Zhai Jiandong

Zhai Jiandong is an associate professor at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (SCFAI), where he heads the Film Photography and Production Department. He is credited as producer, AI director and artistic director of Hot-blooded Tribe, which the institute presents as its first AI-produced film.

The film was made by SCFAI's China Digital Art and Image Center with Yunnan Xiubaba Film Production Co. Set as the Nanzhao Kingdom falls in the late Tang Dynasty, it follows the warrior Mulangge defending his rainforest tribe from an expanding neighbour. AI imaging was used across planning, storytelling, visual style, character movement and lighting, down to the film's elephants and clouded leopards. It launched on iQiyi and Youku on 8 September 2026, with an overseas release on Apple TV, Google TV and Amazon planned for March 2027.

Zhai has called the project a milestone for the institute's model of combining teaching, research and production, with graduate students taking on AI-assisted visual design, concept art and digital characters. He has said AI lets a team iterate quickly on ideas, but that the artistic quality and emotional expression of the result still depend on the creators' understanding of art, an approach he describes as human-machine collaboration.