Filmmaker Paul WS Anderson and his wife, Hollywood star Milla Jovovich, have collaborated several times on his films, notably the "Resident Evil" franchise, but it was their latest release "Monster Hunter" that tested the actress's patience.

She told him "this is the worst thing" he had ever done to her, claimed Anderson.

"Her commitment is always surprising. She always really gives her all to every movie she makes and this movie was a harder movie to make from the others we have done. Just because of the technical challenges that it threw up.I wanted to shoot in real landscapes and the landscapes I chose were in the middle of nowhere!" he recalled, speaking to IANS.

The film is their fifth collaboration.

"The entire cast crew would be sleeping in tents and during the day the temperature would get upto 50 degrees and during the night freezing cold below 0. Big storms would come up and threaten to wipe away all the tents we would be living in," he added.

"It was a hard shoot physically and at one point Milla came up to me and said 'You know I think this is the worst thing you have ever done to me' which I kind of took as a badge of honour that I finally kind of I done something terrible to her but she kind of loved it because her as an actor what it did was that it immersed her in this world," he said.

He says that "Monster Hunter", which released in the US in December 2020, is about discovering a new world and fighting for survival. The film also stars Tony Jaa, Tip "T. I." Harris, Meagan Good, Diego Boneta, Josh Helman, Jin Au-Yeung, and Ron Perlman along with Jovovich.

"For all of these actors they actually even though it was difficult they loved it much more than just acting in front of the green screen because these challenges and these real landscapes brought the world to life for them so they actually felt that they crossed over into the Monster Hunter world and I think that their performances really benefited from that," he said.

The director feels the look of the movie benefited from it as they have created a very realistic looking other world.

How did "Monster Hunter" challenge Anderson as a filmmaker, compared to other films he has made before? "Going to these landscapes and shooting for real was something I have never really done before because I have done a lot of movies in studios and cities. Think about aResident Evil', it is a very urban franchise. You are in a lot of industrial dereliction, you tend to be based in cities. This time I had really gone out and did a landscape picture where you are in these vast landscapes," Anderson said.

He had very limited lighting. "So, you start shooting when the sun goes up and you stop shooting when the sun goes down. Having to plan your entire day with the pathway of the sun and kind of shoot in these wild locations was an adventure and really different for me. It tested me as a filmmaker but it was very exciting. I think it produced a very unique look for the film," he said.

"Monster Hunter" will be premiering on &flix in May.

(Durga Chakravarty can be contacted at durga.c@ians.in)