Wham's 10-day 1985 China tour took George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley to Beijing and Guangzhou, and a newly edited documentary built from Lindsay Anderson's footage opened in cinemas on July 28. [1]

Anderson had been hired to make a fly-on-the-wall film but pressed for a culture-clash approach, while the music side wanted promotion; he was fired after the tour, and a blander public-relations film appeared a year later. [1]

The new version adds interviews with surviving participants, most prominently Ridgeley, yet the Guardian's review says the edit still does not bring the material closer to Anderson's intended film. [1]

That distinction matters because recovered footage proves images survived, not who owns them, whose consent governs their use, how complete the archive is, or who held final-cut authority when promotion displaced observation; it also limits the documentary's historical authority, because an edit can expose the tension between musicians, press, filmmakers, and officials while still reflecting the priorities of whoever selected and arranged the surviving material.

No authorized X post was recovered, so fan celebration cannot supply those missing records; the release is a real chance to revisit a collision of pop ambition and Chinese state management, but ownership, editorial custody, distribution reach, and box-office results remain open.

-- DAVID CHEN, Beijing