Inspirational stories of love
Narrated by Zhan, whose son Wei Zhuo was kidnapped outside her restaurant, the first episode Reunion Restaurant shows that the heartbroken mother kept the restaurant open for 18 years in Qichun county, Hubei province, to keep the memory of Wei alive. Meanwhile, Wei was living under the name of Zhong Jiajin in Shantou, Guangdong province, about 900 kilometers by road from Qichun. He was sold to a couple shortly after being taken.
The episode shows the foster father quoting a suspect accused of multiple charges of human trafficking as saying that the boy was abandoned by his parents. Thanks to DNA testing, Wei's identity was established and he was able to reunite with his parents.
According to the director Qin, a documentary needs to be more than a simple news report.
From Wei's perspective, he had to deal with the complicated relationship between what he believed were his parents and his actual biological parents.
Before the reunion, Wei's business had failed and he landed in debt. In the episode, he says he first hoped his biological parents could help him out of the debt. However, after knowing that his grandmother had died in a car accident when looking for him and his biological parents had experienced tough times, Wei decided to pay off his debt on his own through hard work.
"It has taken 18 years to reunite with my parents and clear my doubts about my identity. I have two families and embraced my second life," Wei says on social media.
However, the parents he was given to, in good faith on their part, "rejected the filming", according to the chief director Qin.
"They cried asking if they had done any wrong, I knew that to some extent, our shooting had hurt their feelings," Qin says.