New wildlife series Asia, presented by David Attenborough, is set to premiere on BBC Player in India on July 18, the makers have said in a statement.
The uplifting musical score for the series is sung by K-pop boy band Seventeen’s DK and Seungkwan in collaboration with Bleeding Fingers, a joint venture between composer Hans Zimmer, his business partner Steve Kofsky, and Sony Music Publishing’s Extreme Music.
This is the first time that Asia — home to the highest mountain range, the deepest ocean, the tallest jungles, and the biggest cave — has become the focus of a BBC wildlife series. The series, filmed over the course of nearly four years, prominently features India’s most remarkable landscapes and the story behind the majestic elephants living in the high-altitude tea plantations.
From the vast Gobi Desert to the jungles of Borneo, and from the polar wilderness of Siberia to the coral seas of the Indian Ocean, the breath-taking variety of Asia’s wildest places takes the centre stage in the series.
In the foothills of the Himalaya, amidst forests of bamboo, the series will follow the red panda. In Nepal, it’ll follow rhinos playing ‘kiss chase’ in a bizarre courtship ritual.
Five thousand metres up on the Tibetan Plateau, the series takes a closer look at a lone wolf relentlessly hunting a herd of antelope for hours on end. In Sri Lanka, the makers join elephants that have learnt to become highway thieves — holding up buses to get food from the passengers.
Filming locations include Lake Baikal, the oldest and deepest lake in the world; the vast Taiga forest that stretches across northern Russia; the Lut Desert in Iran; the jungles of Borneo; the coral seas of the Indian Ocean and several bustling Asian cities — including Tokyo, Bangkok, Taipei, Bhopal, Hanoi and Singapore.
Across seven one-hour-long episodes, audiences will journey through Asia’s most stunning landscapes, witness a wealth of wildlife, and uncover stories of never-before-seen animal behaviour.
The series will also explore the conservation challenges facing the continent and shine a light on the potential solutions being championed by the region’s conservation heroes. In the final episode, the team joins a 24-hour wildlife rescue team saving Sunda pangolins in urban Singapore.
Asia will stream on BBC Player starting July 18 on Tata Play Binge and with an ad-on subscription on Prime Video India.
Asia is made by BBC Studios Natural History Unit, co-produced with BBC America, France Télévisions and ZDF. The executive producer is Roger Webb, and the series producer is Matthew Wright.