psycho-Pass influence this cruel backstory?
Makoto FUKAMI: Dylan became that way after discussions with the director. He had some demanding thoughts, so that's how that character was born.
As a longtime producer of the Resident Evil series, is there something that a director or a writer cannot do in this series?
Masachika KAWATA: In reality, there wasn't much concern. They studied much about this series. The only thing that came up might be just some of the expressions, the tone of the dialogue, etc., that they changed because of the Japanese version.
In Vendetta, there were quite a lot of gun scenes. In Death Island, there's a lot of hand-to-hand combat. For example, Leon and Maria fight intensely for much of their interactions. Why did you want to focus more on hand-to-hand combat rather than use weapons?
Eiichiro HASUMI: I used a motion capture crew for the stuns because I wanted to show more combat that focuses on the movement of the body. I focused on the heavy-handed stuff first, then kept all the weapons for the climax.
How did you come to bring all five characters together? This is the first time we've ever seen all these very popular characters together in one universe.
Regarding Leon and Jill, this is also the first time we've seen them interact in all of Resident Evil. They seem to be sort of familiar with each other. Director Hasumi, how did you balance that familiarity? We, as the audience, have never seen them before. Whereas Jill and Chris have worked together since the first game.
HASUMI: Chris is actually worried that Jill may not have recovered from her brainwashing in Resident Evil 5. So there's that close relationship there. For Leon, he doesn't know much about that, so he treats her like a regular person. As you know, brainwashing is canon in the game, but nothing depicts what happens in between. I ensured there was flexibility in terms of whether they'd met in the past or not. They've met each other before, but I didn't want to pinpoint exactly when they met, so that could be filled in during the game's timeline. Or maybe someday in the future, there can be more built out of that.
We learned that the women—Rebecca, Claire, and Jill—age a little slower because of the number of viruses they've been infected with. Is there any universe where we would eventually see them older, like Leon and Chris?
KAWATA: It is a possibility, and the three can still age. They gain more experience and become stronger in the future. Resident Evil has all these strong female characters who contrast with the other characters. For example, Chris has physical strength, and his skill set differs from Jill's. She has mental fortitude, which is how Rebecca and Claire also differ from Leon.
Turning to the zombies and the creatures, in Death Island, we see many of them: the Lickers, the shark, and even Dylan. There's a tense scene between Jill and the Licker, demonstrating the limitations of its ability to sense her. Why did you choose to have that scene show off the Licker specifically?
HASUMI: There's quite a lot they can do this time, such as swim and stay underwater. I wanted to show how terrifying they can be in the dark and how they react to sound. I really liked its design, so I made that scene brighter so the viewers could see the details.
It's been six years since Vendetta, when can we expect to see the next movie?
KAWATA: If you can cheer and root for us, we'll try to do it sooner. Unless there's COVID.
