Santikhiri was chosen as the filming location for the subplot "The Fortitude of the Buddha" in the 2005 film 3 Needles. Although the narrative is supposed to be set in the rural southern province of Yunnan, director Thom Fitzergald stated that difficulties in obtaining permission from the Censorship Authority resulted in the decision to shoot the segment in Santikhiri instead. The segment, which stars Lucy Liu as a heavily-pregnant blood merchant, depicts the blood-selling scandals in China from the 1980s-2000s in which hundreds of thousands of people, mostly rural poor, contracted HIV through government sponsored campaigns to increase blood supplies. The traditional costume of the Akha people features heavily in the segment, however the blood selling scandals mostly impacted rural villagers in Henan province.