LIGHTS, CAMERA, RETRO ACTION!

Ancient lifestyle is no longer an illusion for contemporary China, thanks to a hobby group that makes aesthetically accurate short films for the internet, Wang Ru reports.

As a primary school student, Wu Xuan often doodled characters from the Three Kingdoms period (220-280) on his textbooks. He was particularly curious about what the ancient Chinese wore and how they lived.

While history lessons sowed the boyish enthusiasm for time travel in his heart, it wasn't until he met a bunch of like-minded youths online years later that he figured out a way to realize that dream.

"I loved piecing together information found in books, archaeological studies and other resource materials. It was like a detective's work for me. I was solving mysteries," says Wu, 30, now a director of China Media Group.