Photo: China News

A Chinese film about a hero who gave his life while saving a boy on a frozen lake premiered in Urumqi, capital city of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on Saturday.

The film depicts the life of Laqini Bayika from his childhood growing up with his grandfather and father, who acted as guides for border guards, to his adult life as a committed border patrolman. It shows Laqini and his family's patriotism, heroic feats of righteousness and his noble character.

Besides, the young patrolman had many other deeds. 

Once while on a patrol in Xinjiang's "Valley of Death," a dangerous section of the border, he risked his life to rescue a border warrior who had fallen off a snow cliff into an ice crack. His yak that broke its spine while climbing the cliff and eventually was frozen to death in the vast snowy area, became a permanent pain in the young man's heart.

His last great deed happened on January 4. While taking part in a training course at a college in the southern Xinjiang city of Kashgar, Laqini Bayika happened to see a boy fall through the ice into a frozen lake. Laqini Bayika ran to the boy and saved him from drowning but could not escape the freezing water himself. In March, he was posthumously awarded the title of "Model of the Times."

According to Gao Huanggang, head of the Xinjiang production company behind the film, the shoot was far more difficult than they had imagined. The more than 160-man crew needed to work in the Pamirs at an average altitude of 4,500 meters for over 70 days. 

"Almost everyone in the cast got severe high-altitude sickness. Headaches and dizziness were very normal [for us], and nausea, vomiting and nosebleeds sometimes occurred during the shoot," he said.

He added that many of the main creators had to be evacuated to the hospital after experiencing heart discomfort, while the actors from Beijing experienced altitude sickness from the day they arrived but insisted on filming while inhaling oxygen.