"We live in a land with abundant traditional culture. Meanwhile, we have a broad vision to learn about the development of contemporary world civilizations. I particularly want to bring them together to create something really original and profound," film director Wuershan said on Friday.

He was attending a parallel forum on mutual respect and cooperation between civilizations during the 2023 Beijing Culture Forum, hosted by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and the Beijing municipal government.

The director's epic fantasy Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms premiered in Australia and New Zealand on Thursday. By Friday, it had garnered a domestic box-office volume of around 2.6 billion yuan ($360 million) since it hit the screen 58 days ago, according to box-office tracker Maoyan.

The film, while featuring a classic traditional legendary story, was shot by a diverse crew from 21 countries with cutting-edge, international technologies.

"It is through exchanges that a culture becomes modern and international. I think what matters most is that people from different cultural backgrounds share their differences while resonating with common emotions and feelings," Wuershan said.

Apart from all the imaginations, the film is about family ties and a father-and-son relationship, a universal topic that transcends cultural differences, he added.

However, while seeking for commonality by creating films based on Chinese stories, he emphasized the importance of self-awareness and learning more about our own culture and recounting the stories with contemporary technologies and concepts, so that more audiences can understand and feel it.

According to the director, he is preparing for a film on the voyage of Zheng He, a Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) navigator who made seven westward voyages in his lifetime. Zheng managed to visit more than 30 countries and regions, and reached as far as East Africa and the Red Sea region.

fangaiqing@chinadaily.com.cn