This is what a similar travel adventure documentary to 'Hit the Road: India', except it takes place in the China. If we see the satellite images of China during the night, all the glows comes from the east and looks the west is deserted. To me, the China remains a mystery land. I have learnt about the western countries and its cultures by watching the Hollywood and European films, but not the same with the China. I watch very less Mandarin movies, even compared to the Cantonese films.
The Pyle brothers from the Canada, Collin and Ryan takes a rare motorcycle ride in China. About spending 65 days covering 18,000kms revealing the different landscapes from one another through the various camera lenses and by meeting the different people and their culture. They said no one ever did it before, I think maybe not officially, especially for the record, but who knows who achieved what in the past.
It was a 6 episodes short runtime series. In the each, takes us to the different part of the country. It all begins from the Shanghai then towards north to the North Korean border. Kind of a rainy season, all along wet roads and they meet landslides and also the first fall without a serious damage to their bike. Then towards the Inner Mongolia, and later they head to the large western most states Xinjian and Tibet. Not before setting their foot into the Great Wall of China.
"80% of China is empty. There's like a billion living on like 15% of it."
From there on, its only a returning journey through the southern states that sharing borders with the Southeast Asian countries and coastal states which brings the end to it from where it all started. The pace was awesome, camera angles were great that includes the helmet cams. The language was not an issue, despite it differs from each part of the country. Some of the words were also censored in the necessary segment. But they keep repeating the a couple words like 'awesome', 'beautiful' that was not a pleasant sound to hear.
I felt it was a lot like a TV production than the realistic approach. I mean the brothers were real and so their adventure. But you know it does not give the impression that they are actually enjoying it. At some point they're just trying to accomplish the mission. With their tired speeches and the troubled bikes I felt they're simply in a dull mood. They also keep sharing their experience through the diary camera throughout the trip.
Yes, they have shown us some great places of China, but they told only what know about it. That was not helpful, it should have been little detail while exploring those places. Otherwise, it looks they're more keen on their record to achieve (which is personal) than giving information to the viewers if they wanted to make a wonder film.
I know it is a travel documentary, but that's not enough to me to watch it. They tried to mock, make fun of a few things in their journey. That's a negative thing, if you don't belong to the western culture. Everything in the world has a good side and a bad side. Apart from these few defects, it was really a fantastic, any average person could understand and enjoy it. If you want know China, geographically, you should watch it.
7/10
