A scene from the film Song of the Phoenix featuring veteran actor Tao Zeru in the main role. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A week after Song of the Phoenix opened, it garnered a paltry 3 million yuan ($454,000) in box-office takings, barely enough to cover the marketing cost. Now, a month after its May 6 opening, it has collected 85 million yuan, a rare feat for an art-house film. What happened in between was an eye-popping act by its 63-year-old producer, a man whom I have known for a while, and whom I talked to recently in a post-screening dialogue.

Fang Li was in tears when he saw me. My eyes were moist, too, as were those of many in the audience. I hugged him, a true hero who almost single-handedly saved what Martin Scorsese calls "a lovely little film by a giant in filmmaking".

Yes, what happened off-screen was just as dramatic, if not more so, as the story on-screen.

On May 12, when the screening rate of the film dipped below four per 1,000 screens, Fang knelt down and begged China's film exhibitors for more screenings.

The real-time video went viral.

Then, as people flocked to movie theaters across the nation, its screening rate shot up, to 10 percent at one point, way past the first-week performance, which is usually the peak for any film.