Generic Video Outfit Vidu has announced two major strategic moves designed to transform creative production. A groundbreaking intellectual property agreement with the 1999 Journey to the West anime and a partnership with Honor to integrate advanced image-to-video AI technology into the Honor 400 series smartphones.
The initiative places Vidu's parent company Shengshu Technology at the forefront of what the company calls the “smartphone-Studio era.” Here, consumer devices become AI-powered creative hubs that allow professional-grade content generation.
The cornerstone of Chinese literature, Journey to the West follows the adventures of San Wucon, the demonic monkey king.
The Journey to the West partnership announced at Vidou's Tokyo Global Talent Meetup allows users to rethink themselves as the legendary Monkey King character, ranging from traditional operas to Dragon Ball Z and 2024's Black Myth: Woon.
The feature, which will unfold over the next few months, allows users to upload photos and allow Vidu to apply the clear aesthetics of the 1999 “Journey to the West” anime art style to their portraits. Users can select from curated plotline templates to create 16-second personalized video segments with generated narration and background music.
“For the first time, generative AI is becoming a vehicle for not only promoting creativity behind the scenes, but also rethinking ownership, world building and beloved stories,” says Luo Yihang, CEO of Shengshu Technology. “Vidu is building for creative co-ownership through strategic partnerships and future acquisitions. This will help shape the next generation of cultural IP.”
Released on May 28th, the Honor 400 series features Vidu's multi-modal image-to-video AI technology, allowing users to directly convert static images into movie video on their mobile phones. Integration represents a real-time, mobile-optimized processing breakthrough that overcomes the traditional computational limitations of smartphones.
“In the Giants-dominated AI landscape, our partnership with Honor examines core beliefs. True innovation thrives,” says Luo. “Vidu's mobile-optimized architecture overcomes the historic bottleneck for providing movie video generation on consumer devices and transforms smartphones from passive tools to active creative partners.”
According to companies, the collaboration shows a significant shift towards adopting technology as merely a “tool” and merely a “tool.”
The announcement follows Vidu's recent Q1 model launch, and features industry-first AI sound effects that offer 48 KHz audio, in addition to the first frame technology for a seamless transition between realistic and animation sequences. The company has also partnered with Lenovo to deploy models across the hardware platform, securing content deals with AI animation series AURA Prods.
The “Observer Paradox” by independent animator Rou Shu Te Xiao, created with Vidu, has received over 3 million views.
Founded in March 2023, Shengshu Technology specializes in large-scale multimodal language models, reaching users of over 200 countries across the entertainment, advertising, film, animation and cultural tourism sectors.
The animated film trilogy based on “Journey To the West” is a work by Stars Collective.
