Wham! made history in 1985 when George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley became the first Western pop act to perform in China, a trip that has now become the subject of a new documentary film. The band’s brief tour of Beijing and Guangzhou, which used previously unreleased archive material and features interviews with people involved in the organization, examines both the extraordinary reception from Chinese audiences unfamiliar with Western music and the strategic calculations behind the venture.
The tour was conceived by the band’s manager Simon Napier-Bell as a publicity strategy designed to achieve major success in the United States without requiring an extensive arena tour that could strain Michael’s voice. Ridgeley, now reflecting on the decision, initially opposed the plan but ultimately recognized its effectiveness in generating international media coverage and elevating the band’s profile in American markets. The documentary captures various challenges the band faced during their visit, including formal diplomatic events that Michael found uncomfortable, encounters with audiences uncertain how to respond to their performances, and the constraints placed on their movements by handlers and security.
A significant subplot in the new film concerns the fraught collaboration between Wham!’s management and acclaimed British director Lindsay Anderson, hired to document the tour. Anderson, then 61 and at a career low point, proved to be an unhappy fit for the project. Tensions between the filmmaker and the band escalated when Anderson injured his knee early in the shoot, limiting his direct involvement. The director ultimately presented a cut that the band found unsuitable and rejected, leaving his version titled “If You Were There…” to languish in archives for decades.
Wham! subsequently commissioned video director Andy Morahan to create an alternative documentary titled “Wham! in China: Foreign Skies,” which was shown to audiences at the band’s final Wembley Stadium concert in June 1986. Anderson’s original footage remained largely undisturbed until director Mike Christie began work on a completely new documentary in September 2024, discovering more than 20 hours of previously unseen material. The new film, “Wham! 10 Days in China,” represents the third documentary about the band released in recent years, reflecting efforts to maintain the group’s cultural legacy following Michael’s death in 2016.
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