Filming took place in July and August in a series of locations, including Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Wenzhou in Zhejiang province.

"It was very hot and we had an unbelievable three weeks, where we went all over China," he says.

The films, which also took the crew to the United States, include interviews with Deng Xiaoping's biographer Ezra Vogel; Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the US; J. Stapleton Roy, former US ambassador to China; Shi Yigong, president of the new Westlake University in Hangzhou; and Zhang Huamei, founder of Huamei Clothing Accessories, a Wenzhou-based manufacturer of buttons, who is typical of the private entrepreneurs who initially drove the economy.

The films have already been shown on the Tencent video app in China. One-minute excerpts have also been shown on the Douyin video app, which is known as Tiktok abroad, and they have been viewed more than 100 million times.

"They were all hits in China in just 24 hours, which is just unbelievable," he says.

The series is not Wood's first foray into China, where he has been filming since the mid-1980s.