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Canada resident director Fan Lixin

Canadian citizen Fan Lixin (范立欣) has made a documentary that spans the years 2007 to 2009, focusing on an old couple's journey back to Guang'an city, Huilong village (回龙村) in Sichuan from the factories of Guangzhou. The documentary, made with over one million dollars in funding, will have wide release in foreign countries, but not in mainland China. In a Southern Weekly culture feature, Fan, the director, says: "There is a complex economic chain between the rich lifestyles of developed countries and the hard work of Chinese peasants who are trying to survive. At the two ends of the chain, neither party understands the other."

In 2007, on the CCTV documentary program Jishi (or 纪事 Chronicles), Fan contributed a section about the story of elder brother Zhang and elder sister Chen, which began the seed of the documentary Last Train Home (归途列车). The Southern Weekly culture feature goes on to say:

The plan [to then make the documentary] was favored and in the end was awarded funding from the Canadian government, funding from the cultural department of Quebec, funding from the Amsterdam International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival funding and the support of US independent TV ITVS. Together with the prior purchase of broadcasting rights by the UK's Channel 4, France's TV5 and a fee-charging HD TV station in Canada, Last Train Home filming budget reached one million dollars. For many Chinese filmmakers, this amount is quite extravagant.

Fan has been accused of taking foreign money, and even university professors have said (quote in the Southern Weekly piece) after watching his film that taking one million dollars means allowing foreigners to instill their economic and political viewpoints. But Fan's response is:

He gave an example: my mother is sick, and I give her a bowl of medicine, the medicine is really bitter. "She slaps me, this is so bitter, why are you making me drink it. As her son, do I continue advising her to drink it, or do I say that she's not really ill, and then pour the medicine away?"

Southern Weekly went on to interview Fan and his Chinese producer, Zhao Qi (赵齐). They talk about finding a route into other countries' TV programming with a film about the "real China."