Buffett invested in only a few dozen companies over his lifetime; Lan Hongchun made only three Chaoshan-dialect films in ten years. What they got right was not "what they chose," but "how much they refused."
> That phrase "how much they refused" is itself a bit of rhetoric. More precisely: they spent a long time first confirming where their grid was. Then they waited only for balls in that zone. Any other ball — they didn't even look.
1. Ted Williams's 77 Cells
Baseball legend Ted Williams, arguably the greatest hitter of the past seventy years, posted a .344 career batting average and .316 in his final season. His secret wasn't quick reflexes or raw power — it was that he almost never swung at bad pitches.
Williams divided the strike zone into seventy-seven cells, like a chessboard. He tracked his hit rate in each: his best cells produced a .400 average; his worst, .230 — nearly double the difference.
His strategy was almost arrogantly simple: swing only at pitches in his best cells. Everything else, even strikes, he let pass. Umpire calls a strike? Fine. Crowd boos? Fine. By season's end, his on-base percentage towered over hitters who swung at everything.
Buffett later imported this into investing: the secret is waiting patiently for the ball to enter your strike zone. Berkshire heavily held only a few dozen companies across decades — Coca-Cola for decades, Apple for nearly ten years. Most of the time, he waited.
Most people stop at this layer: patience, discipline, no impulsiveness. But that's surface. The real question is: how do you know where your strike zone is?
2. A Film's "Anti-Industrial" Choices
The Dark Horse of the 2026 May Day Slot
*Love Letter to Grandma* sounded like a film that couldn't succeed. Entirely in the Chaoshan dialect. An all-amateur cast: lead actress Li Sitong, a sophomore at Guangdong University of Finance and Economics, discovered by the director through a short video; octogenarian Wu Shaoqing, who played the grandmother, found via a video her grandson posted; the rest included teachers, shopkeepers, a vegetable vendor. Not one trained actor.
Cost: 14 million yuan. Opening-day screen share: 1.6%. No stars, no IP, no marketing budget. By industry standards, a suicidal configuration.
The result: a Douban opening score of 9.0, rising to 9.2 within a week. Box office past 1 billion yuan, eleven consecutive days as the daily champion. Over 65 million yuan from the Chaoshan region alone — the second Chinese theatrical release in a decade to break 9 on Douban and keep climbing.
Spending Nine Months on Casting
Director Lan Hongchun, a Shantou native without formal film training, had previously made two Chaoshan films (*Dad, I'll Make It* at 6.3 and *Take You to See My Mom* at 7.4 on Douban). Modest results — but proof he was accumulating, not gambling.
Casting took nine months. Not because no one was available, but because he was looking for the right people. The lead wasn't selected; she was stumbled upon in short videos. The grandmother wasn't auditioned; she was discovered through her grandson's post.
What did he give up in those nine months?
- Professional actors — faster, more controllable, easier to defend to investors
- A Mandarin version — bigger market, easier censorship, broader acceptance
- Genre conventions — no twists, no spectacle, no agenda-first storytelling
Wu Shaoqing often added her own lines on set. After learning of her husband's death, gazing at his photo, she said: "Died so young, leaving behind orphans and a widow — how are they to live?" That line wasn't in the script. It came from an eighty-year-old Chaoshan grandmother improvising. They carry a natural compassion that produces such words.
This isn't acting. This is authenticity.
3. What a Real "Strike Zone" Is
Layer One: Not Impulsiveness
"I'll know a good opportunity when I see it" is a rearview-mirror illusion. Williams didn't judge pitches as they arrived — he drew his 77 cells in advance. Buffett's zone isn't "good companies"; it's companies with durable competitive advantage, honest management, and a reasonable price. Three criteria, held for decades. Non-qualifiers: ignored. Qualifiers: heavy positions.
Layer Two: Knowing Your Boundaries
Lan's strike zone isn't "good films" or "moving stories." It's real people on this land, speaking their real words. His grid has two dimensions: 1. Is this person Chaoshan? 2. Does this person need to "act"?
Yes, then no — that's his sweet spot. Everything else, untouched.
So three films in ten years: 6.3, then 7.4, then 9.2. Not a sudden awakening — his grid simply grew more precise. He knew which balls not to hit, so his hit rate on the rest kept rising.
Layer Three: Refusal Creates Value
Many assume the strike zone means conservatism and missed opportunities. The opposite: refusal is the starting point of value creation.
Had Lan hired a professional actor, the audience would see an actor playing a Chaoshan grandmother — an extra layer, and distance would appear. The amateurs don't perform; they simply are. Buffett, had he held a hundred companies at 1% each, would have been an index fund. Concentrating means his research depth per company is ten times ordinary. Refusal is not abandonment; it is concentration.
4. The Contemporary Mistake: Swinging at Everything
An academy-trained director would cast professionals, add Mandarin, heighten dramatic conflict, bring in traffic stars, spend 50 million on promotion. Each choice sounds reasonable; together, they produce a swing-at-everything film — polished acting people discuss as "acting," a dialect's flavor lost, a 9.2 likely reduced to 7.5.
The same holds in investing. Most investors' problem isn't wrong picks — it's too many picks. A retail investor holding thirty stocks at 3% each, each bought on "news" or "a friend's tip," isn't diversifying — they're masking ignorance. Concentration is a form of cognitive discipline: it forces deep research, because any single mistake materially damages the whole.
5. The Art of Waiting
When the film passed 1 billion yuan, Lan said: "I waited ten years for the people of this land to be ready to be seen."
This is Buffett's "I wait for the ball to enter my strike zone," said another way. He wasn't waiting for the market or the audience — he was waiting for himself: for his grid to become precise enough, until he met the grandmother who didn't need to act.
Williams's .344 means he missed nearly two-thirds of his swings. But the ones he didn't take weren't misses of reflex — those balls weren't in his cells. Lan's nine months of casting wasn't slow craftsmanship; it was refusal, again and again, until he scrolled onto that short video: an eighty-year-old Chaoshan grandmother, smiling naturally at the camera.
At that moment, the ball entered his sweet spot. He swung.
Further Reading
1. Buffett's annual shareholder letters — repeated articulations of the "strike zone" theory 2. Ted Williams, *The Science of Hitting* — the original source of the 77-cell grid 3. Lan Hongchun interview (May 2026) — on nine months of casting and the amateur-actor creative philosophy