Buffett invested in only a few dozen companies in his lifetime; Lan Hongchun made only three Chaoshan films in ten years. What they got right was not "what they chose," but "how much they refused."
> But "how much they refused" is itself a rhetorical flourish. More precisely: they first spent a long time confirming where their grid was. Then they only waited for pitches in that zone. Any other ball, they wouldn't even look at.
I. Ted Williams' 77 Cells
Ted Williams, the legendary American ballplayer, was one of the greatest hitters of the past seventy years: a .344 career average, .316 in his final season. His secret wasn't fast reflexes or raw power—it was that he almost never swung at bad pitches.
Williams divided the strike zone above home plate into 77 cells, like a chessboard. He recorded his hit rate for each position: the highest cell, .400; the lowest, .230—nearly a two-fold difference.
His strategy was simple to the point of arrogance: swing only at balls entering the highest cells. Everything else he let pass—even good pitches. The umpire called a strike? Fine. The crowd booed? Fine. By season's end, his on-base percentage beat players who swung at everything.
Buffett later imported this theory into investing. He said the secret of investing is patience—waiting for the ball to enter your strike zone. Berkshire has heavily held only a few dozen companies over decades. Coca-Cola for decades; Apple as a major position for nearly ten years. Most of the time, he was simply waiting.
Most people stop at this layer: patience, discipline, no impulsiveness. But that's the surface. The real question is: how do you know where your strike zone is?
II. A Chaoshan Film's "Anti-Industrial" Choices
🌊 The Dark Horse of the May 2026 Holiday Season
*A Love Letter to Grandma* sounds like a film that couldn't possibly succeed.
Entirely in the Chaoshan dialect—incomprehensible without subtitles. The cast is entirely non-professional: lead actress Li Sitong was a sophomore at Guangdong University of Finance and Economics, discovered by the director through a short video; elderly actress Wu Shaoqing, playing "Ye Shurou," was a Chaoshan grandmother in her 80s, found via a video her grandson posted; other cast members include a teacher, a shop owner, a vegetable vendor. Not one has studied acting.
Budget: 14 million RMB. Opening-day screen share: 1.6%. No traffic stars, no major IP, no marketing budget. By film-industry standards, a suicidal setup.
The result: Douban opened at 9.0, rose to 9.1 in a week, now 9.2. Box office passed 1 billion RMB, topping the daily chart for 11 consecutive days. Chaoshan regional box office exceeded 65 million. Only the second Chinese theatrical film in a decade with a Douban score above 9 that kept climbing.
Audiences don't discuss acting. Everyone talks about how real grandmother Shaoqing was, how the father character was portrayed, the authentic Huilai accent of one young character.
🤔 But Lan Hongchun Did Something Stranger: Nine Months of Casting
Director Lan Hongchun, a Shantou native without formal film training, previously made two Chaoshan-dialect films: *Dad, I Will Definitely Make It* (Douban 6.3) and *Take You to See My Mom* (Douban 7.4). Modest results—but proof he wasn't gambling; he was accumulating.
Casting for *A Love Letter to Grandma* took nine months. Not because people were scarce, but because he was looking for the right people. The lead wasn't auditioned—she was "encountered" in a short video. The grandmother wasn't screen-tested—she was discovered through her grandson's post.
What did those nine months of refusing look like?
- Refusing professional actors—faster, more controllable, less likely to be questioned by investors
- Refusing a Mandarin version—a bigger market, easier approval, easier national acceptance
- Refusing genre conventions—no twists, no spectacle, no issue-driven storytelling
- Professional actors to guarantee "competent acting"
- A Mandarin version to widen the market
- More dramatic conflict for tighter pacing
- Cameos by traffic stars to secure opening-day box office
- Marketing budget raised to 50 million, full short-video coverage
He did one thing only: find people who don't need to "act."
Wu Shaoqing frequently added lines on set. After learning of her husband's death, looking at his photo, she said: "Dying so early—how can the widow and orphans get by?" That wasn't in the script; it came from an 80-something Chaoshan grandmother improvising. They naturally carry a compassion that produces such words.
This is not acting. This is authenticity.
III. What a Real "Strike Zone" Is
📊 Layer One: Not Being Impulsive
Most people's understanding of Buffett's zone stops at "patience." Waiting for what? A good opportunity. What counts as good? Unknown—"I'll know when it comes." That's not an answer; "I'll know when I see it" is a rearview-mirror illusion. The real question: how do you define your strike zone before you know?
Williams didn't judge each pitch as it arrived—he drew the 77 cells in advance. He knew his sweet spot, then waited only for balls in it.
Buffett's zone wasn't "good companies" but companies with durable competitive advantage, honest management, and a reasonable price. Three criteria, used for decades. Doesn't fit: he doesn't look. Fits: he goes heavy.
📊 Layer Two: Knowing Your Boundaries
What was Lan's strike zone? Not "good films" or "moving stories," but real people on this land, saying what they really say. His grid had only two dimensions:
1. Is this person Chaoshan? 2. Does this person need to "act"?
Yes to the first, no to the second—that's his sweet spot. Everything else, untouched.
So he made only three Chaoshan films in ten years: 6.3, 7.4, then 9.2. He didn't suddenly get enlightened—his grid just got drawn more precisely. Knowing which pitches not to swing at raised the hit rate on the rest.
📊 Layer Three: Refusal Itself Creates Value
Many think the strike zone means conservatism, missed chances. The opposite: refusal is the starting point of value creation.
Had Lan cast a professional, the audience would see an actor portraying a Chaoshan grandmother—one extra layer, one layer of distance. Non-professionals don't act; they *are*. The Chaoshan sayings Wu Shaoqing spoke weren't memorized lines; they were her life's language. A professional couldn't learn that in three years.
Same for Buffett. If he'd held a hundred companies at 1% each, he'd have been an index fund. Holding only a few dozen, heavily, meant his research depth per company was ten times ordinary. His refusals (not investing in nine hundred) made his choices (investing in ten) more valuable.
Refusal is not abandonment—it is concentration.
IV. The Contemporary Fallacy: Swinging at Everything
How would an academy-trained director have made *A Love Letter to Grandma*?
Investing is the same. Most investors' problem isn't choosing wrong—it's choosing too much. A retail investor holds thirty stocks at 3% each; each purchase has a casual justification, none deeply researched. Such diversification doesn't reduce risk—it masks ignorance. Buffett's concentration is fundamentally cognitive discipline: any single mistake seriously hurts the whole, and that pressure forces him to draw his strike zone well.
V. The Art of Waiting
When the film crossed 1 billion, Lan said: "I waited ten years—for the people of this land to be ready to be seen."
That's the same sentence as Buffett's "I wait for the ball to enter my strike zone."
It wasn't the market or the audience waiting for him—it was him waiting for himself: for his grid to be precise enough, for him to know which pitches to skip, until he met a Chaoshan grandmother who didn't need to act.
Williams hit .344—three and a half hits in ten swings. The six or seven times he didn't swing, it wasn't slow reflexes. Those balls weren't in his cells. He'd rather be called out on strikes than touch them.
Lan's nine months of casting wasn't "slow craftsmanship"—it was refusal: refusing professional after professional, "good enough" candidate after candidate, until that short video—an 80-something Chaoshan grandmother, smiling naturally at the camera.
At that moment, the ball entered his sweet spot. He swung.
📚 Further Reading
1. Buffett's shareholder letters (annual) — repeated articulations of the strike-zone theory 2. **Ted Williams, *The Science of Hitting* — the original source of the 77 cells 3. Lan Hongchun interview (May 2026)** — on the nine-month casting process and non-professional actors