Dramatic account

When he was offered the opportunity to direct a docudrama about Dunhuang, Magan was excited. He saw it as chance to bring a new style of production to China by utilizing a format that he had been employing for years in other markets, such as 2012's Emmy-winning series The Men Who Built America.

"It brings history alive in a very powerful way. Because of its factual basis, it's like a historical documentary, but with these amazing, big drama scenes. So the characters of history seem closer to us," Magan says.

Magan says he embarked on a lot of personal research before writing the story and so did the Chinese team. For him, one difficulty was to clarify the "ebb and flow of the borders" over time.

"I also did a lot of research on the caves, because the project wouldn't exist if it were not for the discovery of the Library Cave 100 years ago," Magan says, adding that the caves are really evocative and inspiring for a writer.

"Even if you look at the paintings on the walls, they give you an idea of how people lived, what their houses looked like, what their daily lives were like. That also inspires me as a writer," he adds.

Magan says one thing that interests him about Chinese history is that it was written not once, but twice, as local rulers would have their own historians to keep records and, later, they would be reinterpreted and reinforced by future historians.