The episode sees Xi Chuan going on a journey through four provinces and municipalities, walking on the mountain paths, taking an intercity slow train, and riding a boat amid the towering gorges of the Yangtze River, an arduous trip even today with paved roads and modern transport.
"In the middle of such hardship, I felt the unending creativity of Du in his later years. He never forgot to write poetry even when he was living a wandering life, fleeing from calamity. Poetry for him was not only a way of making daily records, but also the only thing he could hold onto in a suffering life," Xi Chuan says.
Documentaries centering on travel or poetry are common, but it is rare for any to combine the two elements, to which Li Wenju says the balance between them might shift from episode to episode. With these journeys and the situations the presenters encounter, the documentary wants to prove that Tang poetry is still very much thriving as an art form.
