The players had traded blows for most of Monday evening, with Wu repeatedly edging in front only to be pegged back by the unshakeable Murphy.
Having resumed at 13-12 up, Wu opened with a break of 88 as echoes of his name reverberated around the auditorium.
He also enjoyed runs of 70, 56 and 91 after rolling in a sensational pot on the yellow with the rest.
But he could never quite get clear of Murphy, who has now endured the heartache of losing his past four finals in snooker’s showpiece match.
Murphy, who had been aiming to fulfil a 21-year dream by setting a new record for the longest gap between a player’s first and second world titles, produced some wonderful breaks of his own with an 82, 65, and a sublime 131.
While another half-century gave him a chance to take it to a one-frame shootout, he once again fell short at the final hurdle.
“I’d like to be the first to congratulate Wu Yize and his family, and everyone around him for being a wonderful world champion,” Murphy said.
“I hate being right – I said sometime earlier in the season when we had a great game out in China somewhere, I won that one but I came out afterwards and said that he would be world champion one day. It’s just a real shame that it was today, but I couldn’t have given it any more, I couldn’t have tried harder.
“I played the best shots I could have played and I didn’t get my chance. I couldn’t do any more than that.”
