Simply put, it’s that oft-quoted line from wuxia novels: “When you look at a mountain, it’s a mountain; when you look at water, it’s water. Then, a mountain is no longer a mountain, water is no longer water. Finally, a mountain is still a mountain, water is still water.”

As an actor, Andrew Clark is just getting started.

……

The sky is crystal clear, dotted with white clouds.

The vast land stretches out in all directions, empty and unmarked. To the west, a faint line of gray-green mountains rises above the horizon—that’s the Lüliang Mountains.

A crooked yellow line is awkwardly embedded in the wasteland, like the stitching of a very poor tailor.

“Put-put-put!”

“Put-put-put!”

A loud, jarring noise comes from the dirt road, followed by a tractor that looks like it’s about to fall apart. The cab and the trailer never move in the same direction, swaying left and right, barely crawling along.

Behind it follows a gray minivan.

Andrew Clark sits on the edge of the trailer, half his butt hanging in the air. No matter how much the tractor rocks, he remains steady, making the other three sitting with him quite envious.

Besides Samuel Reed and David Cooper, there’s another person named Steven Grant, also their classmate.

“I’m telling you, Director, that cameraman can’t handle it. Too delicate—he threw up after less than ten minutes.” Andrew Clark holds a cigarette, takes a drag, and looks out at the empty fields. There’s no sign of spring’s green yet, only the lingering stillness of winter.

It feels familiar to him—he grew up in this kind of environment. He takes another deep drag, letting in a bit of dry, cold air along with the tobacco.

“They don’t have tractors in Hong Kong. Lasting ten minutes is already impressive,” Samuel Reed laughs.

Steven Grant is a big-hearted, easygoing guy. He’d just met Andrew Clark and already treats him like a brother. He chimes in, “Exactly! He could be shooting Hong Kong movies, but he came with us to this backwater. That’s something!” He gives a big thumbs-up as he speaks.

The investor for “Xiao Wu” is a Hong Kong company, and the cinematographer is also from Hong Kong, named Richard Morgan. The whole crew, including the main actors, totals just over a dozen people.

Andrew Clark naturally plays Xiao Wu. The original choice was David Cooper, but now he’s been given a different role—playing Xiao Yong, Xiao Wu’s former close friend who later becomes a private entrepreneur.

The actress playing Hu Meimei—the karaoke bar hostess—is said to be a student from the Normal University, named Emily Foster. The assistant director is Steven Grant.

These six are the core creative team of the crew.

Since the entire film is shot in Fenyang and tells the story of this small county town, most of the actors have to perform in the Fenyang dialect.

Emily Foster doesn’t have to—Hu Meimei is supposed to be a girl from out of town, so it makes sense for her to speak Mandarin. Samuel Reed originally wanted Andrew Clark to speak Mandarin too, but Andrew Clark declined.

He’s not like those multitasking geniuses—he’s always been able to focus on only one thing at a time, and only moves on after he’s done it well.

Since he’s making a movie, he wants to do it as well as possible. So along the way, he has Samuel Reed chat with him in the Fenyang dialect, practicing his lines against the script.

Dialects aren’t like foreign languages—there’s always some overlap, and as long as you capture the spirit, it works. Andrew Clark actually has a knack for languages; imitating others, he manages to sound pretty authentic.

Wherever people live under the same cultural background, no matter the era, things are more or less the same.

In China, county towns in the 1990s were almost identical: dirty, messy streets, vendors coming and going, low, uneven houses, and the occasional tall building.

Later, as the economy developed, by the time Andrew Clark was reborn, county towns all looked the same again—just with a different mold.

Moving from one place to another, the environment never really feels unfamiliar. It’s just a change in mindset and a sense of confusion.

Chapter Five: Acting

The group checks into a hotel that counts as mid-range in the county town, two people to a room. Andrew Clark shares a room with the Hong Kong cinematographer, Richard Morgan.

He’s the oldest in the crew, speaks Mandarin with a heavy accent, but is very warm and friendly. Andrew Clark half-guesses his meaning, but they get along well.

Richard Morgan studied abroad for years, and after returning to Hong Kong, he’s been in the industry for several years. Unfortunately, he came back just as the Hong Kong film industry was declining, so he never worked on any major productions—always doing camera assistant work on low-budget Category III films, ghost movies, and crude slapstick comedies.

These movies—from pre-production to shooting to post-production—could be wrapped up in just over ten days. Then they’d get dumped into theaters for a quick run, usually pulled after less than a week, and still make tens or even hundreds of thousands in profit. No one cared about the bad reputation; it was all just a one-off deal.

Is this even a damn movie?!

Richard Morgan angrily said the same thing Andrew Clark thought when he first read the script for “Xiao Wu.”

He’d always been interested in the mainland, always wanted to come and shoot something. Two years ago, he finally got a grant from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council and came to Beijing to make a short film about a street performer, “Beautiful Soul,” which won an award at last year’s Hong Kong Independent Short Film Festival.

It was at that festival that Richard Morgan met Samuel Reed, who also won an award for his short film “Xiao Shan Goes Home.”

The two hit it off right away, finding a kindred spirit in each other. They started a small film company together, and Richard Morgan even helped Old Jia secure the investment for “Xiao Wu.”