The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

http://www.imaginaryforces.com/featured/5/498

http://www.themummy.com/

This animation is the intro to The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008).

The movie follows the protagonists as they try to defeat an ancient Chinese emperor who has been resurrected and is trying to raise his immortal army.

Since the film is set in china, the animation makes use of Chinese characters and mythology in showing what to expect from this adventure film. The music of the intro sets the mood for an exciting adventure into the unknown. It begins with a three headed dragon moving its heads around, and from there brush strokes come across the screen and create a Chinese character. It then shows a background of characters scrolling to the side, while fireballs fall from the top of the screen. This background then breaks away and shows two horses running under an expanding red sun. It then shows a silhouette of a man standing in a chariot being pulled by the horses. The shot then moves up into the sky, where a winding black shape twists and coils on and off the screen, which turns into a snake, despite looking like another brush stroke before. The intro then shows a character within some precious stone. The stone shatters, and the camera zooms out to reveal a character that is part of a mountain range as a plane made of more brush strokes flies overhead. The screen is briefly painted over with brush strokes, and then moves to a shot of the camera flying over mountains and the plane flying by the camera. The viewer then spots what seems to be a trail with a group of adventurers on it. The camera moves behind a hill, and then zooms in on the group of adventurers, showing only silhouettes of them like last time. It then goes to a shot of the group crossing a rope bridge over a deep canyon, with the sides of the canyon being made up of brush strokes. The screen briefly goes black and a white brush stroke behinds winding its way towards the upper right of the screen, soon showing itself to be the inside of a cave, with the walls also being brush strokes.

The scene then changes to one of the camera zooming out off of hills with some grass growing on them, but as it zooms out further, this hill is shown to be a yeti that roars (his saliva is, again, brush strokes!) swipes the screen with its claws. The claw mark turns into yet another Chinese character, which then breaks apart and pieces form into what appears to be a dagger. After a momentary pause the dagger flies into the chest of a skeleton surrounded by other daggers that missed it. A brief scene shows other skeletons, and then the camera zooms out and the area where the skeletons were seems to be in a giant canyon that makes up another Chinese character. As the character is shown, the shadow of the three headed dragon from the beginning can be seen flying overhead. The camera then goes back to ground level and moves away to reveal lines upon lines of silhouetted soldiers standing ready for battle. The camera swings to show the front row of soldiers aiming crossbows, and then moves away from the line of soldiers to show silhouettes of combat. The last scene is of a silhouette of a creature that seems to be like a cross between a gorilla and a lizard.

This brush stroke style is used throughout the entire intro, and makes it seem like the world of the film is being created in front of your eyes as the brush strokes move about the screen. From the imaginary forces website, they say that they both shot real paint splatters, and consulted a master calligrapher to ensure they kept their intro feeling authentic. The whole intro sequence feels, to me, like it could have been hand made from how real the brush strokes seem. My favorite moment of the intro is when the hills turn into a yeti, and it roars at the screen. When it roars, drops of pain fly out of its mouth like saliva. This style makes everything seem hand made and flowing. It's both exciting and fun for me to watch this.

The animation uses two main colors, red and white. Red in the beginning when the dragon is shown and when a man rides on a chariot pulled by two horses under the sun. The rest of the intro is mainly set in mountains, and thus the colors remain white, black, and shades of grey for much of the remainder of the intro.