Leslie Cheung’s last concert enhanced by AI technology

Tencent Media Lab, a multimedia research unit run by Chinese tech giant Tencent, released and aired a 4K-resolution version of a concert of Hong Kong movie star and singer Leslie Cheung who died in 2003. Hong Kong-based news agency South China Morning Post reported that Tencent Media Lab significantly improved the original master copy of Cheung’s last concert “Leslie Cheung Passion Tour” in 2000 to release the enhanced version for two and a half hours at 8 p.m. on Friday, which marks the anniversary of his death, on online video service platform Tencent Video.

AI technology sextupled the original quality of the video taken back in 2000, making Cheung’s face and hair, blurred under the dark lighting, way clearer, according to Tencent Media Lab. The released version got as many as 17.40 million views in the first three hours.

Starting his career as a singer, Cheung starred many hits such as “A Better Tomorrow,” “A Chinese Ghost Story,” “Days of Being Wild,” “Farewell My Concubine” and “Happy Together.” He gained a lot of popularity in South Korea in the 1980s and 1990s. Coming out as gay, he committed suicide at a hotel in Hong Kong on April 1, 2003, which his fans across the globe have since commemorated.


Seong-Mo Kim mo@donga.com