From film promotion to micro-dramas, AI-generated videos booming in China

Surge believed to have been sparked by release of video generator Sora by OpenAI

- Lim Min Zhang

BEIJING - On Oct 23, the day Venom: The Last Dance opened in Chinese cinemas, the official Sony Pictures WeChat account released a 30-second promotional video in the style of an animated Chinese ink painting.

It shows the fictional superhero from the Marvel comic books shapeshifting into various forms, such as a crane and a Chinese lantern, and perching on a pagoda.

What was unusual for a major Hollywood production was that the clip was generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

The technology used is a self-developed software released in April 2024 called Vidu by Beijing-based company, Shengshu Technology. The start-up was set up in March 2023 and is run by former researchers from Tsinghua University, a breeding ground for China's top AI talent.

In an interview with The Straits Times, Shengshu founder Tang Jiayu - whose firm in June reportedly received hundreds of millions of yuan in pre-Series A funding - said the goal was to showcase efficient video production without sacrificing creative freedom.

Sony bought the copyrights to more than 200 Chinese ink paintings, which were used by Vidu to generate the video.

Mr Tang said: "The resulting video was one that not only demonstrated Vidu's powerful generation capabilities, but also the myriad new possibilities available to today's storytellers."

A Guangdong-based user, commenting on the video, said: "Lively, agile, like a dance - such an ink painting style really suits Venom."

In recent months, China has experienced a boom in AI video-generation technology. Not only are start-ups like Shengshu attracting investor attention, but tech giants such as ByteDance and Kuaishou are also getting in on the act with their own video generators.