Scenes featuring protagonists in five stand-alone stories of the film, one played by Ge You. [Photo provided to China Daily]

"Besides, short videos have enjoyed a prosperous development in recent years. Youngsters account for the majority of Chinese moviegoers, leading us to believe that the omnibus format will continue to be an attraction for holiday audiences," he adds.

As one of the country's most commercially successful directors, Ning excels in producing black comedies that explore social issues from a grassroots perspective, exemplified by his Crazy series, ranging from the 2006 Crazy Stone to the 2017 Crazy Alien.

Within a single week, they enticed the other six directors to join the project, with Ning, Xu Zheng and Chen Sicheng to respectively helm one tale each, while the duos of Deng Chao and Yu Baimei, as well as Yan Fei and Peng Damo, would take charge of the remaining two stories.