The live broadcast of the journey to the West has become extremely popular. It features the most retro form and the most advanced infrastructure.
It's already 2026, and the classic childhood shows filmed forty years ago are still captivating me.
Recently, a trendy and retro trend has emerged on Douyin: Live-streaming the Journey to the West. It's not about broadcasting one of the many versions of the "Journey to the West" TV series, but rather re-shooting it with real human hosts. The number of levels to pass and the demons to fight are decided by the viewers in front of the screen.
@Shangli Journey to the West
01 Viewers as Directors, Re-shooting the Journey to the West
The content of the live-stream is simple. Four hosts are dressed up in the classic looks of the master and his three disciples from the 1986 version of "Journey to the West." Then they stroll through rural towns and trek in the deep mountains and old forests, "adventuring" in one place after another. The whole process is live-streamed online. Then, according to the requests of the generous gift-givers, they can extend the journey or add new actors and plots.
@Shangli Journey to the West
The model is simple, but the effect is great. For example, Shangli Journey to the West, one of the popular shows in this trend, had more than 50,000 people watching simultaneously at its peak. Sports cars and hot air balloons kept popping up on the screen. The viewer rewards once made it into the top 100 on the Douyin income list. For a grassroots live-stream that started this year, it's already a very good result. Even Xinhua News Agency and CCTV have reposted it as a fun news item.
The actors in the live-stream room are all local young men from Guangxi. They speak Mandarin with a unique accent and shout things like "It's not easy, crossing mountains and ridges" and "Guys, do you have anything to say to Tang Seng?" It's already very comical. They are also very familiar with the lines and plots of "Journey to the West." They play with various in-situ jokes. When a small animal appears, they say there's a demon. When there's a house in the distance, they say it's the Small Leiyin Temple. When the viewers ask why there are electric wires on the way to the west, the host quickly comes up with the idea that it's "the spider demon's web", which makes the bullet comments full of laughter.
@Shangli Journey to the West
Some actors' actions also match their "personas." Sun Wukong twirls his staff skillfully and scratches his ears from time to time. Zhu Bajie has a big belly and keeps complaining about being tired every now and then. Moreover, they are really walking on foot. In one live-stream, they walk in the deep mountains and old forests for several hours, from muddy fields to the edges of cliffs, from gullies to high slopes, and blaze a trail through waist-high wild grass. It gives people the feeling that it's as if they are at the shooting site of the 1986 version of "Journey to the West." Coupled with the looped "Cloud Palace Rhyme" and "Where Is the Road" as the background music, the viewers can easily immerse themselves in the show.
@Shangli Journey to the West
Moreover, this is a cultivation-style live-stream room. At the beginning, the plot was very monotonous, just walking in the mountains all the time. As the fan-directors put forward various suggestions, the content became more and more abundant. For example, at first, Tang Seng walked on foot. After receiving a gift from a boss, he directly found a white dragon horse to ride. When the fans said the scenes were too repetitive, they kept looking for new desolate mountains and wild lands, went to other places in Guangxi to unlock new levels. They found a waterfall and said it was the Water Curtain Cave, and a village and said it was Gao Lao Zhuang. When the fans said they wanted to see the Kingdom of Daughters and female demons, they invited female hosts to tie up Tang Seng.
@Shangli Journey to the West
Judging from the comments and bullet comments, the viewers really like this form of live-stream. Many people say they feel relaxed and happy. The funny foursome keeps walking, which can kill time for them at work. Some small details can always inexplicably hit the funny bone. They found that Tang Seng dared not ride the horse on slopes and shouted "Master doesn't trust the white dragon horse." They also found that the biggest difficulty on the journey to the west was actually a tree lying in the middle of the road. They joked crazily "Don't move it" and asked the Monkey King to fly over it on the clouds.
@Shangli Journey to the West
Some people come here for cloud tourism. They follow the master and his disciples to see the scenery along the way, enjoy the unspoiled mountains, rivers, plants, and trees, and also see all kinds of people they meet on the road, just as if they were really there.
@Shangli Journey to the West
Especially those netizens who grew up in the countryside can instantly name the plants they see, as if they have returned to their childhood days wandering in the mountains, full of emotions.
Some people come here to experience being a director. They keep giving suggestions to design the plot, thinking about how to make it bigger and stronger. They say they can re-trace the historical route of Xuanzang. Maybe it can become popular across the whole network and make the hosts top streamers.
There is also a group of netizens who volunteer to play demons and immortals for free, just for the sake of the acting experience. They even invite the master and his disciples to visit their hometowns while joking in the bullet comments that they will team up to ambush them.
@Shangli Journey to the West
It's not hard to see that the highlights of this Journey to the West live-stream are mainly abstractness + super nostalgic IP + outdoor setting + interactive plot changes. Although it seems like a grassroots and low-cost production, it combines many elements that make it popular. If any one of these elements is missing, the live-stream may not have such a good effect. To borrow a netizen's words, when you think the live-stream industry has reached its peak, think about the live-stream of the Journey to the West. People's imaginations are as infinite as black holes.
Actually, a few months ago, many short-video bloggers had already started to produce re-made classic shows. They broadcast village versions of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin." The super IP of "Journey to the West" is even more "ubiquitous." Besides Shangli Journey to the West, there are also Huazhou Journey to the West, Qinzhou Journey to the West, Rongxian Journey to the West, Jiangmen Journey to the West, etc. A team in Henan even invested 6 million yuan to produce their own version of Journey to the West. In terms of acting skills, costumes, and plot richness, these bloggers are not inferior at all.
@Mountain City Journey to the West
However, they all mainly choose short videos. If we talk about changing the presentation form and moving the live-stream room outdoors, Shangli Journey to the West is the first one.
We can only say that live-streaming has its unique advantages. Its non-editable nature determines that it is more real. Moreover, live-streaming lasts longer. It can focus on companionship. Long-term live-streaming can also cultivate a fixed group of viewers and form an exclusive community. And the experience of real-time interaction between viewers and hosts, which affects the plot development, is something that short videos can't replace.
02 The Evolution History of Live-streaming
If you observe carefully, you will find that the stage selection of current live-streams has become more and more free, or rather, more and more wild. Some people, like the hosts of Shangli Journey to the West, do live-streams of outdoor hiking in ancient costumes, saying they are exiled poets. Some people live-stream wilderness construction and survival in uninhabited areas. Some people live-stream living in seclusion and picking wild vegetables in the deep mountains and old forests.
Some people even live-stream going fishing at sea and sell the fish in the live-stream room while fishing, allowing netizens to experience cloud fishing without ever coming back empty-handed.
@Chongqing Radio and Television Station
In contrast, more than a decade ago, all the hosts sat in front of the computer, playing games, chatting, and singing. Every live-stream room was the same, with almost no other types. That is to say, without us even noticing, the content of live-streams has changed dramatically.
