{"id":654583,"date":"2026-10-23T06:12:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T06:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/654583\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T06:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T06:12:21","slug":"peter-chan-rules-out-ai-generated-content-backs-feature-film-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/654583\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Chan Rules Out AI-Generated Content, Backs Feature Film Survival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAcclaimed Asian filmmaker Peter Chan Ho-sun<\/a>, director of \u201cComrades: Almost a Love Story\u201d and \u201cThe Warlords,\u201d said he will probably use AI<\/a> in his filmmaking but \u201cdefinitely not AIGC,\u201d or AI-generated content, and that the two-hour feature will hold its ground against short-form and vertical dramas, at least in his lifetime.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking at an In Conversation event at the Singapore International Film Festival<\/a>, Chan was asked by an audience member whether he had ever doubted his decision to go into the film industry. His advice to aspiring filmmakers: \u201cThis is probably the toughest time for film, but do I believe this medium is going to be lost and gone to short-form entertainment? No.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe said he would probably use AI as a technique, the way the industry already uses CGI and special effects, noting that CGI has relied on AI for years without calling it that. \u201cAnything that helps me make movies, I welcome. But they won\u2019t know art. Movies are still made by people,\u201d Chan said.<\/p>\n

\n\tYoung audiences\u2019 shrinking attention spans have them turning to short and vertical dramas, Chan said, while at the other end, people are listening to podcasts that run for hours, and Christopher Nolan did podcasts around the world to explain his purist approach of making \u201cOppenheimer\u201d the way movies were made in the \u201950s. \u201cSo there are two completely opposite ends of the spectrum that are surviving and thriving simultaneously. So I believe that movie will be around for a long, long time,\u201d he told a rapt audience at the Grand Ballroom, Marina Bay Sands.<\/p>\n

\n\tChan\u2019s latest film, \u201cThe Road Not Taken,\u201d premiered in Toronto. \u201cMy new movie is about Alzheimer\u2019s, but it\u2019s really not just about Alzheimer\u2019s. It\u2019s about a broken family that has all sorts of problems a family could have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe story centers on a couple in the middle of divorce proceedings when the wife, who has early-onset Alzheimer\u2019s, no longer remembers the divorce and drifts back in her mind to the time they fell in love in their 20s. A harsh grandfather and the couple\u2019s relationship with their Gen Z daughter complete the picture. The daughter in the film is 20, the same age as Chan\u2019s own daughter, who is training to become an actor. Chan\u2019s partner is actor Sandra Ng.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe English title comes from the Robert Frost poem, which Chan called his life motto, while the Chinese title, \u201cMing Tian Hui Geng Hao,\u201d translates as \u201cTomorrow Will Be Better.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s really no right path,\u201d he said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s right or wrong, it\u2019s all about how you walk it. You make it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile researching the film, Chan visited an Alzheimer\u2019s care institution in Chengdu, in China\u2019s Sichuan province, where he picked up an eight-word Mandarin phrase that he used to sum up his career: go with the flow, and know when to stop. In the \u201990s, when he was making romantic comedies at United Filmmakers Organization (UFO), the company he co-founded, gangster pictures and wuxia ruled Hong Kong screens. \u201cWe were not exactly going with the flow, but we did make the flow, somehow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat same flow later carried him to \u201cThe Warlords,\u201d which he described as his biggest film. \u201cNever had I thought that I would ever make a historical epic battle movie with Jet Li. That was never, ever in my agenda for my entire life,\u201d Chan said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year marks the 30th anniversary of \u201cComrades,\u201d which Chan made at 34 as his seventh feature and which captures Hong Kong between 1985 and 1995. He left Hong Kong on Christmas Eve 1996, and only after returning from America around two and a half years later did he grasp how deeply the film had affected filmmakers in mainland China, South Korea and Southeast Asia, even though, he said, it probably only barely recouped its investment.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat movie gave me a lease of movie life for the next 30 years, until now,\u201d Chan said.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe said 90% of people remember him for that single film, \u201cas if I have not done better afterwards,\u201d calling it a blessing but also a spell he wanted to break.<\/p>\n

\n\tChan, who also said the \u201990s marked the start of Hong Kong cinema\u2019s decline rather than its golden age, described his DreamWorks film \u201cThe Love Letter\u201d as a difficult experience. He was not thrown by working across cultures, he said, having grown up Thai-Chinese and feeling like an outsider even in Hong Kong. What he struggled with was a corporate system where it was unclear who called the shots, and a reliance on test screenings that he likened to today\u2019s algorithms. He said he was probably the first, if not the only, Hong Kong filmmaker to make a non-action film inside the U.S. studio system.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHad I gone to America or Hollywood with the knowledge that I have of film and marketing and dealing with corporate, I probably would have fared better,\u201d Chan said. \u201cI was too young then, too naive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked later by an audience member how he navigates censorship in mainland China, Chan said: \u201cDealing with a corporate is very, very difficult. And if I can survive that, I can survive anything.\u201d He added that limitations of budget, stars, studios or censorship tend to push filmmakers to be more creative.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter Hollywood, Chan set up Applause Pictures, a pan-Asian venture that made 10 films in two and a half years, most of them horror. Its output included \u201cThe Eye\u201d franchise and the \u201cThree\u201d horror omnibus films, which brought together directors including Park Chan-wook, Miike Takashi, Kim Jee-woon and Fruit Chan. He also executive produced \u201cOne Fine Spring Day\u201d for Korean director Hur Jin-ho \u2013 director of SGIFF opener \u201cThe Assassin(s)\u201d \u2013 whose debut \u201cChristmas in August\u201d he loved. But a planned three-part love story with Hur and Japan\u2019s Iwai Shunji found no investors.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf we continue this pan-Asian effort, I\u2019m going to be stuck with making horror films my whole life,\u201d Chan said of the decision to move on to mainland China, where his first film was the 2005 musical \u201cPerhaps Love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAn aspiring screenwriter in the audience asked how he handles a scene that isn\u2019t landing. \u201cI don\u2019t usually fix it for them. I make them fix it over and over and over and over again,\u201d Chan said, adding that after saying \u201cgreat\u201d to everything at home, he doesn\u2019t do the same with his writers.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe credited nine writers on \u201cThe Warlords,\u201d and said screenwriters joke that his films\u2019 writers would not fit in a minibus. \u201cI milk the writer to death, and then I milk another writer,\u201d he said. \u201cSo the writers\u2019 community really don\u2019t like me very much. But making movies is not about being well-liked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThough he is often seen as a genre-hopper, Chan said the same concerns run through his work, citing the love triangles in his debut \u201cAlan & Eric: Between Hello and Goodbye,\u201d \u201cComrades,\u201d \u201cPerhaps Love\u201d and even \u201cThe Warlords,\u201d which he called a love triangle between three brothers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMaking every movie is answering some sort of life questions that I have at that stage, in point of my life,\u201d he said. \u201cSo in a way, I\u2019ve been making the same movie in my mind in the last 36 years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Acclaimed Asian filmmaker Peter Chan Ho-sun, director of \u201cComrades: Almost a Love Story\u201d and \u201cThe Warlords,\u201d said he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,245284,294427,125],"class_list":["post-654583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-peter-chan-ho-sun","tag-singapore-international-film-festival","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}