{"id":909923,"date":"2026-09-29T15:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T15:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909923\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T15:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T15:18:09","slug":"light-pillar-director-xu-zao-readies-ai-themed-easy-my-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909923\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Light Pillar’ Director Xu Zao Readies AI-Themed ‘Easy, My Friend’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cLight Pillar<\/a>,\u201d the Berlinale Perspectives animated feature from first-time director Xu Zao<\/a>, is competing in the Hidden Dragons section for Chinese-language films at the Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival. The film is still seeking distribution in China.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe story follows Zha, who works at a dilapidated film studio in northern China and falls for a female player he meets in a virtual game. She invites him on a trip to the moon, but when Zha pays for it with money earned from extra work, the ticket turns out to be invalid.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOriginally, I wanted to tell a story of a person entering the game world. As I was thinking of telling the story in-depth, I thought, why not combining with the film studio that I\u2019m familiar with? The film studio\u2019s environment is very game-like, as film itself is a kind of game,\u201d Xu tells Variety.<\/p>\n

\n\tXu says the film also drew on a real-life source: telecom scams run by teenagers, which have become a widespread crime.<\/p>\n

\n\tA self-described cinephile, Xu nods to several films, including Stephen Chow\u2019s action comedy \u201cKung Fu Hustle,\u201d Jiang Wen\u2019s \u201cLet the Bullets Fly\u201d and the Chinese classic \u201cJourney to the West.\u201d He also worked some bad films into \u201cLight Pillar,\u201d since a studio lot would never host only great movies.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fading studio carries a note of melancholy about the state of the film industry as AI advances.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt is just the change of method in storytelling or change of tool, but filmmaking itself remains the same in its core \u2013 ultimately we only evaluate the film itself,\u201d Xu says. \u201cMy relative\u2019s kids talk to AI all day, so will they refuse an AI movie? I don\u2019t think so. What matters is that [the movie] will be something that everyone likes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe adds that he doesn\u2019t \u201creally see today\u2019s technologies or environmental factors as driving the decay\u201d of the industry. \u201cIf you look at it from a broader time scale, it\u2019s just one node on a long timeline, a point on a curve. It doesn\u2019t represent everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m too lazy to learn how to train it,\u201d Xu says of using AI in production. \u201cIf one day it follows my one-sentence order precisely, I will use it. But now I have to learn how to use it well, waiting for it to generate something that eventually I may find unsatisfying. This process drains me. I\u2019d rather draw myself, and I really enjoy drawing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLight Pillar\u201d flips the usual logic of real and virtual. The game world is played by live-action actors, led by Da Peng and Qing Yi, while the real world is entirely 2D animation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[I did that] just to save troubles. If I shot human actors, I could save my time thinking about how to design and draw the two different worlds,\u201d Xu says. The live-action shoot for the virtual world took only five days, which sped up production considerably.<\/p>\n

\n\tActor Da Peng, who plays and voices Zha, also co-produced the film. The two met at the CFDG Young Shoots Project in 2023, where Da Peng sat on the jury, and Xu approached him with one goal: to cast him as the lead.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDa Peng actively helped new directors. I simply sent him the script, and he invited me to talk more about it. He asked all his questions, and then we clapped an eye on each other,\u201d Xu says. \u201cHe fits Zha \u2013 age, aura, his previous roles. It\u2019s a perfect match.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tXu\u2019s next project, \u201cEasy, My Friend,\u201d was selected for the HAF Film Lab. Still at the script stage, it centers on a skilled illustrator who rebuilds her life through rooftop gardening after AI steals her drawing skills and takes her job.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI have to figure out everything \u2013 all the details \u2013 during the script stage. If doubt still remains, I definitely won\u2019t proceed,\u201d Xu says. \u201cThe reason I make animation is that I could fully take control of every step of the production. Actually, I have a hard time dealing with last-minute adjustments.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe story is set in northern China, and Xu aims to finish the script by next July.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019d be too comfortable to grow plants in the south,\u201d Xu says. \u201cI mustn\u2019t let [the protagonist] be that comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cLight Pillar,\u201d the Berlinale Perspectives animated feature from first-time director Xu Zao, is competing in the Hidden Dragons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,244457,344,477978,477979],"class_list":["post-909923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-light-pillar","tag-movies","tag-pingyao-international-film-festival","tag-xu-zao"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}