00:00And finally, this year marks the 700th anniversary of the death of the great explorer Marco Polo.
00:06The Venetian merchant helped open up the Silk Route for China.
00:10A new documentary, In the Footsteps of Marco Polo,
00:13retraces his epic journey across China as seen through the eyes of an 83-year-old Stanley Johnson,
00:19the father of the former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his son Max.
00:24Our correspondent Michael Voss reports.
00:27As a young man at university, Stanley Johnson set off with two friends on motorbikes
00:32to retrace Marco Polo's journey from Venice to Beijing.
00:37But they only got as far as Afghanistan.
00:40Now, 60 years later, accompanied by his son Max,
00:44he's finally completed the last leg of Marco Polo's route across China,
00:49thanks to a British-Chinese documentary co-production.
00:54We were following the footsteps of Marco Polo.
00:57What was Marco Polo?
00:58He was the great bridge-builder between East and West.
01:01He set out from Venice in 1370, got to Beijing four years later.
01:06He was the bridge-builder.
01:08We wanted to emulate him symbolically and, of course, in a practical sense, too.
01:12They covered 4,000 kilometres in six weeks,
01:16experiencing a range of people and cultures,
01:19including regions and landscapes few Westerners have seen before.
01:24Most of the journey was by car,
01:26but there were camel rides in the desert and yak rides in the mountains.
01:31All this with Stanley Johnson now in his 80s.
01:35We caught up with his Chinese producer, Dan Dan Chen, on Zoom.
01:40Dan Dan, how relieved are you that this 80-year-old man,
01:45you managed to get him through 4,000 kilometres safely and in one piece?
01:50When we, you know, sent all the teams to the airport in Beijing last year,
01:56that is the most relieved moment of my life.
02:00You know, Marco Polo has done the journey 700 years ago,
02:04but, you know, the Johnsons are taking it now, today.
02:08And it's not just repeating the road,
02:11because they're also experiencing a new China.
02:14So, with that kind of cultural exchange and, you know, engagement with each other,
02:19then we can actually know each other better
02:23and build a shared future for our generation to come.
02:28It was a British production company, One Tribe,
02:31which came up with the idea for the film.
02:34For me, the message is always the same.
02:36We are all human beings, and I think sometimes,
02:40particularly in times like we're going through now,
02:43where there is so many not great things happening in the world and with political tensions,
02:49people tend to forget that we're all human beings.
02:52And that's what this show shows.
02:55The documentary had its premiere in London,
02:58and the producers are now adapting it into a four-part TV series for global distribution.
03:04Michael Voss, CGTN.
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