Underplayed Gems

Great Asian Railway Journeys (2020)

Great Asian Railway Journeys poster
Genre
documentary
Country
United Kingdom
Length
1 season, 20 episodes
Rated
TV-G
Rating
7.6 of 10 from 4 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

Michael Portillo travels through Southeast Asia by train, visiting six countries from Hong Kong to Singapore. He uses a 1913 guidebook to see how the places and cultures have changed over the past century. The journey looks at colonial history and how these nations became independent.

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What happens

Great Asian Railway Journeys is a 20-part BBC travel and history documentary series produced by Boundless and presented by Michael Portillo, a former Conservative MP and Minister of State for Transport. Following the format of the highly successful Great British Railway Journeys and related series with Portillo as presenter, each episode features a railway journey in south-east Asia using Bradshaw's Through Routes to the Chief Cities, and Bathing, and Health Resorts of the World (1913) as a historical reference, in order to consider how the places visited have changed over the preceding century. During the course of the series, Portillo travels a total distance of 2,500 miles and passes through six countries, beginning with Hong Kong then moving on to Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia before reaching his final destination of Singapore. One of the main themes he explores is colonial history, examining the legacy of the British, French, Dutch and Portuguese empires, and how the countries involved gained their independence. Filming for the series was carried out in two stages and took 7–8 weeks to complete. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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