An inspiring journey

Around 10 veteran artists, mostly in their 90s, and young stars, mainly born in the 1990s, have teamed up for the show to serve as "storytellers", revisiting the historic moments or recalling lesser-known stories behind these works.

Among them, the 94-year-old Tian Hua, one of the most well-known actresses in the early years of New China, shares her memories of Chinese artists in the turbulent 1940s and her acting debut in The White-Haired Girl, a 1951 cinematic remake of the 1945 opera, with Liu Haoran, a young star known for his role in the Detective Chinatown franchise.

In the early 1940s, Tian－born into an impoverished family in Hebei province－joined an art troupe of the Eighth Route Army's Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region, resulting in an unforgettable period of her life where she simultaneously served as a performer, fighter and farmer.

Around that time, the CPC forces faced a severe shortage of food and supplies amid the "scorched-earth policy" of the Japanese invaders and the Kuomintang's siege. In response to Mao's call for all the Chinese people in anti-Japanese revolutionary bases to join a self-reliance production campaign, Tian, alongside two fellow troupe members, were assigned to plant zucchini, with each of them harvesting 50 kilograms of the crop. The vegetables, however, tasted bitter due to the trio's lack of agricultural knowledge.