Official submission of Singapore for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 96th Academy Awards in 2024.
The shooting took place around the Changbai Mountains in China, near the North Korean border, and lasted 38 days. Some scenes were filmed in freezing temperatures, reaching -18°C (i.e. 0°F). Because it is illegal to film the actual border and sex scenes are forbidden in Chinese movies, Anthony Chen had to creatively work around these issues.
As his next movie, Drift (2023), got delayed, Anthony Chen decided to focus on a project centered around young Chinese people. As a fan of Jules and Jim (1962), he wanted to explore a love triangle, but not a classic one with two men both in love of the same woman; he wanted something more complex and ambiguous. The script was written in a few days while he was stuck in a hotel room in China during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The movie was selected in Un Certain Regard section of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
In June 2021, Anthony Chen was part of the jury of the Shanghai International Film Festival. There, a Chinese writer told him that Chen's movies were too "mature and precise" and wondered what they would be like if Chen "let go of control and worked with a freer spirit". This spurred him to make this movie.
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