Following the runaway hit Youth, director Feng Xiaogang is returning to the big screen with his latest directorial effort Only Cloud Knows.

Presented by both Emperor Motion Pictures and Alibaba Pictures, the film, which will see a general release across the country, has started presales online since Dec 6.

As of Monday, the presale box office haul has surpassed 4.5 million yuan ($643,300), according to the movie data information tracker Beacon.

Inspired by a true story of director Feng's friends, the film chronicles the life of a couple of Beijing immigrants who operate a restaurant in Clyde, a small town in New Zealand.

Through flashbacks, the story unravels their past: The two young people fell in love when they both rented a room of Mrs Lin's house in Auckland. After they accidently won a big amount of money in a local casino, they got married and moved to Clyde to strive for a new future.

Unfortunately, the wife gets diagnosed with cancer and dies after surgery. To fulfill her wishes, the husband travels 15,000 kilometers to leave her ashes in four different places, including scattering them in a sea with whales and burying them in her hometown.

Actor Huang Xuan and actress Yang Caiyu, both starring in Feng's last directorial hit Youth, join hands again to play the husband and wife.

Feng revealed in an earlier interview that he was touched by the love story of his friends Zhang Shu and Luo Yang, a Beijing couple. Zhang lived in the same dormitory with Feng when they worked in an art troupe of the People's Liberation Army in the early 1980s. Luo passed away in Toronto, Canada, in 2017.