Money must be tight in the C-ent streaming world lol, because this is just wild if not all that surprising. This week streaming platform Youku quietly re-uploaded all episodes of its hit 2016 romance C-drama Love O2O that starred Yang Yang and Zheng Shuang in then breakout roles, but this version has the female lead AI face swapped with rising actress Wang Zhu Yue along with a slightly different Chinese title. It was called 微微一笑很倾城 (Wei Wei Yi Xiao Hen Qing Cheng) but is now simply titled 一笑倾城 (Yi Xiao Qing Cheng). All of Zheng Shuang’s dramas were pulled in 2021 she got into successive scandals with tax evasion and having babies via surrogacy in the US. But this was one of her biggest hits and also Yang Yang so it looks like Youku wanted to spend a little bit of money on the AI face swap to get the drama back onto domestic streaming and hopefully continue to make money. The drama was only pulled in domestic Mainland streaming so international viewers have continued to be able to watch it along with Zheng Shuang’s other works, so I’m not sure the domestic audience has appetite to re-watch a now quite dated drama with AI face swap technology clearly noticeable.