‘There’s no soul’: Hong Kong actor Tony Leung weighs in on AI in filmmaking

One of the things Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung Chiu-wai likes about acting is the novelty — “you will never repeat the same role”.

When it comes to the changes wrought on his beloved cinema by technology like AI, though, there are some things it seems he would rather keep constant.

The 63-year-old is president of the main jury at the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) this year, and on Friday sat down with AFP and The Hollywood Reporter for a wide-ranging interview that took in artificial intelligence, Chinese cinema and his future projects.

Filmmaking has not been exempt from the disruption meted out onto the creative industries by AI’s rapid development in recent years.

“I think AI is a double-edged sword,” Leung said when asked about its impact.

“‘It saves a lot of time’ means it saves a lot of money… But at the same time, a lot of people will lose their jobs.”

The beneficiaries, he predicted, will be mainstream “popcorn movies”: “You don’t need to think. There’s no creative. That’s just calculation.”

Filmmakers are experimenting more with new tech tools, with SIFF this year debuting an initiative in which selected teams were given a month to create short AI-assisted films.

Asked whether he thought a movie created with AI could truly be considered art, Leung paused for several seconds.

“But there’s no soul,” he answered almost plaintively. He paused again.

“I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s an art. No.”

Leung is clear-eyed about the challenges facing cinema globally — especially the clamour for attention against streaming, gaming and shortform content pushed by algorithms on social media.

He said he “really hate(s)” phone viewing.

“I feel sad. When I was a kid I used to watch movies in a big cinema with a big screen and somehow it’s going smaller and smaller these days,” he said.

“To me movies shouldn’t be watched outside the cinema.”

Creativity and censorship

Leung’s collaborations with fellow Hong Konger Wong Kar-wai are emblematic of the golden age of the city’s film industry in the 80s and 90s.

An icon of Asian arthouse, he has also taken on Hollywood, playing a supervillain in Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” in 2021.

He received a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in 2023.

SIFF is showing a retrospective of his works this year, but Leung will not be in the audience.

“I’m the kind of actor who doesn’t like to look back to my old films,” he laughed.

There was a time when the mainland Chinese industry was still in a “learning stage”, including from Hong Kong, he said.

“Now they have their own thinking of making movies because they are the only ones who know the local culture, the local texture,” he added.

Though he professed to not know the mainland scene “very well”, he pinpointed animation and small-scale productions as bright spots.

The latter was allowing for experimentation without huge financial risk, which was good for the film industry as a whole, he said.

“At the same time, maybe they need to loosen their censorship a bit in order to have more different kinds of movie and less restriction creating-wise,” he added.

A kind of chaos

In Leung’s latest film, “Silent Friend” — his first outing in a fully European production — a ginkgo tree plays a central role.

“It really changed my perspective towards plants,” he said, his expressive face lighting up as he explained mycorrhiza, a symbiotic association between fungi and plant roots.

“They know how to react to the outside world. They can do a lot of stuff… So I believe plants have intelligence.”

Chuckling, he said making the film had been “a kind of chaos”.

The crew found “a harmony” like “dancing together”, taking no special direction and improvising a lot.

“When I first watched it… I was like, wow. After editing, it’s something so different,” he said.

Leung has three projects on the go at the moment — a film with Hong Kong director Johnnie To, a production set in India and a streaming series.

For him, the most important factor is the director.

“What kind of story, what genre, is not important to me,” he said.

“I love their movies, or I love this person… That’s how I pick projects.”

He said he has changed his attitude on seeking perfection in roles.

“Film is an act of truthfulness, not happening on the screen but in the heart and in the guts of the spectator,” he said.

“If you are true, that’s what you should go after… not perfection.”