Apple Releases Epic Chinese New Year Film Shot On iPhone 13 Pro

Apple has an annual tradition of releasing short movie-quality films for the Lunar New Year festivities, which begin on February 1 this year. The 2022 edition—its fifth Chinese New Year video—is a true homage to cinema, tying aspects from Kung Fu action with sci-fi and more. Notably, all of it was recorded with the flagship iPhone 13 Pro.

In The Comeback, a 23-minute film produced by Chinese director Zhang Meng, an ambitious stunt double dejectedly returns to his rural home village for the New Year celebrations after sustaining injuries on set. He’s warmly welcomed by the villagers, who call him the “big director.” It turns out they have a desire to create a video that could make their home “internet-famous” so as to draw visitors to the area.

The young man is reluctant to help and doesn’t believe that the site—and even more so himself—has filmmaking potential. “It’s a wasteland, just like Mars!” he laments, which gives his father (the mastermind of the project) an idea.

The Comeback is really two shot-on-iPhone films. It shows the lead-up to the creation of an epic homemade video, one that makes the most out of the village’s resources, as well as the final product itself. Above all, it captures the capabilities of the iPhone 13 Pro, including the camera’s ultra-wide and telephoto lenses, along with features like Dolby Vision support, stabilization, Cinematic Mode, Low-Light, Slo-mo, and Time-Lapse, according to Variety.

The film is “set to inspire and encourage everyone to never stop believing in their dreams—even if that dream is as far away as Mars,” Apple shares in a statement to the pop-culture news outlet.

Advertising agency TBWA\ Media Arts Lab helped create the campaign, which also includes an original score by Varqa Buehrer. Watch the heartwarming, multifaceted film below.

[via Variety and MacRumors, video and screenshots via Apple]