Tokyo | As fireworks exploded over China this week and millions of families gathered to celebrate the Lunar New Year, China’s top technology firms launched their own kind of spectacle: a blitz of new AI tools designed to go viral over the country’s biggest holiday period.

Since Monday, social media feeds have been filled with stunningly realistic video clips of Brad Pitt trading punches with Tom Cruise in neon-lit alleyways and cute Japanese otaku girls outplaying LeBron James on a basketball court.

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