CANNES, 17 May 2026 – Lucy Liu has returned to Cannes with The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters, a cinematic immersive experience that expands the story of Cheng Shih, the legendary Chinese pirate leader who commanded one of history’s most powerful fleets.
The project is premiering in the Cannes Immersive Competition, a section that highlights how film festivals are widening their definition of cinema beyond traditional screens. Created, written and directed by Emmy-nominated Eloise Singer, The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters is narrated by Liu and uses spatial imagery, sound and interactive environments to place audiences inside a dramatic world of survival, control and legacy.
The Cannes listing describes the work as unfolding “like a memory carried by the sea,” with audiences moving through storms, ink, light and shadow as Cheng Shih’s story emerges. The production is from the United Kingdom, with Liu credited as narrator and producer alongside Singer.
The project builds on Singer Studios’ wider Pirate Queen story-world, which has already gained recognition in immersive entertainment. The earlier Pirate Queen VR experience won the Storyscapes Award at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2023, won the Raindance Discovery Award for Best Debut in 2021, and later earned Emmy and PGA Innovation Award nominations.
At the centre of the story is Cheng Shih, who rose from humble beginnings to command a vast pirate confederation in the South China Sea. Singer Studios frames her as a figure who “did not inherit power” but seized it, positioning the project as both an adventure and a reclamation of a lesser-known Asian woman’s historical legacy.
For Liu, the project continues a broader creative pattern of using her platform not only as an actress, but also as a producer supporting stories with Asian identity, female leadership and cross-cultural resonance. Her involvement gives The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters star power, but the project’s bigger significance lies in how it brings an Asian historical figure into the centre of a premium global immersive showcase.
The Cannes Immersive Competition has become a space for experimental storytelling, where filmmakers, artists and technologists test how narrative can work beyond conventional cinema. The 2026 selection includes immersive works from multiple countries, with The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters among the titles competing at the festival’s Carlton venue.
The Ledger Asia Insights
For Asia’s entertainment industry, The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters is a reminder that cultural intellectual property does not need to remain locked inside conventional film or television formats. Historical figures, regional legends and underrepresented narratives can now be reimagined through VR, immersive installations, interactive storytelling and spatial audio.
This matters because global entertainment is increasingly searching for stories that feel both distinctive and scalable. Cheng Shih’s story offers that combination: a dramatic real-world figure, a strong Asian historical setting and a character arc that speaks to power, survival and myth.
For Asian creators and investors, the project also points to the commercial direction of premium storytelling. Immersive entertainment is still a developing market, but major festivals are giving it more legitimacy. As technology improves, the line between cinema, gaming, live installation and museum-style experience will continue to blur.
The opportunity for Asia is significant. Markets such as China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia have deep cultural archives that could be adapted into immersive formats for global audiences. The challenge is execution: strong storytelling, technical polish and international distribution remain essential.
Lucy Liu’s Cannes appearance helps bring attention to the project, but the deeper story is about where entertainment is heading. The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters shows how Asian history can be transformed into a high-end immersive experience for global cultural platforms, giving audiences not only a story to watch, but a world to enter.
