16 spacecraft – fourth-timer Gu Xinghe (Shao Bing) and first-timer Ma Fei (Bai Yu) – the latter's family is conspicuously not present.

February 1991: Ma Haowen has been convicted of negligence and sent to a remote prison, where his wife Xinyu (Ren Suxi) visits and gets him to sign divorce papers.

Xinyu now has a sugar daddy, railway administrator Meng (Liang Chao), and the two have sent Ma Fei (Sun Xilun) to Boyu High School, an exclusive local boarder that's among the four best in Dongpei.

When Ma Fei is expelled for skipping class and reading a Jin Yong martial arts novel, Ma Haowen publicly challenges the headmaster, Yan (Li Jianyi), over the decision that if he can make his son become a top ten student, Yan will overturn his decision to expel him.

When Meng has to go to Guangzhou on business, Ma Haowen spends time with his son but he's still mocked by locals in the street and still can't find a job due to his tarnished reputation, despite his vast architectural experience.

One man, Liu Baliang (Wu Yaheng) who works as a construction supervisor does give him a job after Ma Haowen helps him out in setting a proper demolition of a structure in just two minutes while Liu's men cannot; and Ma Haowen's one-time apprentice, Lu Datou (Wang Ge), surreptitiously gives him and his son a place to stay.

Eventually, the essay moves the teachers and enables Ma Fei to have a perfect score to be a top ten student, making Yan lose the bet.

After revealing the truth, Yan breaks down and cries causing everyone to realize that the reason he puts Ma Fei down is to hide his own failure as a father.

Yu Baimei said that he studied computer science at Xidian University, and he worked in a very good unit after graduation, but that job was not what he wanted to do, and he was determined to write scripts.

Sun Xilun and Feng Ze'ang were selected by the director from tens of thousands of young actors, while Bai Yu was the crew's favorite from the very beginning.

Ren Suxi was selected by director Yu Baimei as the candidate for the role of Xinyu by virtue of her performance in works such as "Donkey Gets Water" and "The Unknown Man".

From June 16th to 19th, Deng Chao successively visited many primary and secondary schools, factories, residential buildings, railway stations, and the Land and Resources Bureau in Lanxi to see the scenery.

More than 20 mass squares were dispatched at the same time; the art department produced more than 24,000 pieces, ranging from frog toys, BB machines, to Kodak film washing shops, shaved ice stands on the road, and even roadside pandas.

In the cold night of early autumn, Deng Chao took the lead in climbing back and forth on the dam in the torrential rain.

Actor Sun Xilun spent three days soaking in the water while filming this scene, and it was still drenched in "heavy rain".

In order to build the entire platform, the crew did detailed desk work and manufactured it precisely, from the model of the screws to the material texture of each panel.

The film named the spacecraft carried by Ma Fei as "Dawn 16", which is a nostalgic commemoration and a high tribute to China's aerospace industry.

The film also invited a number of aerospace experts as consultants to help the crew check the aerospace part setting one by one to ensure the authenticity: from the expression of technical terms such as relay antenna, lift return, and heat insulation tile damage, to the action design of the out-of-vehicle operation, the open space, etc.

Most of Bai Yu's roles are concentrated in the aerospace part, and he has to complete a large number of hard-core difficult movements such as simulating weightlessness and space walking.

In order to create a realistic weightless effect, he needs to be tied to a wire and rehearse continuously for more than ten hours every day at a height of more than 10 meters.

In order to complete this role, Bai Yu took the initiative to ask to join the group to receive special training one month in advance.

It took 2,521 hours of meticulous craftsmanship and the hard work of 2,400 people in front of and behind the scenes to make the film reproduce the torrent of the 30-year era a reality.

Deng Chao and Yu Baimei made a special trip to Vienna, Austria, and gathered 80 musicians to score the film live.