The milestone
AI, tested under the standards of the big screen.
Beyond shorts and experiments, Honey's Needle (also known as Feng Mi de Zhen, 2026) put AI filmmaking to the test under the rules of commercial cinema for the first time — reportedly the first AI-assisted feature to earn a national theatrical public-release permit. StarTrail supplied the core AI technology through StarTrail Phoenix AI™.
StarTrail's contribution
Nine shots the audience could never tell were AI.
StarTrail contributed nine key shots to the film — the hardest kind: complex character reconstruction, digital-human performance, and fully virtualized environments.
Several ran close to a full minute, carrying dialogue and close-ups — the exact conditions where AI imagery usually falls apart. Holding a performance and a face together, believably, across a minute of screen time at theatrical resolution is the bar our AI Performance System and light-and-material reconstruction were built to clear.
How it held up
The same pipeline behind our own films.
The work on Honey's Needle ran on StarTrail Phoenix AI™ — the proprietary suite we use for film-scene reconstruction and complex-shot processing on theatrical projects, and the same engine behind StarTrail's own AI live-action and animation. Reconstructed lighting and materials, consistent character identity, and a theatrical-grade finish, shot by shot. See how the technology works →
Have a theatrical project that needs AI shots?
From scene reconstruction to full production, StarTrail Phoenix AI™ is available as a production & post service.