TBWA\Media Arts Lab and Apple continue to make ever-more ambitious films on iPhone. This one, Through the Five Passes, is also the agency’s sixth film for Apple for Chinese New Year.
It is built around Chinese opera, one of the oldest dramatic art forms in the world and a key part of Chinese New Year traditions, tracing back to the first dynasty of Imperial China. The title refers to a renowned Chinese opera and is also an expression that means to overcome all odds. It embodies the spirit of doing whatever needs to be done to overcome adversity, a very relatable topic for Apple’s audience right now. The story is about the core Chinese virtue of resilience and one man’s perseverance in keeping the art of Chinese Opera alive.
The short film was directed by Venice Film Festival Award winning director, Peng Fei, and shot on an iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, making the most of the phones’ camera features – action mode, low-light, macro, ultra wide, telephoto, stabilisation, ProRes and cinematic mode.
A behind-the-scenes video explains how the film was made:
The previous Apple Chinese New Year films by TBWA}Media Arts Lab , all Shot on iPhone, are:
- 2022: The Comeback, directed by Zhang Meng
- 2021: Nian, directed by Lulu Wang
- 2020: Daughter, directed by Theodore Melfi
- 2019: The Bucket, directed by Jia Zhangke
- 2018: Three Minutes, directed by Peter Chan
The campaign is running in paid media in China, digital in Hong Kong & Taiwan and YouTube in the US and Canada.
