--- title: "IMAGI INT'L Plans to Acquire Leading Domestic VFX Firm Tairan Ruoqing, Strategically Positioning Itself in the Core Link of AI Film and Television Industrialization" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/304578339.md" description: "IMAGI INT'L announced its plan to acquire a 67% stake in Beijing Tairan Ruoqing at a valuation of approximately RMB 223 million, with a transaction consideration of about HKD 171 million. This move aims to strategically transform into the AI film and television sector by integrating the production capacity of a leading visual effects enterprise, securing a position in the core link of AI film and television industrialization, and addressing the industry's competitive shift from content output to competition in underlying technology engineering and industrialized production pipelines" datetime: "2026-11-06T04:54:04.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/304578339.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/304578339.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/304578339.md) generator: "portal-rs" --- # IMAGI INT'L Plans to Acquire Leading Domestic VFX Firm Tairan Ruoqing, Strategically Positioning Itself in the Core Link of AI Film and Television Industrialization As the daily active user scale of short dramas surpasses the combined total of long-form video platforms, top-tier series achieve revenue sharing exceeding ten million, and internet giants intensify their investments in the sector—AIGC is profoundly reshaping the underlying logic of the film and television industry. It is pushing the traditional "asset-heavy, low turnover, heavily labor-dependent" model to a critical point of iteration, with AI industrialized production moving from concept to scaled implementation. With AI-generated long-form series successively appearing on satellite TV channels and AI theatrical films obtaining public screening licenses one after another, AI film and television has completed access validation through mainstream channels. The focus of industry discussion has long shifted from "whether it can be done" to "whether it can be done well, stably, and in bulk." Against the backdrop of accelerated content commercialization and a market size approaching the hundred-billion-yuan level, the dimension of competition has sunk from superficial content output to a deeper contest involving underlying technology engineering, accumulation of vertical digital assets, and the construction of industrialized production pipelines—areas that are difficult for most players to fill in the short term, but where a few have already taken the lead. At this key node as the industry gradually enters deep waters, on November 6, Hong Kong-listed company IMAGI INT'L (00585) officially announced that it plans to acquire a 67% stake in Beijing Tairan Ruoqing Cultural Development Co., Ltd., a leading domestic film and television visual effects production enterprise, at an overall valuation of approximately RMB 223 million. The corresponding transaction consideration is about HKD 171 million, to be paid in cash and consideration shares. This is not an ordinary external M&A, but a key layout for the company's comprehensive strategic transformation into the AI film and television sector. In the view of industry observers, the signaling significance of this transaction far outweighs the deal itself: **While most players are still relying on general models to compete on content volume, IMAGI INT'L has decisively brought the core production capacity link of AI film and television industrialization under its control.** ## AI Film and Television Enters Deep Waters, Competition Core Shifts to Industrialized Capacity The commercial implementation speed of AI film and television content is exceeding early market expectations, rapidly igniting a hundred-billion-yuan incremental track. According to DataEye estimates, the domestic micro-short drama market size will exceed RMB 121 billion by 2026, with the AI short drama and comic drama segment accounting for over RMB 40 billion. Monitoring data from the mobile internet data platform QuestMobile shows that as of September 2026, the daily active users of Hongguo Short Drama exceeded 200 million, surpassing the combined daily active users of the four major mainstream long-form video platforms: iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video, and Mango TV; the average daily usage time per user reached as high as 165.98 minutes, far exceeding Douyin's 125.36 minutes during the same period—short dramas have completely moved from a marginal content form to join the mainstream content consumption track. Meanwhile, platforms such as ByteDance, Kuaishou, Tencent, and Alibaba have successively increased their investments in AI content layouts. The application scenarios of AI technology have rapidly extended from micro-short dramas to diverse fields such as long-form series, brand advertising, theatrical films, and interactive shadow games. From a global perspective, the ceiling for the animation and visual effects market is being continuously raised by AI, and AI applications in the film segment are widely regarded as one of the fastest-growing subdivisions—this means that what IMAGI INT'L has chosen to enter is not a stock track, but an upward channel whose incremental space is far from fully priced, accelerated by technology. However, beneath the prosperous supply side, industry differentiation has quietly emerged. DataEye data shows that in the first half of 2026, the number of new native AI short dramas added on the Douyin platform reached 221,900, but only 1,055 works achieved over 100 million views, accounting for about 0.48%. This means that while relying on general large models to deploy volume at low cost can quickly create supply, it is difficult to sustainably gain user attention and preferential distribution from platforms. General large models have lowered the threshold for image generation, but they have not automatically solved core issues such as character consistency, camera language scheduling, unification of aesthetic standards, and refined project management. Cinema-grade, high-quality AI content still requires a reusable, standardized production process covering pre-development, digital asset management, model scheduling, professional manual review, and full-link post-production delivery. A relevant research report from CITIC Securities points out that the core value of AIGC creation platforms lies in achieving precise matching between large model capabilities and creators' professional intentions, and building long-term barriers through the engineering and productization of model scheduling and the accumulation of vertical data. In other words, what is truly scarce is not teams that know how to use AI tools, but industrialized platforms capable of engineering professional aesthetics and aligning model capabilities with high-quality delivery standards. This is precisely the underlying logic behind IMAGI INT'L's move at this time, and the "stunning" aspect of this acquisition—**As the industry bids farewell to barbaric growth and the core of competition shifts to technical barriers, digital assets, and industrialized assembly lines, whoever secures the core production capacity link effectively locks in their ticket to the second half of the game in advance.** ## Tairan Ruoqing: Value Leap from Leading VFX Vendor to AI Production Platform Why Tairan Ruoqing? Because this is a visual effects "iron army" repeatedly validated by national-level blockbusters. As a leading domestic visual effects production company, Tairan Ruoqing's business covers film and television special effects, digital advertising, game intros and videos, virtual reality (VR), and AIGC digital content generation. Its business boundaries span film and television, gaming, advertising, and immersive content, demonstrating strong anti-cyclical and diversified monetization capabilities. Founded in Beijing in 2017, the company has deeply cultivated the visual effects industry for nearly a decade. Its team size has exceeded 150 people, with artists from around the world, cumulatively participating in the production of over a hundred film and cultural projects (including more than 50 projects from 2022 to 2026). Its most core value lies in completing the transformation from a traditional VFX service provider to a full-stack AI film and television production platform, achieving deep integration of industrialized visual effects craftsmanship with self-developed AI technology systems, and opening up a full industry chain service closed loop from pre-production to terminal applications. ![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.zhitongcaijing.com/image/20261106/1793940299824387.png?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) Tairan Ruoqing participated in the VFX production of over 50 film and television dramas with industry influence (Source: Company Official Website) In the traditional visual effects track, Tairan Ruoqing has already validated its industrialized delivery capability through head projects. The famous "Operation Guzheng" scene in the series *Three-Body*, praised by audiences for its "cinematic texture," featured 80% full CG shots created by its team; in the film *Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms*, it undertook the production of over 600 visual effects shots. With solid artistic foundation and CG presentation capabilities, it won the "Outstanding Visual Effects of the Year" award at the first China Chongqing Science and Technology Film Week. In the film, the "Deer Terrace" had no existing scan data; it was built "brick by brick" by visual effects artists in the digital world. A team of about 100 people polished it for over half a year, meticulously crafting details ranging from wall cracks and bloodstains to the fur of a fierce tiger in the courtyard, demonstrating its craftsmanship for "cinematic quality." ![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.zhitongcaijing.com/image/20261106/1793940312793846.png?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) VFX production clips from Tairan Ruoqing's film *Creation of the Gods I* (Source: Company Official Website) In the film *The Outcast*, the team undertook over 1,400 special effects shots, accounting for 95% of the total visual effects in the entire film. In heavy-industry blockbusters such as *The Sacrifice* and *Born to Fly*, its self-developed simulation technology allowed almost all fighter jet scenes in the sky to be digitally synthesized without any sense of dissonance, achieving both "environmental simulation and batch production." This engineering delivery capability of "cinematic quality" is a moat that any new entrant would find difficult to replicate within several years. ![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.zhitongcaijing.com/image/20261106/1793940323996927.png?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) VFX production clips from Tairan Ruoqing's film *The Sacrifice* (Source: Company Official Website) What truly makes it a scarce asset in the AI track is its proactive upgrade to an "AI-driven high-end content technology company." Relying on its self-developed full-stack AI intelligent production platform, AI has been fully embedded into production links such as concept design, intelligent matting, automatic in-between frame generation, and dynamic pre-visualization. Team production efficiency has increased by about 20%, and the target is being further pushed to 30%–40%. Its more "capital-understandable" value quantification lies in the fact that: **The pre-production communication cycle, which previously relied on repeated alignment through text descriptions, has been compressed from about 4 months to about 1 month, saving about 50% of pre-production preparation time.** AI has transformed the communication loss of "you say A, he understands B, and produces C" into immediate confirmation of "generating images directly for viewing," gradually breaking away from the industry pain points of traditional film and television post-production being heavily labor-dependent and subject to large cycle fluctuations. In terms of technical depth, the team also self-developed a "muscle system" to overcome the common "rubber man/marionette" problem in 3D character animation, enabling digital characters to produce logical muscle movements and solving the pain point of looking "obviously fake" in close-ups. Currently, the company has reached cooperation agreements with more than 15 leading series producers, implemented over 50 AIGC experimental projects, and established deep bindings with three major head video platforms, promoting the scaled integration of AI with core production crafts in stages, with the ultimate goal of constructing a standardized cinema-grade AI film and television production pipeline. ![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.zhitongcaijing.com/image/20261106/1793940332931253.png?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) VFX production clips from Tairan Ruoqing's series *Three-Body* (Source: Company Official Website) "For film and television creators, AI is always a tool. Even if AI participation is high in a film or television series, it still involves the entire process of scriptwriting, storyboarding, camera work, styling, action, and other links. Quality deviations in any link will lower the standard of the final film," said Wang Haomian, Executive Director and Vice President of Product and Technology at IMAGI INT'L. "These processes require professional film and television talent to continuously converse with and optimize video large models, so that the large models truly understand what constitutes a good film and television work—what the industry often calls 'aesthetics.' What we value is precisely the film and television aesthetic system accumulated behind Tairan Ruoqing's top-tier traditional film and television VFX capabilities, as well as their implemented experience in integrating aesthetics into the entire AI production process." Yin Duanyang, Technical Soul Figure and Visual Effects Supervisor at Tairan Ruoqing, echoed this judgment. In his view, "AI is always an external brain rather than a replacement," and "every frame is a conspiracy of technology and art." No matter how powerful the tools are, what ultimately determines the upper limit of the final film is still human control over aesthetics and narrative. Under the industry trend of continuous leaps in large model capabilities and declining generation costs, AI technology itself is no longer a barrier, but the composite ability to "understand film and television, understand aesthetics, and understand engineering implementation" is the truly scarce resource. ## An Acquisition to "Supplement and Strengthen the Chain": Not Cross-Industry, But the Return of Industrial Genes Deconstructing the strategic value of this acquisition, the core lies not in "cross-industry layout," but in "the coupling of industrial genes and the completion of the industry chain." IMAGI INT'L is not a new entrant to the film and television industry—this time, it is the return to its home field of the group's digital genes accumulated over twenty years. As early as 20 years ago, the company deeply participated in the production of globally renowned animated films such as *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* and *Astro Boy*. Among them, *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* topped the North American opening weekend box office, with global box office earnings exceeding USD 90 million, making the company the "first computer animation studio in Asia to top the US weekend box office chart." Through multiple rounds of technological and content cycle iterations, the company has accumulated profound industrial heritage and a global vision in computer imaging, visual effects, industrialized production, and IP operations. More critically, the company has a gene of "engineering cost reduction" carved into its bones—in its early days, it organized production using a pipeline of "Hollywood scripts + Hong Kong-style technology + Hollywood post-production," with production costs for works of the same scale being only about 1/5 of those of its US counterparts. This underlying capability of "using engineering methods to reduce costs" is in the same vein as today's core of using AI to improve efficiency, laying the groundwork for linkage after the acquisition. This partnership is essentially a deep grafting of visual content capabilities accumulated over many years with the new track of AI film and television, allowing the former foundation of the business and a top-tier team to aggregate on the same balance sheet. ![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.zhitongcaijing.com/image/20261106/1793940348606432.png?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) The film *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* produced by IMAGI INT'L once topped the North American opening weekend box office (Source: Company Official Website) Organizational adjustments have also paved the way for transformation. Since Han Xuyang took control in April this year, IMAGI INT'L's board of directors has undergone intensive changes akin to "changing a whole crop"—executive directors, technical executives, compliance and legal staff, and even independent non-executive directors have successively taken office, completely refreshing the team's profile into a composite structure of "technology + industry + capital." **IMAGI INT'L's change of board this time is not just a change of faces, but the establishment of a governance team truly in sync with its AI strategy.** Among them, the new Chairman of the Board, Han Xuyang, is the core of this team. As a rare post-90s leader of a listed company in the Hong Kong stock market, he possesses a composite resume in law, capital, and sci-tech innovation. He is not a young chairman temporarily pushed onto the stage, but a serial operator with successful precedents. **A listed company led by a post-90s individual decisively securing core production capacity at the turning point of AI film and television is itself a form of foresight.** From the perspective of industry chain layout, this acquisition precisely targets the core production links of the AI film and television industry chain, representing a typical layout to supplement and strengthen the chain. Tairan Ruoqing has not only accumulated Hollywood-level industrialized visual effects craftsmanship but also built a self-developed AI technology system in the vertical field of film and television. It has completed the construction of a cinema-grade standardized AI production pipeline and is in a key stage of transitioning from traditional VFX engineering services to a full-stack AI film and television production platform. "They understand both film and AI." Wang Haomian summarized Tairan Ruoqing's core value in this way. "Under the trend of continuous leaps in large model capabilities and declining Token costs, what is truly scarce is not AI technology itself, but the deep integration of film-level visual effects aesthetics and AI engineering capabilities." In the current AIGC frenzy, the shortcut taken by most players is the "short, flat, and fast" short drama track, attempting to quickly harvest traffic using general large models. However, the strategic starting point of IMAGI INT'L's acquisition of Tairan Ruoqing is directly anchored to the highest standard of "cinematic quality." This is not a simple external expansion, but a fundamental difference in the dimension of entry—ordinary AI short drama studios on the market may be able to produce short dramas by piecing together prompts, but Tairan Ruoqing represents true film industry standards. What IMAGI INT'L is buying with this transaction is never a few sets of off-the-shelf AI tools, but the engineering capability to deeply integrate AI technology into the entire process of cinema-grade film production. This means that IMAGI INT'L's posture in entering AIGC is to directly stand on the high ground of high-quality theatrical films. The more barrier-rich implicit asset lies in the "circle of friends" accumulated by Tairan Ruoqing over more than ten years of VFX business. Over the past decade, Tairan Ruoqing has deeply served numerous first-line film directors and producers in China, deeply participating in the polishing of heavy-industry film and television projects such as *Creation of the Gods*, *Three-Body*, and *The Sacrifice*. This deep trust established on set and in post-production suites, along with the precise understanding of the aesthetic intentions of top creators, is something that no general AI model can directly generate. For AI film and television, computing power can be purchased, and code can be open-sourced, but the narrative experience, aesthetic intuition of first-line directors, and their tacit understanding with production teams cannot be quickly replicated. This batch of first-class director and producer resources is precisely the "power source" for IMAGI INT'L to continuously produce AI film and television content with cinematic texture in the future. By matching the highest standard of industrial base with the most top-tier creators, IMAGI INT'L is attempting to run a long-termist route of reshaping high-quality content production with hardcore industrialization capabilities. ![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://img.zhitongcaijing.com/image/20261106/1793940364337860.png?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) VFX production clips from Tairan Ruoqing's film *The Outcast* (Source: Company Official Website) For IMAGI INT'L, this acquisition forms a clear two-way empowerment logic: Upwardly, it integrates the professional visual effects aesthetic system, vertical digital assets, and AI engineering capabilities into the listed company system as a whole, making up for the shortfall in core production capacity for AI film and television industrialization; Downwardly, it feeds back into content production and distribution scenarios, promoting the extension of "professional visual capabilities" from traditional customized production to AI-scale mass production, building a complete commercial closed loop from visual creativity and intelligent production to scaled delivery. On one hand, Tairan Ruoqing can rely on AI technology to achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement in VFX services, significantly compressing the marginal cost of visual effects production and improving the profitability of single projects; On the other hand, Tairan Ruoqing's visual effects craftsmanship and AI technology have a basis for cross-market reuse, and IMAGI INT'L's years of accumulated global resources and overseas channels can open up overseas market space for it, creating a second growth curve for the business. Once this link is successfully run, the synergistic effect between the two parties will be far more than "1+1>2." More worth noting is that what both parties give to each other is exactly what the other completely lacks—this makes synergy not a sum of scales, but a multiplication of capabilities. **First, capabilities form a closed loop:** IMAGI INT'L holds capital, a listing platform, global distribution channels, and IP operation experience, while Tairan Ruoqing holds visual effects craftsmanship, a self-developed AI production platform, and resources from head producers. The former supplements capacity and technology, while the latter supplements ammunition and pathways. Their interlocking forms a complete closed loop of "Creativity/Capital → AI Production → Scaled Delivery → Global Distribution → Monetization Feedback." **Second, a secondary dip in the cost curve:** IMAGI INT'L has historically been known for "costs of similar quality being about 1/5 of US counterparts," and Tairan Ruoqing has further improved efficiency by about 20% using AI (with a target of 30%–40%) and saved about 50% in pre-production preparation. The superposition of these two "cost reduction" curves means that the marginal cost of scaled delivery is expected to decline non-linearly, which is precisely the "operating leverage" that capital markets are most willing to give valuation elasticity to. **Third, going overseas opens a second growth curve:** Tairan Ruoqing's visual effects craftsmanship and AI tools are reusable across markets but lack overseas pathways; IMAGI INT'L's global vision and distribution network, accumulated from serving Hollywood and topping the North American box office twenty years ago, can precisely "reverse export" this AI production capability, already proven in China, to overseas markets, adding a revenue curve for both parties. **Fourth, activating existing IP operations:** IMAGI INT'L has accumulated experience and resources in IP operations and global content cooperation through multiple content cycles, but was previously limited by high-cost, difficult-to-scale redevelopment capabilities. After accessing Tairan Ruoqing's AI production pipeline, the costs for animating IP-related content, re-producing visual effects, and developing derivative content are expected to drop significantly, giving dormant content assets the space to be revitalized more efficiently and repriced. The structure of 67%/33% joint venture + warrants and a three-year revenue tiered bet guarantees from a mechanism perspective that the original team remains at the table to operate—turning the above synergies from "paper integration" into "continuous realization by people." ## Valuation Logic Restructured, AI Film and Television Enters the "Hard Power" Competition Stage For the capital market, the most direct impact of this acquisition is that IMAGI INT'L's valuation logic will undergo reshaping. With the implementation of the acquisition and the advancement of strategic transformation, the company's positioning will shift to an "AI-driven film and television industrialization enterprise." In the AI film and television track, professional film and television visual effects craftsmanship, vertical digital assets, and mature industrialized pipelines are all high-barrier resources that are difficult to replicate quickly. By precisely positioning itself in this core link, the company is poised to enjoy the valuation premium of "AI technology base empowering industrial applications." Looking further ahead, this transaction is also a microcosm of the entire AI film and television industry. As the early conceptual hype of the industry fades, the focus of capital markets and the industrial side is shifting from "having AI concepts" to "having real production capacity, having implementation barriers, and having a commercialization closed loop." Whoever can first build a stable, efficient, and high-quality AI industrialized production system will occupy a dominant position in the market expansion of hundreds of billions, or even larger spaces. Essentially, what IMAGI INT'L offers is capital, a listing platform, global channels, and IP operation experience, while Tairan Ruoqing offers aesthetics, craftsmanship, and AI production capacity—this is an integration of "capability multiplication" rather than "scale addition." Relying on Tairan Ruoqing's technical base, IMAGI INT'L is seizing the window of opportunity in the AI film and television industry, grabbing the high ground of cinema-grade AI visual effects and intelligent production at the key node where the industry turns towards boutique and industrialized delivery. The company's business model will also complete its transformation accordingly, extending from single high-end visual effects delivery to technical and production capacity empowerment across the entire AI film and television link. For IMAGI INT'L, this is just the first step of transformation. But for the entire AI film and television industry, a Hong Kong-listed company with global film and television industry accumulation cutting into the core link of AI film and television industrialization through M&A undoubtedly releases a clear signal: **In the second half of AI film and television, the competition is no longer about speed and quantity, but about the true hard power of AI film and television industrialization.** ### Related Stocks - [00585.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/00585.HK.md) ## Related News & Research - [Imagi Announces HK$171.4 Million Acquisition and Joint Venture](https://longbridge.com/en/news/304558324.md) - [Imagi International Directors Complete Hong Kong Listing Rules Compliance Training](https://longbridge.com/en/news/301267673.md) - [Berkshire surprised with record buybacks, but pace slowed as the stock rose](https://longbridge.com/en/news/304743617.md) - [Coinbase Pitches a Full Token Lifecycle Service, From Public Sales to Custody](https://longbridge.com/en/news/304747684.md) - [Elon Musk Is Winding Down Cybertruck Production to Build Cybercabs. 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