VOTD: Live-Action Donkey Kong Short Film Brings The Video Game To Life

Last year, the sci-fi action comedy Pixels brought an 8-bit version of Donkey Kong to the big screen, albeit in a disappointing package directed by Chris Columbus, featuring Adam Sandler and his knucklehead friends, as well as a waste of Peter Dinklage, Michelle Monaghan and Josh Gad. Before that, Donkey Kong got the spotlight in the outstanding documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.

Now one fan and filmmaker has decided to bring Donkey Kong to life in a different way by creating a live-action short film that imagines a traditional round of the video game as if it played out in real life.

Here's the Donkey Kong short film from My Name is Banks (via Geekologie):

As you can see, most of it was created in post-production with the help of visual effects, and since it's not the kind of project that had a budget, it doesn't look incredible. Clearly they couldn't figure out how to make Mario climbing ladders look good since they always pan away or fade out when that happens.

Still, it's a cool little experiment for a fan and filmmaker who loves Donkey Kong. If anything it makes for great practice and exercise for a future career, whether that's in visual effects or filmmaking. Plus, there are some cool ideas here, such as showing us what playing Donkey Kong would look like from the first-person perspective, something we never get to see in the original game. Who knows, maybe we'll see Donkey Kong get his own movie now that Nintendo has been thinking about getting back in the film business.

If you want to see a breakdown of how the short was made, watch this little featurette:

Would you ever want to see a full length Donkey Kong movie?