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AI is transformed into Jackie Chan, and "Legend" is a huge hit with the audience.

Cover I Movie "Legend" poster

Author I Li Dongyang

Report I Li Dongyang's circle of friends

"It takes a huge ego to think that someone wants to see their zombie face made 40 years younger by beauty products. I hope reality can deal a heavy blow to old men. AI face replacement results in a loss of 10 million yuan in investment for every year younger. It is the most expensive cosmetic injection in human history."

This is the top-rated movie "Legend" on Douban.

Although the words are harsh, this is largely the voice of many viewers and even Jackie Chan's fans.

With the title of the sister film of "The Myth" and the gimmick of "27-year-old AI Jackie Chan returns to the big screen", the movie "Legend" has made a grand entrance into this year's summer season.

But the box office revenue of 78 million after 13 days of release basically announced the "death" of this blockbuster movie with an investment of 350 million yuan.

An outdated story, a clichéd plot, a love story that is not beautiful at all, a villain with villain written all over him, and a bottle of antidote for one person... This movie in 2024 exudes the "old-fashioned" temperament of more than 20 years ago.

If the key to the failure of this film was the self-reproduction of 60% of the plot of "The Myth", then AI Jackie Chan was the bomb that ignited the audience's anger.

"AI modified Jackie Chan so that every frame he appears in has AI texture, just like a deepfake movie."

"In order to play a love scene with Nazha, AI changed his face to look like a young person. In the field of straight male cancer, Jackie Chan can compete with Feng Xiaogang in having Ge You fall in love with the young version of artificial intelligence Shu Qi."

"The 7-year-old Jackie Chan, powered by AI, seems to be modeled directly after Zhang Yixing, and has been retouched to look like a mannequin with the standard of a popular star with a lot of idol baggage. The effect on the big screen is even more terrifying than a low-quality plastic surgery face."

Social media and Douban’s comment section are filled with dissatisfaction and bad reviews about the “27-year-old AI Jackie Chan”.

Image source: Douban Movies

Although the public should not be so harsh on a 70-year-old man, once the matter is elevated to the commercial level of "spending money to buy tickets", everything seems reasonable.

If before this, the public's understanding of AI was still limited to ChatGPT and the high-tech laboratories of large companies, then at this moment, people have the most real experience of the "harm" of AI.

The audience’s dissatisfaction lies in the embarrassing scene of AI Jackie Chan, who has a built-in 3D skin-smoothing filter and a face smoother than that of the heroine Nazha, “crying like laughing” on the big screen.

Image source: Movie "Legend"

Unfortunately, this AI Jackie Chan, which made the creators quite satisfied, became the absolute protagonist of the film. Some viewers complained that out of the 129-minute movie, only 29 minutes were spent watching the real Jackie Chan.

But this viewer obviously overestimated Jackie Chan's screen time.

This so-called Jackie Chan AI is really just a face-swap. The action is real, but the "body double" is not Jackie Chan's previous image, but is said to be Zheng Yecheng.

As a result, the fighting scenes not only fail to reproduce the young version of Jackie Chan, but also no longer follow the principles of previous kung fu films, and have become fake fighting special effects.

After watching the film, I fully understand the bad reviews from movie fans, because the poorly made, lifelike AI Jackie Chan in the film, after its shortcomings were magnified through the big screen, really made people feel uneasy, uncomfortable, and a thorn in their throats all the time.

I don’t know how the creators convinced Jackie Chan, who has always been highly wary of “movie special effects”, to use AI to participate in the film.

After all, in the movie "Dragon Horse Spirit" released in 2023, Jackie Chan played the down-and-out martial artist Lao Luo, who showed his complete disgust for the current state of action movies constructed by special effects.

However, during the roadshow, the 70-year-old Jackie Chan was obviously full of nostalgia and envy for the young Jackie Chan who was 27 years old and fought on the battlefield in the movie.

But judging from the comments of the creators and audiences before and after the film was released, their expectations for AI Jackie Chan are obviously different.

In a pre-screening interview with the media, the director of Legend, Stanley Tong, said that when he used AI technology to create a younger version of Jackie Chan for Jackie Chan, Jackie Chan was worried that he was too handsome. After I explained that this role was a dream character and how he looked when he was young, Jackie Chan agreed and chose the age of 27.

Image source: Movie poster of "Legend"

Yu Dong from Bona Film Group, the main company of Legend, said that in this film, AI technology not only achieved special effects that were difficult to accomplish in the past, but also enabled actors to complete more filming tasks in a limited time through digital human technology, greatly reducing production costs. "For example, in the past an actor might have to shoot for nine consecutive days, but now with the assistance of AI technology, they only need two days to complete most of the filming, which can significantly reduce their pay."

When talking about the story behind the creation of AI Jackie Chan, Yu Dong also revealed that Jackie Chan selected the current version from more than 20 digital human images, and praised it as "too handsome."

It is hard to understand that for a film whose early publicity focuses on AI special effects, the director and producer are not concerned about whether the AI ​​Jackie Chan is realistic, but whether he is handsome.

This is obviously contrary to the audience's expectations.

The public and movie fans miss the young Jackie Chan of the past, but what people miss is the Jackie Chan who had a spirit of challenge in movies, did not use a stunt double, sneered at special effects, and was willing to risk his life to impress the audience.

Image source: Movie "Police Story"

But the creators obviously mistakenly thought that fans and audiences were craving for the younger version of Jackie Chan's body, and they also ignored the commercial backlash of sentimentality.

After all, how could the audience not know how handsome Jackie Chan was when he was young?

In the eyes of technological optimists, any technological problem is not a problem because it will always be solved over time.

I also maintain an optimistic expectation for the technical poorness shown by AI Jackie Chan in "Legend".

As Tang Jili said, two years ago, when I decided to incorporate AI production into the film, the relevant technology was not yet mature, and I could only make changes as I went along, and eventually formed the image of the young Jackie Chan that we see today.

But the latecomer will most likely not be AI Jackie Chan.

If I extend the timeline long enough, I will find that the problem with Jackie Chan's movies is obviously not AI. Among Jackie Chan's films in the past 10 years, "Lion Falls from the Sky", "Chinese Zodiac", "Railroad Tigers", "Kung Fu Yoga", "Vanguard", "Dragon Horse Spirit"... almost all ended in failure.

While some of them were commercially successful, none of them clearly met audience expectations.

This is of course influenced by the "decline" of kung fu films and even Hong Kong films, but in a larger sense it is due to Jackie Chan himself.

When commenting on Jackie Chan's "Legend", Poisonous Tongue Movie bluntly said that he lived up to the character of a "senior".

I agree with you.

If you think back to Jackie Chan’s works in recent years, it is hard to pick out a film in which he does not educate the younger generation and impart profound truths about family and country.

To some extent, Jackie Chan, who has been acting in movies all his life, has already brought his real identity into the movies. If movies create dreams, then Jackie Chan obviously cannot distinguish between reality and movies.

Huang Xiaoming and Huang Bo have both said something similar: "When you become famous, good people will surround you."

As for Yu Chenglong, as the big brother of the entertainment industry, he has always been praised by others.

When he was young, he was full of creative desire. Relying on his talent, the films he produced were still of high quality even if no one raised any objections.

But it is undeniable that Jackie Chan today still wants to present wonderful films to the audience. However, faced with the decline of his own creative ability and the blind praise from those around him, it is easy for him to live in a vacuum of being "praised to death".

During the roadshow for "Legend", Jackie Chan said that his films always insist on real action scenes, and he hesitated when he heard that he wanted to create an "AI Jackie Chan" image. But after watching several films produced by AI technology, he decided to give it a try.

Combined with the previous remarks made by Stanley Tong and Yu Dong, it is not difficult to guess what kind of "overpraising" Jackie Chan experienced from the people around him during the process of his attitude change.

What is puzzling is that, after being repeatedly "exposed" by the market and the audience, why hasn't Jackie Chan realized that he has always been living in a "Truman Show" built of "praise to death"?

Film is the art of light and shadow, but also a "fantasy world" constructed by technology.

From "Jurassic Park" in 1993 to "Avatar" in 2009, the magic of movies has never stopped shocking the audience.

Image source: Jurassic Park

If "Avatar" once again aroused filmmakers' desire to explore film technology, the emergence of AIGC from then to today has brought the film and television industry to another climax.

Compared with the difficulty of realizing CG special effects, AIGC's new logic of generating images is obviously the most exciting aspect for film and television practitioners.

Film is the art of dream-making, and now AIGC has obviously brought more room for imagination to film.

In fact, before "Legend", there were many precedents of using CGAI to reduce the age of actors both at home and abroad.

For example, "The Wandering Earth", "Gemini Killer", "The Irishman"...especially the pixel-level realistic effects of "Gemini Killer" have caused heated discussions.

However, the biggest beneficiary in this regard is "Fast and Furious 7" released in 2015.

On November 30, 2013, Paul Walker, one of the leading actors in the "Fast and Furious" series, died in a car accident. Subsequently, Universal Pictures spent 50 million US dollars to use CG technology to resurrect Paul Walker in the movie.

Image source: "Fast and Furious 7"

Whether out of interest in the movie itself or curiosity about the CG shooting process, when the movie was released in 2015, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker parted at the fork in the road at the end of the movie and smiled at each other, which not only became a classic in film history, but also because of this "gimmick", the film became the box office champion in the history of Chinese mainland film in 2015 with 2.4 billion yuan.

But it is undeniable that this forced behavior not only inadvertently satisfied the ultimate pursuit of film dream-making, but also made CG technology warm for the first time.

But compared to Ang Lee who once joked that he "knows Will Smith's face better than his own mother" and "The Wandering Earth 2" which spent a year trying to use pure CG and then started over again, the AI ​​Jackie Chan in "Legend" serves more as a publicity "gimmick".

From the current perspective, it is difficult to imagine what kind of future AI will bring to the film industry.

But one thing is certain, technology is always auxiliary, and the core of the movie is always a moving story.

And those magnificent images and stories created by technology are like riding a roller coaster in a high-tech amusement park, or glancing back at the earth while traveling in space. The immersive wonders and sights weave a fantastic dream for everyone in light and shadow.

The purpose behind this is very clear:Let AI return to technology and let movies return to art.

This is something the "Legends" must realize, and it is also something that must change in the future.