Will AI kill the Asian entertainment industry, or reinvent it?

Singapore celebrated its 61st birthday with two films. One, Bersama Majulah, depicts the Southeast Asian country under siege by zombies; the other, Trace Project, tells an inspiring tale of a young man who grows up to become Singapore’s first astronaut on Mars. The twist? Neither film starred a human actor. Everything in both films—apart from their scripts—had been fully generated by AI. Generative AI in filmmaking is the first real proof of how the new technology can disrupt an established industry. It started with short-form content: According to Chinese state media, over 95% of the more than 120,000 Chinese microdramas released in the first quarter of 2026 were AI-generated, compared with nearly zero just a year ago. The technology is now encroaching on more established…