Christopher Lee is starring in Southeast Asia’s first artificial intelligence (AI) hybrid series inspired by the true-life story of Eighteen Chefs’ founder and chef Benny Se Teo.
Titled Crooks, the nine-episodes series directed by Hong Kong director Lemmon Wong centres on Ah Cheng (Christopher), an ex-convict chef who inherits his late brother’s Italian restaurant and rebuilds his life with a team of former inmates and social outcasts. The series also stars Chen Yixin, Noah Yap, Peter Yu and Rayson Tan.
The 54-year-old Singaporean actor told AsiaOne during a set visit yesterday (June 11) that he was invited to play Ah Cheng before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I was attracted to the story. I feel it’s also a character that is hard to reject and something most actors would like to perform,” he said.
Christopher added: “Ah Cheng’s story is not something that most people would have experienced before… I think he has been through many hardships and made mistakes in life, and I believe his philosophy in life is a lot richer than many people’s.”
However, due to various reasons including the Covid-19 pandemic, the project was delayed and expanded from a movie to series, and began filming the pilot episode only recently.
Local filmmaker Boi Kwong, who is producing the series, told AsiaOne that he had plans to do a story about Se Teo in 2017 because of the latter’s inspiring background and approached him with the idea.
He added Se Teo told him then that many Chinese producers had also hoped to adapt his story to screen, because his experiences are known in China.
However, he eventually chose to open up to Boi as he trusts and prefers to work with a Singaporean. Se Teo now serves as a culinary consultant on the set of Crooks.
‘We shouldn’t let AI deprive us of our creativity’
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Crooks is produced with an AI-hybrid workflow, where human actors perform with AI-created backgrounds. During AsiaOne’s visit to the set, we noticed the backgrounds were visible on a monitor. The actors were briefed first before they acted in front of a white backdrop.
Boi told us he was initially hesitant about using AI.
He shared: “I was actually very against AI for a long time. But during Chinese New Year [this year], a big percentage of my investors withdrew their investments due to the economy and war.
“I was trying to find ways to keep the project afloat… At the time, AI was quite talked about and later I met someone who convinced me to try filming using it.”
This began months of research and development by Boi and his team, doing stress tests on AI technology in filming, including camera-tracking, lighting, camera angles and distance, as well as storyboarding.
They only began filming the series after they were comfortable with working with the technology and will continue to test the workflow and duration while filming the pilot episode.
He also shared during the set visit: “AI allows us to have more creativity during filming. We used to have to rent locations for filming, which may also have filming restrictions… With scenes created by AI, we have no restrictions in our locations.”
There are about 20 locations generated for the series — including Chinatown in 1968 and a restaurant from 2008 — and the scenes are shot entirely in a studio setting with a white background.
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Boi added that AI filming helps improve efficiency, as they can complete filming earlier by about three hours each day and lower the production budget by about 30 per cent.
Despite using AI, he emphasised that the team continues to protect and create jobs, including creating more opportunities for the visual effects department and using only human actors.
“AI actors lack humanity and can’t act out the little details,” he said, adding that the actors’ performances are a priority.
Christopher also told us: “I wanted to continue to participate in this series because I will still be able to act in it. If they only required my appearance [to generate Ah Cheng with AI], I wouldn’t have agreed to it.
“Because that wouldn’t be my work, it would have belonged to someone else who only borrowed my appearance for it.”
Boi added they will continue to get the best people in their team to produce Crooks: “We are lucky that everyone understands that the rise of AI is inevitable, but we also know we shouldn’t let it deprive us of our creativity.”
The team targets to film the series by 2027 with the intention of selling licensing rights to streaming platforms including Netflix, iQiyi and WeTV.
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yeo.shuhui@asiaone.com
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