In 2012, I launched a documentary series project aiming to save history by fliming Chinese veterans of the China’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. “The General’s Attendant Guard” is one of them. Although I have made video recordings of oral history for more than 100 veterans, only a few solo stories have been made into documentary feature films, including “Long Lao” (aka “Anti-Janpese War Veteran”) in 2015 and “The Sichuan Army Veteran Peng Guochen” in 2018. Together with “The General’s Attendant Guard”, they can be regarded as Veteran Trilogy.

The preliminary shooting of “The Genera’s Attendant Guard” began in 2013, until our protagonist Grandpa Tang Menglong passed away in 2017, there were five years of preliminary shooting. After that, the material was shelved for three years. As I was in debt of hundreds of thousands of yuan because of shooting my first movie “Yun Jie” in 2015, I have been busy in making money to pay off the debt in recent years, therefore I have to pus aside this documentary which is non-profit making and hard to find investment.

After the outbreak of the COVID-19 in the early 2020, I spent much more time at home, then I started to think that this documentary told a complete story, a lot of time were spent on it, and especially Grandpa Tang’s family and the local volunteers gave much support, so there should be an answer. What’s more, the financial supports from my personal friends and the Yongyuan Foundation covered the basic post-production cost of the documentary.

There are too many people I have to thank for the completion of this documentary. Every time I atteded the screening, I always reminded the cinema staff that I would communicate with the audiences after the closing credits. I think it is a kind of respect to the film crew and a special gratitude to the long list of acknowledgement at the end of closing-credit. I want to express my thanks to every crwodfunding supporter, who make my dream come true and suppurt me to do what I love, especially in the difficult period of making the documentary.

As for the creation of the documentary “The General’s Bodyguard”, what I want to say is in the film. I am fully aware that this is the era of the popular Douyin short videoes, only a few people are willing to spend more than 100 minutes to watch my documentary. In this documentary, I still don’t use the highly guiding narration and the sensational music, and just want to present more facts. I would be very happy if this documentary could trigger off some thinking and reflection in the audeinces, which maybe would be my wishful thinking.

Most of my works focus on the living conditions of individuals undet the tide of the times. I wish there will be development of the times and progress of society with more respect to individuals. I also wish my compatriots in our motherland live our lives with more dignity.