AI Tech / news
China's First Fully AI-Generated Series 'Beyond Wukong' Debuts in Prime Time
The Later Journey to the West, also titled Beyond Wukong, has premiered in prime time on Hunan Satellite Television and Mango TV, billed as China's first fully AI-generated series.
The series is set a millennium after Sun Wukong's legendary triumph and follows a young stone monkey named Sun Xiaosheng and his crew on a fresh pilgrimage to redeem the cosmic order. It reimagines the Ming Dynasty classic Journey to the West for a new screen treatment.
Visually, the show leans on traditional Chinese painting-style imagery, a look the production positions as a blend of technological innovation and traditional oriental aesthetics. Its makers say the approach breaks with conventional remake formulas.
Li Dongshen directed the series. The production team describes its creative philosophy as human-centered: AI altered the workflow by handling visual creation and making plot iterations far more fluid, while all core storylines, character growth and emotional beats were polished exclusively by human screenwriters.
The premiere ran in prime time in September on Hunan Satellite Television and the streaming platform Mango TV, placing the AI-generated title in a mainstream broadcast slot. The project follows earlier, much-discussed AI-generated work drawing on the Monkey King story.
Its arrival marks a step for AI-made content in China's entertainment industry, extending the technology from experimental clips into a scheduled television and streaming release.