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China on Four Wheels
mazzy50
Posts: 13,305 Forum Member
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Has anyone else watched this?
I'm just recording a re-showing of the first episode which I think was shown last Sunday.
I'm just recording a re-showing of the first episode which I think was shown last Sunday.
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What a shame.
Embarrassingly trivial, with little substance, it's hard to imagine they could have made a bigger hash of it.
An hour of nothingness really, which should be impossible in somewhere as diverse and mysterious as China.
I feel that the BBC could do with making a proper travel documentary of China. Palin for example, but not sure if he would given his age. Paul Merton had a decent, but wacky documentary traveling around China, but i would love to watch a proper and serious one, that goes over the history and tradition of this massive country. Simon Reeve would do a great job, or even Bruce Parry
Interestingly, i think Palin has a documentary about South America coming out in a few months, looking forward to that!
I was really looking forward to this - the concept sounded like it had so much potential - but find the presenters a bit irritating. Already in the pre-titles "blurb", the lady said "what is that thing...? [sic]" and the camera zoomed out to show the Pearl Oriental Tower. Granted, this could have been edited to look like so, and not everybody knows the landmarks of Shanghai, but I feel that any presenter worth their salt would have done some research... or had somebody do the research for them.
I was hoping for something as good as the culinary tour with Ken Hom and Ching-He Huang which I thought was wonderful.
I'd love to see a proper in depth series with Simon Reeve. It is such a fascinating country and it is going through such amazing change. It would be good to record some of the more traditional ways of life before they disappear without trace.
Does anyone remember a documentary series showing life in a remote village in a mountainous region of China many years ago? I think it was called something like "Beyond the Clouds". I loved it so much.
I remember that wonderful series mazzy.
I'd marked this out to watch tonight and feel disappointed in the general consensus in above posts (which I trust because we documentary lovers usually are in agreement). I too loved the Ken Hom programmes.
China is endlessly fascinating and I don't want to see silly presenters messing around.
And just seeing all the amazing sights of China, is good enough for me.....just a shame, we have poor presenters.
The BBC could have made a great programme with such an opportunity, instead they wasted it, together with our licence fee.
Anita Rani made me cringe at times, she seems 'up own backside to me' (and not just because she got to drive the black comfortable 'tank'). Justin Rowlatt was OK I thought but even I cringed when the female tourist walked away after he badly phrased a question about the progress of China under communism and capitalism.
The twosome did a similar type of documentary last year about India which was 3 one hour programmes I think.
Otherwise,quite a good travelogue.Lets have another China doc BBC,this time with more competent presenters.
Unfortunately I was very disappointed. Anita Rani in particular was very embarrassing. Laughing like an idiot after crashing that fancy car, and then spitting food out because it didn't taste right.
This could have been really good, but the two presenters ruined it.
I find it extremely sad that the Chinese cannot show the same level of patriotism in homegrown brands and local companies as America, Britain, Japan, South Korea... even India (notice the recent mass protests against the Indian government opening up the market to foreign supermarkets) when they were growing. It basically means they have become a whitewashed country, equating success and status with western brands - no matter how successful they have become, out of the blood sweat and tears of their own people.
It featured the orphanages the children ended up in and I think the filming was mainly done in secret.
It really shocked me at the time and I know I'll never forget it - I was in tears during most of it. I think there was a follow-up a couple of years later.