Walking a hero's path

New documentary puts Chinese stars through their paces as they attempt to experience the herculean journeys of lauded revolutionaries and endure the same arduous challenges, Wang Ru reports.

Chinese Canadian actor Shawn Dou has discovered through filming adventure documentary Journey of Warriors that birch bark tastes "worse than medicine", while some insect eggs, which he thought might be slimy, actually have a surprisingly sweet taste.

Surviving in the wilderness may be a fanciful experience for many adventurers, but for those who had to survive, subsisting mainly on tree bark, traveling through snowstorms in the mountains and hiding from the pursuing enemy with a small amount of equipment for many months during winter, it was not a hobby, but a life-or-death battle.

This is what the soldiers of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, led by General Yang Jingyu, who established secret camps in the Changbai Mountain, Northeast China's Jilin province, had to endure as they fought with the enemy during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).