The crew were also able to spend weeks along the Yarlung Gorge in southern Tibet, also known as the Yarlung Tsangpo Canyon, which is three times as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States and is rarely seen by outsiders.

There is plenty of such rare footage in Beautiful China such as the courtship and mating of pandas in Kunlun Mountains, the behavior of Tibetan antelopes and the feeding period of the Yangtze Crocodiles, says Neil Nightingale, head of the BBC Natural History Unit.

Nightingale became interested in monkeys while a student of zoology at Oxford University more than two decades ago, and what he loves most about the documentary are the snub-nosed monkeys.

"Those golden monkeys are the most beautiful monkeys in the whole world, and it is such a touching scene to see them huddled together in the white snow," he says.

Smith says he was surprised to learn from the documentary that the Shaolin kungfu originated from studying animal behavior.

"I have known about the Shaolin monks for a long time, but never had a chance to learn about the history of kungfu. It is so cool that the monks studied individual animal behaviors. That story can be something of global interest," he says.

(China Daily April 16, 2008)