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'Why Did They Set Out at 3am?': China Daily's National Day AI Short Film Goes Viral, Revealing a Uniquely Chinese Romance
Reporter 欧亚时报编辑部
On October 1, China Daily released an AI-generated short film themed around National Day, titled "Why Did They Set Out at 3am?", produced by AI Inspiration Studio. The roughly three-minute film uses AI-generated visuals to weave together early-morning moments from three groups of people: some setting out in the dark before dawn to Tiananmen Square just to witness the five-star red flag rise in the morning light; others stationed year-round at remote border outposts, quietly guarding the country's vast mountains and rivers; and others working through the night so that cities light up for the next morning. Through delicate visual storytelling, the film strings together these seemingly ordinary pre-dawn moments into a visual poem about dedication and sacrifice, hailed by many as a window into "a uniquely Chinese romance."
The film's release coincided with the National Day flag-raising ceremony at Beijing's Tiananmen Square. At 6:06am that morning, a bugler sounded the flag-raising call as 96 members of the flag guard marched in formation; around 6:10am, the five-star red flag rose to the top of the pole to the sound of "The March of the Volunteers" and "Ode to the Motherland," witnessed by more than 101,000 people from across the country, while more than 10,000 peace doves were released into the sky above the square in a spectacular scene. Xinhua and other state media quickly published special reports themed around "a stroke of Chinese red witnessing a journey across eras," amplifying the spread alongside China Daily's AI short film and pushing imagery of "setting out at 3am" and "keeping watch all night" onto social media trending lists.
In terms of reach, the AI short film achieved considerable online traction: more than 10 million cumulative likes and over 8 million shares across platforms, with some commentary calling it "immensely meaningful" National Day creative content. The achievement continues a trend seen throughout 2026 of Chinese official bodies and mainstream media increasingly using AI-generated short films for thematic publicity — an earlier AI short film for Martyrs' Day, titled "A Letter to You," drew million-plus likes and special coverage from provincial media; in April, the AI short film "Paper Phone" went viral across platforms, with media outlets closely dissecting its production team's techniques; and even earlier, an independent AI short film "hand-crafted" by a young creator in Yunnan drew attention from Hollywood industry figures, sparking wide discussion of grassroots Chinese AI video-creation capability. China Daily's choice to roll out similar content on National Day itself is seen as another example of official media formally incorporating this emerging creative technique into its toolkit for thematic publicity.
Behind this "AI short film craze" lies the rapid iteration of China's generative AI video technology over the past year. Domestic AI video-generation tools such as Kuaishou's "Kling" and Shengshu Technology's "Vidu" have made major leaps over the past two years in video fluidity, the realism of character movement, and visual storytelling capability, allowing production teams to produce short films with a certain cinematic quality in relatively short timeframes without on-location shooting or large film crews. This lowering of the technical barrier has not only let professional media organizations cut content production costs and respond faster to topical events, but has also enabled many independent creators and ordinary internet users to "hand-craft" AI short films with distinctive personal styles, giving rise to a number of breakout hits. Notably, China Daily's choice to credit this work to a relatively new internal creative team called "AI Inspiration Studio" is seen as emblematic of traditional state media actively embracing generative AI technology and exploring a shift in its own content production model.
In terms of content, the three types of people the film chose — ordinary citizens heading to the square, soldiers stationed at the border, and workers laboring through the night — are not the hero-narrative protagonists typical of traditional propaganda films, but deliberately focus on everyday, unremarkable yet continuous acts of dedication, attempting to reach younger audiences emotionally through a "de-grand-narrative" approach. Some commentary notes that compared with traditional National Day promotional films, such AI short films have shorter production cycles, more controllable costs, and adapt more easily to short-video platforms' distribution rhythm and younger users' aesthetic preferences, making them an important tool for official media to "break through" into wider circulation over the past two years. However, some industry figures caution that as AI-generated content becomes more common in thematic publicity, maintaining technical freshness while avoiding content homogenization and hollow emotional expression will be an ongoing challenge for similar future productions.
Judging by audience reaction, much of the discussion sparked by the film on Chinese social platforms centered on the emotional resonance of the specific "3am" time marker — many internet users left comments sharing their own or others' real experiences of setting out before dawn, working night shifts, or standing patrol duty, matching the film's artistic portrayal against their own lived experience and generating a sizable wave of organic, grassroots sharing. Some overseas Chinese-language media also shared and commented that the continued popularity of such content reflects growing acceptance among Chinese audiences of National Day publicity that blends grand national narrative with individual-level storytelling, offering official media a new content template for major festival occasions going forward. As of now, China Daily has not publicly disclosed the film's exact production timeline or which AI tools were used, but the reach it achieved is enough to make it one of the most representative pieces of official creative content during the 2026 National Day period.
