Replica Leads Interactive Cinema Revolution at Bucheon as Next Interactive Studio Unveils New Slate

Festival attendees participate in a live interactive film experience during Next Interactive Studio’s showcase at Bucheon./ bucheon international fantastic film festival

Interactive Animated Feature Replica Headlines Next Interactive Studio Showcase at Bucheon

Interactive storytelling took center stage at this year’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival as Next Interactive Studio unveiled its latest slate of projects and demonstrated what it believes could be the future of cinema.

According to Deadline, more than 100 festival attendees participated in a live interactive film experience during the company’s Bucheon showcase, giving audiences a firsthand look at a growing movement that blurs the lines between film, gaming, and social engagement.

Leading the presentation was Replica, one of the first Chinese-language interactive animated features. Co-produced with Kinlea Culture, the project builds upon the company’s focus on emotionally driven storytelling while introducing new layers of audience participation.

According to the filmmakers, Replica is designed around three key pillars: content emotion, immersive emotion, and social emotion. The goal is to create an experience that goes beyond passive viewing and encourages audiences to become active participants in the story unfolding before them.

The showcase also highlighted Next Interactive Studio’s broader interactive cinema ecosystem, a technology platform designed to transform traditional moviegoing into a more dynamic and communal experience.

Founder Ronan Wong is no stranger to the interactive entertainment space. Wong previously served as an interactive advisor on Hypnosis Mic - Division Rap Battle, a project that reportedly generated approximately $16.5 million while playing in fewer than 100 theaters across Japan over the course of a year.

Beyond Replica, the company showcased several additional projects that illustrate the range of possibilities interactive storytelling can offer.

Among them was Monster Princess, a Japanese romantic fantasy title available as both an interactive film and a video game, and The Run, an English-language thriller that combines a third-person interactive film experience with a companion game already available to audiences.

The company also revealed projects aimed at reimagining how movie theaters function as social spaces.

One of the most unusual concepts was Psyche’s Chamber: Vibe Match, an interactive dating experience that pairs audience members in real time based on the choices they make throughout the story. Another project, Xiaoyu’s Choice, is currently being used in primary schools throughout China as a psychology education tool, demonstrating how interactive narratives may extend beyond entertainment applications.

For horror, science fiction, and genre fans, the rise of interactive cinema presents an interesting question: Are audiences ready to move beyond simply watching a story and begin shaping it themselves?

While interactive films have existed for years in various forms, companies like Next Interactive Studio are betting that advances in technology, audience connectivity, and real-time participation could finally push the format into the mainstream.

“Our technology completely redefines the audience dynamic, transforming the cinema into a unique, unrepeatable social arena,” Wong said during the showcase. “We are turning passive spaces into legendary, shared collective experiences.”

Whether interactive cinema becomes the next evolution of theatrical entertainment remains to be seen, but Replica and the projects showcased at Bucheon suggest that filmmakers are actively exploring what the future of moviegoing might look like.

As theaters continue searching for ways to differentiate themselves from at-home viewing, interactive experiences could become one of the industry’s most intriguing experiments in audience engagement.