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Sijin Liu Cultivates “Sakura Gansha” Music Video for Siri Lee

Posted on Wednesday, December 3, 2025

London-based director/designer Sijin Liu combines live action, motion design, and a dusting of AI to craft one of the most striking music videos of the year, a sensual and stylized three-minute opus for Taiwanese singer/songwriter Siri Lee.

Sijin Liu: “The title of the song ‘Sakura Gansha’ comes from Japanese romanticism and carries both floral and suggestive associations. We reinterpreted that imagery through a female point of view, shifting it away from the usual male context toward something humorous, symbolic, and controlled by the performer herself.

“Visually we combined twentieth century Shōwa era kitsch, stylized floral and fruit motifs, and a playful mix of AI-enhanced textures. The main creative challenge was balancing human crafted timing with the AI-generated details without losing the sensitivity of the handmade elements.

“Visually we combined twentieth century Shōwa era kitsch, stylized floral and fruit motifs, and a playful mix of AI-enhanced textures.”

“For the live action section, we shot everything with a very small crew and kept the lighting and choreography simple so we could focus on gesture and performance. The footage was then cleaned, stabilized and prepared for animation work.

“On the motion design side, we built a visual structure first, mapping out the rhythm, typography placement and compositing layers. This helped us decide which moments should stay purely graphic and which should transition into more expressive animation.

“The AI craft sat on top of this foundation. We treated it as a textural extension rather than a generator of whole scenes. Most of the AI work involved creating micro-details, stylized surfaces, and transitional frames that helped exaggerate the emotional beats without breaking the continuity of the hand-crafted animation.”