The Great Wind Rises, the Clouds Soar

As China stood on the brink of reform and opening up, an old village chief who was so poor he dreamed of making the whole village prosperous; women who dared to use the village government to open a toy factory; a man who went from welfare recipient to general manager; a man brave enough to shoulder great responsibilities and plan for the future; a female migrant worker who grew up to become a principal; a technology-focused county magistrate who dared to quit his job and venture into business with a mysterious electronics project; and enthusiastic investors from across the country and around the world.

The story follows Party branch secretary and village chief Lao, director Sun Lixin, women's director Mai Miaojun, militia battalion commander Sun Dahai, and manager Mai Jiuji as they go to every length to raise funds and find businesspeople to invest. They boldly vacate the Sun family ancestral hall, which serves as the village committee's office, and set up the first toy factory there. It later grows into the largest factory in Asia.

Against the backdrop of a particular time and place, the story depicts the hardships and joys people experience, the difficult circumstances different individuals face, and the positive turns their lives take. It also explores how people's worldviews grow and change amid a rapidly shifting environment. The work's attention to reality and its human warmth are brought to the fore, establishing its artistic commitment to the realities of life.

With an exceptionally keen eye, the story focuses on the defining traits of our era of transition, when everything is in flux, out of order, and subject to reconsideration. Through a complex tone that is at once serious and humorous, full of anxiety and helplessness, self-mockery and irony, it paints a portrait of the times and offers us a vivid, authentic picture of society.

They were ordinary people, yet they struggled with extraordinary determination in a small village in Dongguan, at the heart of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao. Through three or four decades of hard work amid the tide of reform and opening up, they witnessed the great transformation of a rural town into a vast city of more than ten million people, home to Chinese manufacturing that has captured the world's attention.