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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #429 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-06-09
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 300 minutes

DVD Description
With splendour, scale and romance, Wild China lifts the veil on the world's most enigmatic and magnificent country, delving into its vibrant habitats to reveal a land of unbelievable natural complexity. Journey across China from the glittering peaks of the Himalayas to the barren steppe, the sub-Arctic to the tropical islands, through deserts both searingly hot and mind-numbingly cold and see, in pioneering images, a dazzling array of mysterious, beautiful, wild and rare creatures.

Contains the following episodes:

Heart of the Dragon
The improbable egg-carton hills of Southern China seem to float in a sea of glistening rice paddies. This is a landscape full of surprises. Next to peasants ploughing with buffaloes are rivers concealing dwarf alligators and giant salamanders, trained cormorants that catch fish for their masters, bats with unusual tastes and monkeys that hide in caves.
But this isn't a nature park. Almost 300 million people live here, with a tradition of eating wildlife. So what forces have shaped this remarkable landscape and how do farmers and wild creatures manage to coexist among the rocks and the rice fields?

Programme 2: Shangri-La
Hidden beneath billowing clouds, in China's remote south west, are perhaps the richest natural treasures in all China. Immense rivers carve their way south below towering peaks. The wind-swept slopes are home to the highest-living primates in the world and hidden in the valleys below are jungles with a diversity of wildlife comparable to those around the Amazon.
Jewel-coloured birds and ancient tribes share forests where wild elephants still roam. The mystery is that Yunnan's remote forests stretch into northern territories where deserts would normally be found. How can these northern forests exist? The rugged landscape holds the key.

Programme 3: Tibet
The Tibetan plateau covers a quarter of China – an area the size of Western Europe. This vast, windswept wilderness is one of the world's most remote places, defined by the glacier-strewn Himalayas. It's also home to some incredible wildlife such as the rare chiru, brown bears, wild yaks and the highest-living predators on Earth. There are more large creatures here than anywhere else in China.
Defined by over a thousand years of Buddhism, Tibet has a unique culture that has nurtured remarkable beliefs. The programme discovers why this landscape and ancient culture is the life support system for much of the planet.

Beyond the Great Wall
China's emperors built the Great Wall to keep their kingdom safe from the hostile barbarians to the north. This is a land of warrior tribes, bizarre wildlife and extreme weather, but also of vast and breathtaking evergreen forests, grassy plains and sweeping desert dunes, rich with history.
The legendary Silk Road drew traders and their camels across the deserts in search of fabulous wealth, and fierce Mongolian horsemen conquered the known world. Today, nomadic tribesmen still race horses and hunt with golden eagles, while tiny hamsters and Asia's last wild horses struggle to survive in the world's most northerly desert.

Land of the Panda
China's heartland with its Han people is the centre of a 5,000-year-old civilization. This land contains the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, and Beijing's Olympic Stadium and is home to some of China's most charismatic creatures such as the giant panda, golden snub-nosed monkey, and golden takin.
China has undergone significant development in the past 50 years, bringing many environmental problems. The programme explores the deep, complex and often extraordinary relationship between the Chinese peoples, their environment and its creatures, and finds out what it means for the future of China.

Programme 6: Tides of Change
From the eastern end of the Great Wall, China's coast spans 14,500km and more than 5,000 years of history. This is a place of huge contrasts: futuristic modern cities jostling with traditional seaweed-thatched villages, ancient tea terraces and wild wetlands where rare animals still survive.
Here Chinese white dolphins, red-crowned cranes, deadly vipers, giant sturgeon and sabre-wielding monkeys struggle to eke out a living faced by competition from 700 million people, widespread pollution and over-fishing. How China is managing such conflicting pressures has lessons for us all.

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Customer Reviews

A great series
I am not generally a great fan of nature documentaries but I am a great fan of China so I watched this series when it was on the TV and it was so good that I just had to get it on DVD. The series consists of six hour long episodes, each of which focuses on a specific region of China and details not only the wide variety of wildlife in the area but also information on the culture and history of China itself.

This series has been brilliantly made with some excellent photography and seems very well researched. Each episode is never anything less than fascinating and easily understandable even if you don't have much prior knowledge of the subjects covered. This DVD also includes an interested making of documentary but it is the series itself that truly impresses. Anyone who likes nature documentaries should love this series but even if your interests lay in China in general you should also greatly enjoy this show.

An Oustanding Focus On China
The BBC has produced an oustanding focus on China. A China you would never see on a regular tour. Magnificent diverse landscapes, the enormous contrasts of the plants and animals, the ingenuity of China's ethnic groups. Water buffalo on mountain paddy fields. Paddy fields with golden carp. Clever! I was completely captivated. The photography is superb. This will make you want to visit China. After enjoying the DVD immensely, the book was a must buy.

ASTOUNDING!!!
I have not purchased this DVD however I have watched almost all of the series on BBC2 and it is one of the best, if not THE best BBC documentaries i have seen in recent years. If you are remotely interested in this country, you have to buy this DVD. The photography is mindblowing and the beauty of this huge country is portrayed brilliantly by the makers of this series.
The defining brilliance of this series is that it doesn't just cover the nature of china, it covers some of the amazing peoples that live there, the countless ethnic groups and their lifestyles. There are many brilliant moments in this series, some of which nearly brought me to tears.
BUY THIS DVD, NOW!