Chinese actress Fan Bingbing has returned to the Busan International Film Festival after an absence of three years, and at her press conference at the Busan Cinema Center on 7 October she told reporters that artificial intelligence cannot take the place of human actors. She also had warm words for Korean cinema, which she praised.
The occasion carried some weight for her personally, since the press conference fell in her 30th year as an actress. Her previous trip to Busan was in 2023, when she presented "Green Night". For the 31st edition she arrives with two projects: Wayne Wang's feature "The Diary of a Mad Old Man" and "She Said", a short film directed by Iven Tan. Both are being shown at the festival while she is in town.
“The raw emotions that human beings express through acting, and the seasoned skill shaped by the arc of a life, cannot be replicated by AI technology.”
Fan Bingbing, actress, at the Busan press conference · cineplay.co.kr ↗
Wang's film is a black comedy adapted from a novel by Tanizaki. Fan plays Susu, the Chinese daughter-in-law of Utsugi, a man in his seventies recovering after a stroke, who is played by Lily Franky. Away from her own work, she was also asked to select a film for the festival's "Carte Blanche" special programme, and she chose Park Chan-wook's "The Handmaiden", a pick that fits her praise for Korean filmmaking.
Her remarks on AI came from what she has actually watched. She said she has come across AI-generated short-form dramas now and then, and that the problem she noticed was sameness: the characters resemble one another so closely that none of them stays with the viewer once the episode is over. She set that against acting done by people, arguing that what a performer expresses on screen, and the craft built up over a lifetime, are things the technology cannot copy.
A second shot of Fan Bingbing answering questions at the same press conference
Image: Cineplay
She was equally forthcoming about the Korean films she admires. At the Toronto festival she saw Lee Chang-dong's "Possible Love", and she said she envied the freedom the actors seemed to have in it. She added that working in a new country with a director she has not worked with before tends to open up a new way of looking at things for her.
The festival continues until 15 October 2026, starting on 6 October, and her films are part of its programme during those days.
Fan Bingbing on the red carpet at the festival's opening ceremony (portrait format)
Image: Cineplay
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