From the very first meeting with the elderly woman, Mark King was captivated by the character in the script. Every scene felt so real and familiar. While he was still at his grandfather’s house in Seoul, lying in bed, he would sometimes vaguely recall the image of his grandmother from his previous life—a typical elderly woman from the northern Anhui and western Shandong region, her hair styled in a chignon that seemed to date back to the Republican era, wearing a coarse cloth diagonal-collared robe. Her wrinkled face was always smiling; all day long, she was either taking care of her grandson or constantly working. The thick calluses on her knuckles could withstand a needle, yet the warmth of her palms could lull you into a peaceful sleep.

In winter, she would always tuck you in repeatedly, making you sweat from the warmth; in spring, she would constantly pick wild vegetables for you, stir-frying them with eggs as an extra treat; in summer, she would fan you endlessly so you could sleep through the sweltering heat; in autumn, she would bring countless items to make pickles, ensuring your future meals would never be bland.

When he arrived in this small mountain village and met Grandma Irene King, the image in his memory almost completely overlapped with the person before him. Although the woman in front of him was hunched and her figure looked quite different from the one in his memory, and although traditional Korean clothing was entirely different from old Chinese attire, and even the hair bun was not quite the same upon closer inspection—

Some things, however, were exactly the same: the aged, deeply wrinkled face, the warm palms, the thick calluses, the ever-present smile, and that diligence, resilience, and head full of white hair.

But what truly made Mark King completely fall for the role was a single detail: in the film, the elderly woman needed to put on a rather dirty old garment. Every time before filming began, she would always mutter while holding the clothes, “Wearing clothes like this will make people think my son is unfilial and embarrass him.” It was this line that made Mark King’s nose sting with emotion.

The filming location was originally a lonely village with only eight households, most of them widowers, widows, and elderly people. The whole village suddenly became lively with the arrival of a group of young people. According to the local village head who assisted with the filming, this was the most “popular” the place had been since the “Japanese occupation era.” The villagers in the mountains were extremely warm and hospitable; whenever they saw the crew, they would offer fruit or food, filling every corner of the village with a joyful atmosphere.

Yet, despite this atmosphere, the first twenty days of filming did not go smoothly, and the problem lay with Mark King. The early scenes mainly depicted the estrangement and conflict between the two characters. Mark King was not an actor and could not yet fully grasp the overall structure of the drama. If he were a professional, he would have understood that the greater the tension now, the more powerful the emotional release would be later. But Mark King always found it difficult to portray the situations that made him feel disgusted and regretful. Fortunately, reason told him that acting out the negative side was meant to awaken the good.

During these twenty days, the crew suffered the most. Although the villagers were extremely hospitable, the rural conditions were too harsh. The biggest challenge for the crew was that there wasn’t a single place on the map that could be called a “road.” The staff had to carry heavy equipment on their shoulders from dawn to dusk, trekking along winding, bumpy country paths. Another major headache was the swarms of bugs roaming freely in the mountain valley’s wild nature. These insects were used to feeding on the elderly villagers, but with so much “new blood” this summer, they became even more “active.”

Fortunately, during this process, the film’s other lead, the elderly Irene King, put the crew at ease. Compared to the struggling Mark King, Irene King amazed the crew at any moment with her “unique acting skills” and “exceptional memory.” During filming breaks, Irene King would precisely return everything to its place. Even after she was fully made up and waiting for the lights, she would suddenly say, “These shoes aren’t right…,” “Where’s the cane gone?,” “The bamboo basket hanging on the wall wasn’t there before…” Her photographic memory made the official script supervisor break out in a cold sweat, fearing for their own job. Off set, she doted on the 11-year-old Mark King and the other two 15-year-old young actors, carefully making pumpkin rice for the three of them. Sometimes, when Mark King got sleepy in the afternoon and dozed off, she would fan him with a palm-leaf fan just like a real grandmother. Moreover, when the elderly woman witnessed Mark King’s pranks on the crew, she always pretended not to see, which made her extremely popular with Mark King. In fact, Mark King wasn’t interested in pranks at first, but after one bored afternoon when he put a cute little lizard into the female makeup artist’s box, he gradually began to use such antics as a way to vent his frustration when filming wasn’t going well.

Although the start of Mark King’s acting career was not smooth, fortunately, director Emily Thompson had a good handle on things. Under her almost hands-on guidance, Mark King managed to speed up and finish filming the first half of the scenes:

After a long journey by train, car, and mountain road, the mother brings 8-year-old Andrew to his grandmother’s house. As a single mother, she temporarily leaves Andrew there during the summer vacation to make it easier to find work.