Who doesn’t love a good Kung Fu movie? Nobody I want to be friends with. I’m a big fan of the old school Kung Fu movies; Wheels on Meals, Project A, Enter the Dragon, to mention a few of my favourites.
A Chinese studio plans a ‘revitalisation’ of over 100 martial arts classics. While Hollywood is unsure about what to do with AI, and how scary it could be, some Chinese movie studios are running with it.
When you think of the original Kung Fu movies, you think of Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and Jet Li.
At the Shanghai International Film Festival, movies like Lee’s Fist of Fury, Chan’s Drunken Master and Li’s Once Upon a Time in China are all looking to have the AI treatment. It’s all part of the “Kung Fu Movie Heritage Project 100 Classics AI Revitalisation Project.”
There will be a digital reworking of John Woo’s classic A Better Tomorrow, which starred Chow Yun-fat. According to the Hollywood Reporter:
…by the looks of the trailer, turns the money-burning anti-hero originally played by Chow Yun-fat into a cyberpunk, and is being claimed as “the world’s first full-process, AI-produced animated feature film.”
I’ve looked and can’t see a trailer online, I’m guessing it was only shown at the film festival. There were a lot of ‘big guns’ at the festival who were there to support the announcement of Kung Fu remakes.
They were led by Zhang Pimin, chairman of the China Film Foundation. He said AI work on these “aesthetic historical treasures” would give them a new look that “conforms to contemporary film viewing.”
The new Kung Fu AI ‘restoration’ project will be given 100 million yuan ($13.9 million) to kick-start the project.
I have to post the best, non-AI fight ever from Wheels on Meals, with Jackie Chan and Benny Urquidez. Some say the best fight is between Chan and Brad Allen from Gorgeous, but personally I love this one.