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Zhang Chiyu, from Jiaxing, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/cnjxol.com]

Zhang Chiyu from Jiaxing, East China's Zhejiang province is the director of the popular movie Moon Man.

A poster for Moon Man directed by Zhang Chiyu. [Photo/cnjxol.com]

The movie's box office exceeded 1.5 billion yuan ($221.89 million) in just seven days.

Since February 2018, Zhang's whole world has revolved around the movie Moon Man.

Moon Man takes place in the future. To resist the impact of asteroids, humans deploy a "lunar shield plan" on the moon. Unexpectedly, the meteorite strikes early, and maintenance worker Dugu Yue is forgotten on the moon by retreating troops. Dugu Yue thinks he was the last human being in the universe, but survivors on earth are following his every move on the moon via a livestream.

The movie was adapted from a comic book, and as a comic book enthusiast, adapting Moon Man for the screen was a challenge for Zhang.

The long production cycle and huge scale of the movie proved to be major challenges. Special effects accounted for 95 percent of the entire movie's runtime.

"In special effects, animals with short hair are difficult to produce," said Zhang. A human has about 100,000 strands of hair, but the "King Kong kangaroo" in the movie has 50 million hairs. All the special effects for the film were created by a domestic team.

"I am satisfied with the final movie," Zhang said of his directorial debut.