Miniseries · ARTE
China: The Making of a Nation
Who's in it
Cast
The principal ensemble across the run of the series.
Sarah-Jane Sauvegrain
Main narrator (voice)
2 eps
Thierry Debrune
Narrator (voice)
2 eps
Marie-Ève Dufresne
Narrator (voice)
2 eps
Daniel Lafourcade
Narrator (voice)
2 eps
Jean-François Pagès
Narrator (voice)
2 eps
Benoît Rivillon
Narrator (voice)
2 eps
Romain Rougier
Narrator (voice)
2 eps
The Nutevio profile
TV DNA
How China: The Making of a Nation actually feels to watch, measured on the traits our editors track across every series.
Signature profile
China: The Making of a Nation reads strongest on Character Depth, Bingeability and Emotional Weight.
How fully written and psychologically layered the ensemble is.
How hard it is to stop after one episode.
How much the series is designed to affect you.
How much each hour depends on the one before it.
How often an episode ends on a hook you can't ignore.
The sustained pressure the series keeps you under.
The scale, internal logic and texture of the world.
How often the series is genuinely funny, by design.
Visual ambition — scale, craft and set-piece filmmaking.
The story
What it's about
China: The Making of a Nation is the story of the painful transformation of the vast Qing Empire into the Chinese nation after the 1911 revolution. Spanning more than a century up to the Xi Jinping era, the story pits the two pivotal leaders of this transformation against each other: Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China for 47 years, and Mao Zedong, who rose from ‘red bandit’ to master of the mainland in 1949. Sworn enemies, they fought a merciless battle: first military, then diplomatic, and finally, beyond their deaths, in the conflicting memories of the Taiwanese and the Chinese of the People's Republic. Beyond their fierce hatred, the two tyrants also had much in common: a certain vision of Chinese territory and the greatness of China, the desire to regain the country's sovereignty and the quest for a Chinese identity in a nation that also includes Tibetans, Uighurs, Mongols... and a certain ability to rewrite history.
Behind the series
Created by
Showrunners, creators, executive producers and the writers who set the voice of the series.
The craft
Key Crew
Directing, writing, production, camera, music and editing.
Created by
- Anne LoussouarnCreator
Executive production
- Olivier de BannesExecutive Producer
- Christophe SommetExecutive Producer
Writing
- Anne LoussouarnWriter
Direction
- Anne LoussouarnDirector
Cinematography
- Nicolas Le GalDirector of Photography
Where to watch
Streaming
Availability verified against regional listings.
Checking regional listings…
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