Zinc Media’s Supercollider is producing a new feature-length documentary on WHAM!’s groundbreaking tour of China forty years ago, featuring newly restored and previously unseen archive.
In 1985, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley became the first Western pop act to perform in communist China playing concerts in Beijing and Guangzhou. For Chinese audiences, it was a first encounter with live Western pop. Oscar-winning filmmaker, Lindsay Anderson, was commissioned to document the historical tour. However, increasingly disenchanted with his subjects and at odds with his crew, Anderson was ultimately fired. Although a version of the film was eventually completed, it was never broadcast, and the vast majority of the footage remained unseen.
Now, directed by Mike Christie (Nick Cave’s Veiled World, New Order: Decades), the new 90-minute documentary pieces together the untold story using the newly restored footage alongside new and extensive, personal interviews from Andrew Ridgeley, members of the touring party, as well as some of the fans who made up the Chinese audiences whose experiences have been unheard until now.
Christie said: “The existence of this footage has been a mystery for years, spoken about in fragments but never truly seen. The story of the tour is intensely dramatic and finding a way to tell it in a form that the Wham! collective felt was finally worth pursuing has been a real honour.”
Wham! 10 Days in China is directed by Emmy nominated director Mike Christie, Executive Produced by Tanya Shaw, alongside Krista Wegener and Ian Sharpe for Sony, produced by Alice Popplewell and edited by Xanna Ward-Dixon. It is made by Supercollider, part of the Zinc Media Group in partnership with Sony Music Entertainment. International distribution is being handled by White Light.
Jon Creamer
Share this story
