Tony Leung Chiu-wai paused for several seconds when asked whether a film made by artificial intelligence could truly be considered art. Then he answered, almost quietly: “But there’s no soul. I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s an art. No.”
The Hong Kong screen legend was speaking at the Shanghai International Film Festival, where he served as jury president for the Golden Goblet competition. The festival was thick with noise about the factors threatening cinema’s future — AI and falling global box-office returns chief among them — and Leung, at 63, engaged both with the precision of someone who has spent nearly five decades inside the industry.
“I think AI is a double-edged sword,” he said. “‘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.” He was careful to separate efficiency from artistry. “If the audience knows that something isn’t human, their perception changes entirely,” he said.
“It’s the same with art. Looking at an original painting by Van Gogh gives you a completely different feeling than looking at a Van Gogh style generated by AI.” He acknowledged using AI himself, but as a research tool — asking it questions, debating abstract concepts, mining its database — not as a creative collaborator.
The cinema experience itself is the other front where Leung draws a firm line. He said he “really hates” watching films on phones. “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.
To me movies shouldn’t be watched outside the cinema.” He sees smaller-scale productions as the industry’s best path forward, arguing that shorter video content, streaming, and gaming have splintered young audiences who have never experienced cinema in a theater. “The new generation, they have never had a theatrical experience so you have to find a way to invite these young kids to go to cinema,” he said.
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Leung’s latest film, Silent Friend — directed by Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi and his first fully European production — screened as a special tribute at SIFF. He described its making as “a kind of chaos” in which the crew found a harmony like “dancing together,” improvising freely, and producing something he barely recognized after editing. He has three projects lined up next: a film with Hong Kong director Johnnie To awaiting a completed script, an India-set production unlikely to shoot before the monsoon season ends, and a streaming series in which he will play a serial killer.
On choosing his roles, Leung is categorical. “I choose the director first,” he said. “What kind of story, what genre, is not important to me. I need to have some feelings for this person or love their movies… I never plan because I don’t want to control something that I can’t control because that’s life — it won’t happen as you wish.”
