During an interview for the German movie festival "Fantasy Film Fest" in 2023, Ran Huang explained that during a hotel stay in London, he flicked through a copy of GQ magazine out of boredom.
The magazine contained a feature article on the story of Sture Bergwall, a Swedish man thought to be a serial killer and convicted of multiple murders while while detained in a mental institution for personality disorders, who later withdrew all his confessions and was acquitted of his crimes. This served as Huang's initial inspiration for this movie.