"The Story of China’s Reform and Opening Up" documentary made by British historian and filmmaker Michael Wood has become an Internet hit in China with its trailer getting 100 million views on Chinese short-video platform Douyin.
The one-minute-long video talks about how Deng Xiaoping - "the chief architect of China's reform and opening-up" - realized that the lives of Chinese people could only be bettered through new technology during a visit to Japan, has received 384,000 likes and 18,000 comments on the platform.
Deng realized that the lives of Chinese people could only be bettered through technology./Screenshot via Douyin
Ezra Vogel, professor of Harvard University and the author of "Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China" said in the video that Deng was "excited like a little kid" in seeing the advanced technologies at the time.
Many social media users found the documentary touching as it demonstrates the fast and colossal changes China has experienced during those historic years.
"I have so much to say but I cannot because I'm moved into tears," one commenter said.
Michael Wood, the documentary director and a former BBC presenter, had worked with China Review Studio through this whole summer and interviewed at least 40 people people in the UK, the U.S. and China, hoping to decode the success of those 40 years.
Four stories related to reform and opening-up were brought up in the documentary. In the story on China's education, it was mentioned that Deng let Chinese students go abroad again. Among them was Fu Ying, who later became China's ambassador to the Philippines, Australia and the United Kingdom, and then vice minister of foreign affairs.
"The Story of China" scored 7.9 out of 10 on Chinese comment website Douban. /Screenshot via Douban
He has also written and presented the documentary series "The Story of China" released in 2016, "The Story of England" in 2010 and "The Story of India" in 2007. "The Story of China" scored 7.9 out of 10 on Chinese comment website Douban.
When asked about what had inspired his interest in China during an interview with The Diplomat in 2017, Wood said, "The rise of the new China is the greatest phenomenon of our time, and a historian might say that China is the big story of the last century of world history… its history explains so much, including the Chinese people's view of their own civilization."
According to China Review Studio, the documentary was aired on the BBC in February 2019.