The first shooting started at January 2012, they shot on film and spent all budget by the March of the same year, so they had to stop. After a long time finding money, the second shooting started at October 2013, this time they shot digital and finished the whole film. The actor Hualin Jiang playing the role of old helmsman passed away between the two shooting.
The 116-minute version shown at Berlin International Film Festival is a rough cut finished at 2K, with many monologues to support the narrative. After the film festival, the film was scanned at 4K resolution, they re-cut and reconstructed the whole film, many monologues were deleted, the final theatrical version is 115 minutes.