SPIRIT SLAYER

TRAILER

WEBSITE

Genre: Supernatural Action / Horror Comedy
Running Time: 25 minutes 47 seconds
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 (Cinematic Widescreen)
Resolution: 4K
Color: Color
Sound Mix: Stereo
Languages: Mandarin
Subtitles: English, Mandarin
Shooting Format: Digital, ARRI Alexa 35
Country of Production: Singapore
Completion Date: May 2025

When a cocky spirit slayer apprentice botches a sacred ritual, he unleashes his grandfather’s vengeful ex, a seductive fox demon. As the veil between worlds fractures, he must grow into the slayer he was meant to be… or lose everything to a ghost from his family’s past.

'Spirit Slayer' is a fantasy short film shot over a span of 3 days of which 90 percent of the shots where filmed with the help of in-camera visual effects (ICVFX) technology. Using ICVFX technology enabled the production to bring Southeast Asian mythology's immersive spirit realms to screen on an indie scale. It is a monumental undertaking for the production as it involved atmospheric VFX elements such as rain and fire, a first for X3D Studio. This meant figuring out the workflow from scratch and taking many tries to get the environmental transitions just right. It is also the first production to fully test the capabilities of the Scorpio 45 TechnoCrane, which pulled off large tracking wide shots with the help if the studio turntable rotating in tandem to simulate a wider range of motion than would be typically possible from a TechnoCrane.

Spirit Slayer is the kind of film I’ve always wanted to make; fast, funny, full of heart, and rooted in the folklore and pop cinema I grew up loving. As a child, I was obsessed with supernatural comedies like Mr. Vampire and A Chinese Ghost Story. These films weren’t just about ghosts , they were about clever underdogs using talismans, rituals, and heart to defeat ancient spirits. What appealed about these movies were that they were not just about the mindless jump scares, they were about solving a really scary puzzle with skill and cunning, and because of that as a kid you played along, which is what I find to be the pinnacle of entertainment. With Spirit Slayer: Rise of the Apprentice, I wanted to recapture that spirit of fun and danger, while exploring the weight of legacy. Wen Li, our protagonist, is supernaturally gifted but too lazy to live up to his potential , until a botched ritual forces him to grow into the man he was meant to be. This film is also a technical proof of concept , shot using virtual production at X3D Studios in Singapore. We built every environment in engine, showing how Southeast Asian genre films can be bold, cinematic, and scalable with new tools. This is the kind of film I’ve always wanted to make: fast, funny, full of heart, and rooted in the folklore and pop cinema I grew up loving.