In case you’re a movie lover, one of many nice issues about outdated classics is which you can at all times discover one thing to understand once you revisit them. In case you’re a studio govt, one of many nice issues about outdated classics is that you simply personal them and may milk them for each penny their value. On the Shanghai Worldwide Movie Pageant, a number of Chinese language film studios introduced on Thursday that they’d be taking their archive of martial arts classics and AI-ifying them.
The federal government-backed “Kung Fu Film Heritage Venture 100 Classics AI Revitalization Venture” will take all-time nice kung fu flicks starring the likes of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li and provides them new (however virtually actually not higher) life with the assistance of AI. Per the Hollywood Reporter, Zhang Pimin, chairman of the China Movie Basis, described the challenge as an try to present movies a glance that “conforms to modern movie viewing.”
It’d be one factor if this have been merely a restoration challenge or a method to upscale the decision to one thing that feels extra fashionable, however according to the Hollywood Reporter, it seems like at the least among the effort will go into absolutely remaking the movies with AI filters atop them. As an illustration, a trailer for the brand new AI-ed tackle John Woo’s 1986 movie A Higher Tomorrow was proven off on the pageant and reportedly turns its lead Chow Yun-fat right into a cyberpunk-looking character. The brand new take, titled A Higher Tomorrow: Cyber Frontier, is being marketed as “the world’s first full-process, AI-produced animated function movie.” Yuck.
The studios invited AI animation corporations to get entangled within the “revitalization” effort, which is able to apparently search to “reshape the visible aesthetics” of movies whereas making an attempt to “pay tribute to the unique work,” by placing up a fund of 100 million yuan (about $14 million) to assist get the ball rolling.
Different movies that will probably be concerned within the challenge embrace Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury (1972), Jackie Chan’s Drunken Grasp (1978) and Jet Li’s As soon as Upon a Time in China (1991)—all movies which you can watch proper now and can discover to be each bit as magical and fascinating as they have been the day they first hit theaters. The stunt work nonetheless stands up, and the digital camera work nonetheless slaps. You’ll find all three of those, and loads of different martial arts classics, on streaming. In case you’re a stickler for picture high quality, movies like Fist of Fury have 4K re-releases obtainable on Blu-ray. Simply watch these films. They don’t want AI sloppification to be related.
