Apple Made a Mixtape Meet-Cute for Chinese New Year

You know it's 'Shot on iPhone'

Michael Gracey, of The Greatest Showman fame, puts his directorial frame on Apple’s iPhone 16 Chinese New Year ad: “I Made a Mixtape for You.”

Created by TBWA\Media Arts Lab Shanghai, the work kicks off during a New Year’s dinner, where a guy is getting hectored by his family for not having a girlfriend and settling down. He sardonically shows them an anime character and tells them she’s his beloved—a nod to video games where you can date virtual peeps. These were always popular in Asia, but are now a gaming staple amongst the Gen Z and Alpha sets.

The father sighs and talks about how in his day, dating culture wasn’t so complex; all it took was a mixtape to get the love ball rolling. “That was the ‘90s,” the son sneers, which … let’s be honest, that hurt us.

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The guy retires to his room and in a musical sequence, he’s transported to a Clinton-era dreamscape, where he meets a woman who takes him on a nostalgic journey. There’s some magic surrealism going on—is it a dream, or isn’t it? The woman ends up taking him home to her own family, where fresh parental anxieties arise.

“Have you ever thought about what I think?” That question, lobbed at their respective elders, is the throughline that connects both characters. While the energy here is retro, this is a new-generation love story that wants to be heard on its own terms, both by family members and the audience.

We’re not dealing with a generation raised on romcoms like When Harry Met Sally or 10 Things I Hate About You. There’s no curmudgeonly foreplay. Instead, you’ve got a guy with his heart on his sleeve, and a young woman who accepts him, regardless of what her friends or family may think.

In the midst of all this, solo songs become duets and the choreography follows suit. We get lone bodies dancing and a fluid duo ready to invest in each other, without games or pretext. It’s love by mixtape. At the end, dream and reality meet in the middle. We’re not sure what 2025 has in store for us, but our leading man has something to look forward to.

As always, Apple’s Chinese New Year film uses an elaborate story to demonstrate the features of its latest iPhone. Solo performances were shot in 4K 120 fps, lending a professional slow-motion effect that would be hard to capture even with professional equipment.

Like a new generation’s love story, it’s not the kind of stuff your eye will catch unless you’re in-situ. In this case, however, content creators will identify the phone’s merits best.