Pepsi Strong Momotaro EP4 is the latest star-studded installment of the most awarded commercial series in Japanese history.

The latest film features Jude Law and brings the Japanese folklore tale of Momotaro (Peach Boy) to life like never before. This chapter is part origin story of the Oni – the iconic lava monster seen in previous episodes, and details how Momotaro’s nemesis came to be. A mysterious being (Law) protects villagers against outside forces, including strange beasts. However, he does so with such power that they become scared, and decide that his power must be contained. After being locked up, the being becomes full of rage and vows revenge on the villagers, his anger becoming so solid and hot that he becomes the iconic lava monster, Oni. The ongoing battle between Oni and Momotaro reflects the bravery of challenging the bigger opponent – as Pepsi does with Coca-Cola.

This commercial series is based around an infamous Japanese folklore tale of Momotaro, and is the kind of story that grandparents have passed down the generations for many years. With such a strong cultural context, the initial commercials were extremely popular, and became a cultural touchpoint for a new generation, who for the first time saw the heroic tale rendered in a dramatic, cinematic and photo-realistic way. Momotaro (the swordsman in this clip) is a magical boy who is discovered inside a piece of fruit by an elderly couple. Grown up, he ventures forth alongside a gang of animal friends to do battle with ogres and Oni (the rock monster) who have been terrorizing a Japanese island. Despite his smaller size, his bravery against the odds shines through, and he manages to defeat the stronger opponent and return home, an eternal hero.

For the giant rock monster ‘Oni’ high resolution textures in Houdini were augmented with procedural textures to give us great resolution as the camera moved closer. We included rigid body rockfall simulations and extremely high resolution smoke simulations, adding fluid simulations to the close up shot to eject lava from his hot core.

The Ogre was sculpted from a rough sketch by the director to its life-like appearance here. Since the ‘Ogre’ was always going to be chained up, we needed to account for this in texturing, adding wounds and wearing in his skin layer. We studied the anatomy of animals and mutated and deformed it, grooming it with a fur layer, figuring out new techniques to groom based on proximity of the fur to the chains that are tightly wrapped around him. Added effects such as saliva, dust particles and wood splinters ground the Ogre in the plate photography.