Welcome
[machinery whirring]
[women speaking indistinctly]
[Cai Guo-Qiang in Mandarin] More than 1,000 years ago,
when the Chinese discovered gunpowder,
they were actually looking for an elixir to make them immortal.
While they were studying it, the medicine... boom!
It exploded, so they came up with the name "fire medicine."
Over time, Chinese people started to use it in celebrations.
They created many beautiful nights.
[reporter 1 in English] The work of legendary artist Cai Guo-Qiang
is the talk of the contemporary art scene,
with his art blowing up all over the world.
[reporter 2] A retrospective of his works at the Guggenheim Museum in New York
brought in record numbers.
[reporter 3] The Olympics Opening Ceremony is right around the corner,
and, as the creative visual force behind it,
Cai Guo-Qiang spent years working up to this point.
[indistinct chatter]
[dog barking]
[chuckles]
[speaking Mandarin]
This ladder's width is five meters,
but the structure is soft.
The rungs are made of bamboo poles
or stainless steel.
Lighter is better.
Put fireworks on both sides, including the horizontal rungs,
and thread them all together.
How tall will this ladder be?
Five hundred meters tall.
Five hundred meters tall?
Half a kilometer.
My only concern is the weight.
Let me show you.
We attach the ladder to a hot air balloon...
[in Japanese] He always says that there's no failure or success in art.
He starts all his projects with this attitude.
When there are a lot of troubles or difficulties,
he actually enjoys it.
The Sky Ladder has failed several times.
[in Japanese] This is where I want to make a ladder
to connect the Earth to the universe.
From this window, you can see the top of that hill.
I'm going to use it as a canvas.
The explosion will draw the lines straight into the sky.
This is a ladder to heaven.
In the same way Christians try to get closer to God,
we are going to build a ladder
that connects this town to outer space.
[rain falling]
[thunder rumbling]
[indistinct chatter]
[inaudible]
[in Mandarin] When he first started talking about it with me,
it was his dream.
And he has remained obsessed with trying to achieve it ever since.
Two things of concern: the color and the size of the flame.
It's better to show the ladder by threading the flames together,
not with a series of dots.
If you want to thread them together, you can use these ones.
- How? - Line by line.
- Oh! - [chuckles]
[Cai] Nice. This is a good idea.
Everyone loves to light fireworks.
Beautiful, isn't it?
This town, we don't need permission to test fireworks here.
Light it up and run.
[announcer in English] Liftoff. We have a liftoff. Liftoff on Apollo 11.
[Cai in Mandarin] In the '60s,
when American astronauts landed on the moon,
that was really good news, even in China.
But I was sad because I thought I would never make it to space myself.
But later on, I realized that art could be my space-time tunnel
connecting me to the universe.
If there was an opportunity,
I would like to make a ladder into the clouds.
But the purpose of this ladder wouldn't be for me to go to space.
It would be to encourage a back-and-forth, a dialogue.
[Cai] The ninth wave is the final and most dangerous wave of a tsunami.
I was inspired by the Russian painting The Ninth Wave,
which represents the final struggle of humanity in the face of disaster.
That's why I named this exhibition The Ninth Wave.
[Orville Schell] I think his recent work does have a strong environmental subtext.
Because it is, perhaps, China's number one problem,
its environmental future.
He has a deep social conscience.
I think he cares about the world that sustains us all.
He is, I think, trying to find that place
which artists have always needed to find in Chinese society,
which is to do your art with integrity
and yet, not completely run off the tracks
and end up in a state of tension with the authorities.
[explosions]
[all chanting in Mandarin]
[Cai] In the Song dynasty, about 1,000 years ago,
Quanzhou City struggled to develop.
So they invited a feng shui master to investigate. He said,
"The city on top of the mountain nearby is taller and shaped like a fishing net,
and your city is shaped like a fish. This is an ominous sign."
So they built two pagodas,
in order to break this metaphorical net.
This shows that the city really believes in feng shui and in the unseen world.
I grew up in this environment,
so even in the artworks I made from a young age,
I was exploring a connection to this unseen power.
All the artists in Quanzhou would come to our courtyard to paint.
Was it casual or organized?
Everyone would tell each other
to go to Cai Guo-Qiang's house on the weekends to paint,
but they really came for my father
because he was a respected artist in the town.
[Ian Buruma] If you think of Cai's relationship
with his father, the calligrapher,
in some ways he did break away, of course.
In other ways, he didn't,
in the sense that a lot of the explosion pictures
are very calligraphic.
And one of the things that is part of the Chinese and Japanese tradition,
in calligraphy as well as other arts, is the act of spontaneity,
that you do the calligraphy in one go, almost, uh, by instinct,
as though you're not thinking.
[Schell] His father, I think, was quite a traditional man.
I think he had a deep respect for Chinese culture.
But of course, in those days, to be interested in such a thing
as classical Chinese calligraphy, or art for that matter,
was something that was considered counterrevolutionary.
[man] Our great socialist fatherland is in a bright and splendid morning.
Our great teacher, great leader,
great commander, and great helmsman, Chairman Mao,
is the red sun in our hearts.
[Schell] Well, the Cultural Revolution in China,
which was largely the creation of Chairman Mao and his thinking,
was that if China wanted to truly modernize,
it needed to have a complete revolution.
Not revolution like America had, where we threw out the British,
but a revolution that transformed society.
[crowd cheering]
[Buruma] All the remnants of feudalism had to be smashed.
The great new society could only be built on the ruins of the old.
It's not that hard to stir young people up against their teachers and professors,
and fire them up into that kind of destructive idealism.
[crowd yelling]
[Buruma] So everything that was old had to be smashed.
[Schell] Anybody with any connection to either traditional culture or wealth
suddenly found themselves cast out.
[indistinct shouting]
Literally, pianists had their fingers broken
and people were not allowed to perform traditional theater
and that kind of thing.
[Schell] It was a tectonic, savage and brutal period of China's modern history.
And nobody escaped unscathed.
[Cai in Mandarin] One day, someone told me,
"Cai Guo-Qiang, your dog has been killed."
I ran over and they told me
that my dog had been shot by some Red Guards.
But later on, we took my dead dog and everyone ate it.
- [Wen-You] You ate your dog? - [chuckles] Everyone!
Everyone saw there was an edible dog.
Of course it was sad, but people wouldn't throw that away.
To be able to survive, people were happy to eat that dog.
It was the reality of the times.
[chuckles]
[Hong Hong] His father was an intellectual.
His mother was illiterate.
Even worse, his grandmother was extremely strong-willed.
As the eldest son in a family with so much conflict,
he had to look after his brothers and sisters.
You painted this portrait of your father?
[Cai] My father was the manager of a government-owned bookstore.
He spent all his salary on books and never brought any money home.
All of it spent on books?
His only self-justification was that,
"Although I spend money on books, and not the family,
one day you will..."
[sniffles]
[chuckles]
[gulps]
My grandma was always angry with him,
that he never brought his earnings home.
He said books were his fortune...
[chuckles]
and that they would be my fortune, too.
We had to burn most of them during the Cultural Revolution.
We burned the books for three days and nights,
mostly at night, and I helped him do it.
[fireworks exploding]
[birds chirping]
- [interviewer in English] You happy here? - Yeah, uh...
[in Mandarin] Lots of memories.
Those tall buildings weren't here in those days.
I grew up on East Street
and my wife, still my girlfriend then, grew up on South Street.
It would take me about eight to ten minutes on a bicycle,
from my house to her house.
[dog barking]
- What's up? - Did you see Ping?
[Hong Hong] To be honest, before I met him,
I had seen him in a movie as a villain,
which didn't leave me with a good impression.
When I met him, his whole lifestyle was very different from everyone else's.
It was just that Cai had a lot of energy.
From morning to night, he would work constantly.
[Cai] When I was young,
I was timid and cautious.
My work was overly influenced by my father,
following the same conventional pattern.
I was searching for an energy,
the kind that would disrupt my art.
[fireworks exploding]
In my hometown, firecrackers and fireworks are used
to deliver various messages in daily life,
so I thought of gunpowder.
In the beginning, I tried shooting toy rockets onto canvas,
but the canvas caught on fire.
Playing with gunpowder set me free.
[Jennifer Wen Ma] It's exploding history,
you know, if you're putting gunpowder onto oil paint and blowing it up.
I mean, that's literally destroying your own creation.
When this is something you're taught your entire artistic life,
and you're blowing it up and calling that art, calling that moment art,
and that's already turning the idea of what art is on its head.
[indistinct chatter]
[speaking in Mandarin]
[Buruma] The mid '80s to the late '80s
was one of the most exciting periods to be in China
because everything started to open up.
It was the post-Mao period,
and people started to experiment in poetry, and art, and films and so on,
and there was quite a lot of freedom.
In many ways, freer than China is today.
[Hong Hong in Mandarin] A lot of young people wanted to improve themselves.
Everyone gathered together to discuss art and culture.
People would say to Cai, "Although you're a hardworking artist,
it is not possible for you to surpass Picasso."
He'd say, "Why can't I surpass Picasso?"
But life was difficult in China,
so he was intent on leaving the country, wherever that would take him.
[indistinct chatter]
[Cai] I feel my art became much more pure after I arrived in Japan...
sensitivity to materials and the control of form.
I think Japanese contemporary art had a profound effect on him.
This research back into materialism,
um, the purity of material, the meaning of that,
reduction of the practice, so you come to this essence.
[Cai] When discussing art in Japan,
they would often ask, "How is art in the Western world?"
I resisted this type of thinking,
of East versus West.
It was as if I had arrived at a dinner table
and there were Chinese and Western dishes chaotically laid out.
I wondered if I could ignore the table,
or just pull the tablecloth out from under it.
[chuckles] So I started to think about aliens in space
and how they would see our planet from the universe.
[man speaking indistinctly on walkie]
[fireworks exploding]
[woman speaking Mandarin]
[Cai] I'm going to sketch a little bit
so you have an idea of what I'm looking for.
Here is the fishing village with its curving harbor,
here is a boat...
This place has a sense of wonder,
a rare quality that many other places lack.
This could be the place.
It's close to the image of a fishing village as I remember it from childhood.
Ideally, I would have done the Sky Ladder at my grandmother's fishing village.
But it was destroyed for redevelopment a few years ago.
I'd like to find somewhere with the same magical atmosphere.
[speaking in Mandarin]
[firecrackers exploding]
[Cai] My grandma was always the family's pillar.
When I was little, she already believed that I'd become a great artist.
I would like to make this Sky Ladder for her.
[in Japanese] Of course, he cherishes his grandmother.
He keeps her close to his heart.
His granny represents his childhood. His town.
Wow! [chuckles]
Look who's here.
[laughs]
Look who's here.
Who am I?
Guo-Qiang.
Ah, amazing, amazing.
How amazing that you immediately recognize your Guo-Qiang.
You're amazing.
Guo-Qiang is your oldest grandson, isn't he?
Ah!
No one is as amazing as you at the age of 100.
I'm inviting you to come see my project.
I am going to do a Sky Ladder in a fishing village. Do you hear me?
Me! I am going to do a project by the sea and you're invited to see it. Okay?
[dog barking]
Thank you for taking care of him.
Dad?
[man breathing heavily]
Dad?
It's me.
I saw Grandma yesterday.
Grandma is almost 100 years old.
As I remember it,
he and my grandmother often argued,
but in their hearts, they relied on each other.
He's been like this for four or five years.
We can't let my grandmother [clears throat] see him in this state.
He is incapable of communication.
In my grandmother's eyes, he can still paint and write
and he can drink and stay up all night.
Mmm-hmm.
Sometimes I don't know whether what I'm doing is right or not.
[Thomas Krens] For most of the late 1990s and the early 2000s,
he was an emerging Chinese artist.
Maybe the first pivotal moment
was, um, at MASS MoCA, which was in Massachusetts.
But that exhibition was Cai's first really big show.
I remember when I saw it, it was clear to me that Cai had arrived.
You know, this combination of space and scale and invention.
That was the moment.
[fireworks exploding]
[Ben Davis] I remember hearing about the explosion events
well before I had ever seen an explosion event,
and thinking, "That guy really nailed it."
[news anchor 1] To say that the Chinese artist, Cai Guo-Qiang,
has exploded onto the contemporary art scene is no exaggeration.
[explosion]
That's what every artist is looking for, is a signature form.
"I took this material and I made it my own."
Early work has begun on the largest single installation
ever commissioned for Brisbane's gallery...
[news anchor 2] A retrospective of his works
at the Guggenheim Museum in New York brought in record numbers.
How many explosions does it take to complete the painting?
- Typically, once. - Just once?
Whoo!
[Cai] Good.
[both grunt]
Kiss your papa.
[Cai speaking Mandarin]
[in English] We'll go over what different effects will appear.
[Cai in Mandarin] The sky is filled with stars...
[interpreter in English] In the sky, there will be twinkling stars.
[in Mandarin] ...blue stars...
[interpreter in English] Blue ones.
[in Mandarin] ...cascades.
[interpreter in English] And then a cascade, a waterfall kind.
[in Mandarin] ...accompanied by the sound of ocean waves.
[in English] At the same time, there's the sound of waves.
[Cai in Mandarin] Silver leaves fall in groups.
[in English] Some silver falling leaves will appear.
[Cai speaking Mandarin]
Oh...
[Krens] Being a contemporary artist is not necessarily coming up
with a brilliant theoretical breakthrough concept.
The reality is that when you have achieved a level of recognition
and you have the capacity to generate resources,
you tend to push the technology to another level.
[gunpowder exploding]
[Phil Grucci] We have developed many innovations
that have created the ability for Cai, in his way,
to think outside of the box.
A pixel burst is a shell that launches in the sky,
has an embedded computer chip on the inside.
And with the embedded computer chip, you can control, down to milliseconds,
the time that the shell is launched from a mortar
to the time it explodes in the sky.
If you can connect the dots,
you can create some very amazing and very large-scale abstract images.
[crowd cheering]
[Davis] I think the work is spectacular.
That's a thing contemporary artists are doing,
playing on the big stage.
[announcer] Everybody clear on this line. Standing by for show in one minute.
Twenty seconds.
[Davis] This sort of pop art, merging of art and entertainment,
is the currency of the day.
[Wen Ma] The difference between the first gunpowder explosion he did
to these fireworks shows that he is now known for.
One is really just in your face, challenging the status quo.
The other one is servicing, entertaining.
[Davis] He is such a good showman.
I have used him as an example of the top of the top.
A very specific kind of artist.
From there you'd start, like, thinking about Damien Hirst,
Takashi Murakami, Olafur Eliasson...
That's really the top of the top.
Artists that function sort of like corporations or entrepreneurs,
who stamp their brand on everything.
You're gonna do a massive firework display,
the permitting alone...
like, the power structures that embeds you in,
the amount of money you need in order to do that...
And that's gonna produce an ideological pressure on your work.
And it's not the easiest thing in the world
to turn around and bite the hand that feeds you.
[crowd cheering]
[Cai in Mandarin] I had a goal for the opening ceremony,
to make it more modern, international and artistic.
I had been working abroad for a long time,
but if I could do this well, it would help the country
and the people...
by not only making them feel important and proud,
but also more open.
[Davis] The Beijing Olympics
were billed as China's coming-out party to the world.
Tremendous display of political spectacle,
welding together culture and politics in this very deliberate way.
I don't think there's any way to get around the fact
that there's a real dark side to that.
They displaced 1.5 million people in Beijing,
and tremendous ramping up of surveillance...
People read this as a political statement,
that it was an expression of state power,
and it was a coordinated, cultural spectacle meant to be awe-inspiring.
It's a political thing that you need to talk about,
when you talk about how art interacts with a big event like this.
His role in it is...
Part of its meaning is that it was a piece of propaganda.
People always want to ask me,
"Why do you collaborate with the Chinese government on these projects?"
But everywhere in the world, artists work for their own governments
on projects like the Olympics opening ceremony.
For example, for the London Olympics, Damien Hirst designed
a national flag-inspired stage set for the arena.
But this sort of thing is only an issue if you are Chinese.
Working for my country only becomes problematic
because I was born in China.
[indistinct chatter]
[man talking indistinctly over radio]
So this is the only place
we can raise the Sky Ladder.
Even though I invited all my friends from across the country,
the best airship guy, the best technical director,
the best firework designer, etc...
It's the people on this island.
They also deserve to have the best in China.
Cai's doing this with the farmers from here.
There is a lot of meaning in doing it with the farmers.
Anyone really serious about this project
would be asking the People's Liberation Army for help.
[Shanshan Xia] Every time he's trying to realize a project like Sky Ladder,
we need many supports from local people.
Without their help, without their passion,
and without their involvement, we cannot realize it at all.
[Masatoshi] This ship is going to move to here?
[Cai] Yes. From here to here. So it should be achievable.
And then there's no need to attach a chain or anything to this.
[Sang Luo] Tatsumi has been technical director
with Cai Studio for over 20 years.
Whenever Cai's doing his projects around the world,
Tatsumi will fly from Japan.
He keeps saying to Cai that,
"This won't happen. You won't be able to do it. This is stupid.
The project is way too complicated, and you are not gonna make it."
[Cai and Masatoshi speaking Japanese]
Because it will touch the electric wire.
This angle. If you put it in here it will hit, so you can't do it there.
It's diagonal, so if you don't make it straight...
[chuckling]
Ooh.
[chuckling]
Very calming. Very peaceful.
Before I started the project, I put a lot of thought into it.
I wanted it to be more than just style.
My first aim was to develop environmentally friendly fireworks.
My second idea was to find a way for the fireworks to interact
with a video display.
The third idea was political.
As a country, we no longer need
to depend on bombastic ceremonies with thousands of performers, gongs and drums.
Rather, I hoped we could engage people through a joke or a story.
Firstly, the video is gone.
Then the story was dropped.
So now the risk is
the ceremony might become a standard fireworks show.
Why am I still here?
We have to make being environmentally friendly
a characteristic of this firework performance.
It can make our ceremony a tipping point.
Furthermore, making fireworks environmentally friendly
has to be done sooner or later.
The whole industry has realized how important it is to its survival,
so it's something people must do.
[man] The innovation is great, but as I mentioned,
security and stability are equally important.
If these departments disapprove, I'll have to respect them.
I'm telling you, the government is here to help you.
You have to figure out something creative with all these chains on you.
I'm a pragmatist.
Mao taught us to be practical and realistic.
So, overall, our measures are in accordance with your idea.
We'll support you only when you follow the rules.
[speaking Mandarin]
[Cai] It seems I have compromised my work on this time after time.
I feel awfully frustrated.
[speaking Mandarin]
[Yimou] Art needs to be free,
but these projects have political requirements,
and one can do nothing about it.
This is China's current situation.
I personally am very familiar with these circumstances.
So when you talk about creative work on these projects,
those artists who grew up in free Western countries
are not able to understand this.
We really envy them,
but there is nothing we can do about it.
[Wen Ma] Every project, there's always a thing.
"This is what I'm doing. Everything else doesn't matter. It's fluff.
But I have to have the fluff to protect the center."
The footprints was that for the Olympics.
[interviewer] What was the artistic concept that he had
at the heart of what he did at APEC?
I don't know it.
There was one, when he started.
But it was lost along the way, and he knew it was lost.
That's why I don't understand why he did it.
[crowd cheering]
[inaudible]
[Cai in Mandarin] I always worry about mixing art and politics.
- Uh... - [performers drumming and cheering]
[Cai] I put myself in a difficult position.
But, as artists, can't we help change the system by working within it?
[Cai] He likes making sculptures of small animals, very much.
There are nearly 1,000 pieces here
and some smaller ones are kept in the boxes below.
[Cai] Why do you like little animals, Hu?
Why do you like small animals?
[Hu] I really like small animals, especially puppies.
[Cai] Did you keep animals in your house before?
[Hu] I once kept dogs, but all my dogs were brutish
and eventually were beaten to death by other people.
- [Hu's son] Let me clean it up. - It's okay. You don't have to.
Actually, I cleaned up in here a little bit today.
Look, he usually sits here and watches DVDs. [chuckles]
- Does he sleep here? - Yes, this is my father's bed.
He usually lies here and watches DVDs.
[Cai] This DVD player is so small.
You sleep here?
Yes, I sleep on the upper bed.
This looks like a real artist's home.
[Hu] I was like a lunatic when my wife passed away.
I had no purpose or anything, like my life had come to an end.
Then I started to play with mud and clay.
It was like being on drugs.
I couldn't bear one day without making sculptures.
It's just like being on drugs.
I'd wake up at 6:00 or 6:30 every morning,
brush my teeth, have some noodles and then start making sculptures.
[interviewer in English] Is there something
that you like particularly, collaborating with untrained artists?
[Cai in Mandarin] Yes, a lot of artists do things that are too commercial.
It lacks some compulsive and sincere emotion
that should exist in all art.
Collaborating with them will always remind me
of the pleasure I felt and my original purpose for doing art.
[Liu Xiandong] For any artist, once they reach a certain level at a certain age
and once they've become famous enough,
they face this problem.
They have to confront what their original intention was.
They will also face a lot of people's questions and doubts.
The more successful an artist is,
the more dangerous a situation is.
[speaking Japanese]
[Wen Ma in English] I mean, when you're saying,
"I want to go to a nuclear test ground and do an explosion out of my hand,"
you know, everyone's gonna be like, "You gotta be fucking crazy.
No way! We're not gonna let you."
"Yes, I wanna do it." "No, we're not gonna let you,"
versus, "Here's $2 million.
What do you wanna do? Anything you wanna do."
Okay, how can a person not be different?
When you haven't gone very far, it's easy for you to pick one step.
You've been to a place where you've never been before.
But if you've gone as far as him,
you know, it's harder to take one more step out.
So, how do you challenge yourself?
[Cai in Mandarin] Sky Ladder is the most difficult project of all.
This will be my fourth attempt to realize it.
This time, I'm doing it for myself,
and my family
and for my grandmother in particular, who just turned 100 years old.
[Hong Hong] To this day, I still think
Sky Ladder is close to impossible to realize.
But Cai is very insistent on making this project work.
He's so obsessed and determined.
[thunder rumbling]
[indistinct chatter]
[Hong Hong] Making Sky Ladder is just like burning money.
It's so expensive to produce.
Do you know how much money we're putting into this?
Plus, we have to execute all of this in secret.
How many people will get to see it?
We can't even invite an audience to come and see it.
This time, Sky Ladder is just for Cai's grandmother.
That's all.
[Cai] Listen, if we can't solve this problem,
we cannot proceed with this project.
We will stop all the work, and we will simply withdraw.
No need to spend all the money.
Because it really is impossible.
If it's broadcast tonight on Quanzhou TV channel,
there will be seas of people watching at the seaside tomorrow.
When the airship comes, everybody will be taking photos and publicizing it.
Anything like this is impossible.
Under the sky of the Communist Party, it's absolutely forbidden.
[workers talking indistinctly]
This balloon is pulled by the cables.
Now, they are trying to lock the frame onto a steel cable inside the balloon.
[speaking Mandarin]
The frame will flip over when the balloon rises.
We have to ignite at 3:30 a.m.
Yes, so time is at stake.
The problem right now is that the balloon may break
if it's inflated too quickly.
[man] If we could have more time...
All effort will be in vain once the daylight kicks in,
so we need to be fast.
[workers talking indistinctly]
[speaking Mandarin]
[shouting indistinctly]
[woman in English] Fifteen seconds.
[woman speaking Mandarin]
Grandma, it's Hong Hong here.
Yes, it's your Guo-Qiang.
[Cai] I'm going to create an artwork, an explosion, for you to see.
You stay awake. I am about to start!
[speaking Mandarin]
[indistinct chatter]
Twelve.
Eleven.
Ten. Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Zero! Ignite!
[exploding]
[nurse speaking Mandarin]
[speaking Mandarin]
Listen to that sound, full of power and grandeur!
[woman 1] The project is finally launched.
It's finally a safe day to do this.
It's very hard work.
These people have been through some difficult days.
[Hong Hong cheering]
Grandma, did you see?
- [grandmother speaking Mandarin] - [chuckles]
- Isn't your grandson awesome? - [both laughing]
It's amazing, amazing, amazing.
You can go back to sleep now!
Go to sleep. Sleep. Eat something if you're hungry, though.
It was very good, wasn't it? The ascending explosion.
[man] Very beautiful!
It looked beautiful? Very beautiful.
Thank you!
[all speaking Mandarin]
I need to give a hug to Kang, too.
We were so worried! Thank you for the hard work!
Manager Yu.
You are very welcome.
Amazing sound! The sound of the flame was beautiful!
Mr. Cai Guo-Qiang is our relative by marriage. [laughs]
His younger brother is my son-in-law.
Mr. Cai Guo-Qiang has made a great contribution to our hometown, Quanzhou.
This gunpowder project accomplished here
is the realization of his dream from 21 years ago.
We, as his relatives, as Quanzhou people, feel very proud.
- [Cai] Full satisfaction! - [all cheering and laughing]
[Cai] It's amazing, unbelievable!
- Small village, huge potential! - [all laughing]
This humble place is honored by your presence, Master Cai!
We tried many places throughout the world but failed,
only to find success at Huiyu Island!
Terrific.
[man] You have been around the globe, but end up making it at your hometown.
[all speaking in Mandarin]
[crowd cheering and laughing]
[indistinct chatter]
[Cai] Thank heavens.
After so many difficult days, we managed it.
[sobbing]
[laughs]
[speaking in Mandarin]
[Hong Hong sniffles]
[exhales deeply]
[ethereal music playing]
Subtitles by explosiveskull