A food documentary with bite

The show will be co-directed by eight young filmmakers, many of whom have been internationally educated and won prizes worldwide. Some of the episodes imitate the style of Hollywood family dramas, road movies and martial art films. Each 50-minute episode contains more than 1,500 shots.

The crew has also managed to feature foods from a larger variety of angles by using different filming equipment, such as infrared, microscopic and endoscopic cameras. The team even developed automatic macro filming equipment to capture the detail of dishes.

At the latest TV Festival de Cannes, the documentary was heavily promoted and its broadcast rights have already been sold to major TV stations in countries, such as Belgium, says Liu Wen, director of China Central Television's documentary channel. The first season of the documentary has been translated into more than five languages, including English and French, and distributed in more than 40 countries.

The show started airing on CCTV's documentary channel on April 18.

Viewers can also visit the program's official website co-launched by CCTV and gourmet website Douguo.com, where more than 300 dishes featured in the documentary and detailed information about them, including recipes, will be posted.