Boris Johnson's father in the footsteps of Marco Polo

This year is the 700th anniversary of the great explorer Marco Polo, who helped open up the silk route from China. A new documentary In the Footsteps of Marco Polo retraces his epic journey across China as seen through the eyes of 83-year-old Stanley Johnson, the father of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and his son Max.

As a young man at Oxford University Stanley Johnson set off with two fellow undergraduates, Michael de Larrabeiti and Tim Severin to retrace Marco Polo's journey from Venice to Beijing on motorbikes.

They made it through Türkiye, Iran and Afghanistan but their motorbikes were no match for the High Pamir mountains and they had to turn back before they reached the Chinese border.

Stanley Johnson's two fellow travelers have since died but now 60 years later, accompanied by his son Max, he has finally completed the last leg of Marco Polo's route across China, thanks to a British Chinese documentary co-production.

For Johnson, this was a dream come true.

"We were following in the footsteps of Marco Polo, the great bridge builder between east and west. He set out from Venice in 1370 and got to Beijing four years later. We wanted to emulate him, symbolically and of course in a practical sense too," he explained.

This time, the expedition started on the Pakistan China border at 4,800 meters in the Karakorum mountains.

Johnson and Max, a fluent Mandarin speaker, went on to cover 4,000 kilometers in six weeks across mountains, deserts and plains, experiencing a range of people and cultures, including regions and landscapes few westerners have seen before.

Most of the journey was by car, but trains, balloons and motorbikes as well as camel rides in the desert and yak rides in the mountains; all this with Stanley Johnson now in his eighties.

Dandan Chen is the Senior Producer for CCTV Documentary International Media, who worked alongside the British production company One Tribe TV.

Given Stanley Johnson's age, she admits she was greatly relieved that he managed to complete the journey in one piece.

"When we sent all the team to the airport in Beijing last year, that is the most relief moment of my life," Chen told CGTN.

She hopes that audiences will learn something about China and its people from the documentary.

"Marco Polo has done the journey 700 years ago but the Johnsons are taking it now. It's not just repeating the road because they are also experiencing a new China. So with that kind of cultural exchange and engagement with each other, we can actually know each other better and build a shared future for our generation to come," Chen said.

British production company One TribeTV, came up with the idea for the film, and its director Dale Templar echoes Chen's sentiment.

"For me the message is always the same that we are all human beings, and I think sometimes, particularly in times like we are going through now where there is so many not great things happening in the world, political tensions, people tend to forget we are all human beings, and that’s what this show shows," was what Templar hoped to achieve.

Stanley Johnson has written a book, also called In the Footsteps of Marco Polo, to accompany the documentary. The book links his original journey 60 years ago with the background and details of his latest adventure. The documentary also links past and present, a reminder how Marco Polo, centuries ago, brought east and west closer together.

The 90-minute film had its premiere in London and the producers are now adapting it into a four-part TV series to be shown in China and for global distribution.

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