Produced while Mingxing was in dire financial straits, Orphan Rescues Grandfather was intended as a moral tale about the importance of education.

His cousin Daopei, seeking control of the family fortune, influences Shouchang to adopt him and hire his friend Lu Shoujing.

After ten years, Weiyu's son Yu Pu has grown into an intelligent youth and is studying at a school established by his grandfather; neither is aware of their familial relationship.

Daopei ultimately admits that he had fabricated the claims against Weiyu, and a repentant Shouchang offers her half of his fortune.

So great were its financial straits that Zhou Jianyun, one of the company's co-founders, had to pawn his wife's jewellery to complete the production of Orphan Rescues Grandfather.

[10] General screenings began on 21 December, with distribution extending from Shanghai to Beijing, Nanjing, and Suzhou in subsequent months, as well as Southeast Asia.

[3] In subsequent years, it established itself as an industry leader[5] and continued to produce films with explicit moral lessons.

[13] Han describes Orphan Rescues Grandfather as establishing, to a certain extent, a structure followed by subsequent Chinese melodramas focused on the family.