While filming
Discovery Atlas: China Revealed director Cassian Harrison and his crew spent more than 18 months in production, crisscrossing the country on multiple filming trips, and gaining access to a panoply of locations and events never before filmed by Western film crews. Read Harrison's production diary.
For people doing business deals in China's major cities, the processes are now very similar to those they'd find in London, New York or any other international center.
But in China's vast hinterland, agreements are still reached in the traditional way: in a private room, over a lavish banquet and sealed with endless toasts and cups of Bai Jiu — a clear, and clearly lethal, distilled rice wine concoction.
For the story of Shaolin and the "Kung Fu City" of Dengfeng, we had been given clearance to film students at the town's largest martial arts academy, but we knew that we'd need a cast of thousands to give it the real impact that we wanted. And so, five days before filming was scheduled to begin, we found ourselves in a gold, gilt and gaudily painted backroom of the city's finest restaurant with the mayor and five of his staff.
The table was groaning with local delicacies and, after 12 courses, so were our stomachs, as plate after plate of ever more bizarre food arrived (bullfrogs, chicken's feet and peppercorns that numbed half your head being the most easily identifiable).
The river of food eventually slowed to a trickle, and the time seemed right for the big question. "Is there any way that you could organize 2,000 students to do simultaneous Kung Fu, so we can get the shots we need?"
Silence fell over the table, an unreadable smile crossed the mayor's face and as he replied, he ceremoniously placed a 2-liter bottle of the local firewater in front of us.
"The men of this city are famous across all of China," he started proudly, "for being able to drink more Bai Jiu than any other. If you can keep pace with us, anything and everything you ask for in Dengfeng shall be yours."
With that, multiple measures were poured and the words "Gan Bei" ("Cheers!" or literally, "Dry the Cup!") were heard for the first of many, many times that night.
The Chinese can often initially appear fairly reserved, though nothing loosens up a social occasion like a bottle of Bai Jiu. Within the first hour and the first liter, friendships were cemented and ever more effusive toasts made — "Dengfeng and London are the same! From this day forward, our two cities shall be joined forever!"
By the second liter, even the non-Chinese speakers were convinced they could understand the language, and the occasion was coming to a riotous crescendo. By this stage, the mayor was being unsteadily supported by his equally drunken assistants, as the meal was brought to a suitably raucous end.
A stream of blacked-out Audis appeared on cue, chauffeurs employed firemen's lifts to get their bosses into their vehicles, and within moments we were left standing on the curb, unsure of exactly what had happened, where we were and whether we'd get our shot.
The ringing in my head at 7:30 the next morning morphed into that of the hotel's bedside phone. It was the mayor, and he sounded as bad as I felt, but his one sentence lifted the hangover in record time.
"It will be done," he said.
And, true to his word, four days later we were in the midst of over 2,000 Kung Fu students in rank upon serried rank, drilled to perfection and responsive to our every command.
"Gan Bei!"
