His greatest achievement enabled China to feed nearly a fifth of the global population with less than 9 percent of the world's arable land.

China is the world's largest rice producer, and the major staple for over 60 percent of Chinese is the "protagonist" that has dominated Yuan's life for nearly seven decades.

The camera crew couldn't find Yuan when they were set for the first shoot with him.

Fortunately, they stumbled upon Yuan when they came to a field to film local farmers transplanting rice seedlings.

"It was only a few days from the 2019 Lunar New Year, but he still insisted on checking the rice without informing any of his assistants," Lin says.

"You can see in his face how much he cares about it."