At dusk, in an unassuming grove in Shouguang, East China's Shandong Province, performers dressed as Tang Sanzang, Sun Wukong (Monkey King) and other characters from the renowned Chinese classic Journey to the West set up a thatched hut and cooked around a bonfire while livestreaming. They were not fighting demons or trudging along the old road west, but chatting, joking and improvising in response to comments from live viewers.
This makeshift Journey to the West: Heroes' Gathering livestream has gone viral lately, with related videos garnering well over 100 million views and hundreds of thousands of viewers tuning in simultaneously at its peak on Douyin. Netizens gave it a contemporary nickname — the "2026 version of Journey to the West."
Behind the viral success is a format far removed from traditional film and television productions: the livestream does not rely on tightly scripted dialogue. Gao Guancheng, director of the team, said the team usually prepares only a basic outline before each livestream, leaving about 80 percent of each show to improvisation.
"Comments from viewers, trending internet memes, and even unexpected incidents on site can all become the starting point for the next scene," he said. This seemingly spontaneous approach is far from unprepared.
The performers playing the four travelers all have years of experience portraying characters from Journey to the West. "The actor playing Tang Sanzang has years of rich experience imitating the character, the actor playing Sun Wukong has studied monkey opera since childhood, and the actor playing Zhu Bajie has been portraying the character for nearly 20 years," Gao said.
"One look, one movement, or one punchline, we all know who should pick it up and who shouldn't," he added.
What truly connects this new Journey to the West with contemporary life is the seemingly ordinary daily routine. Peng Tao, a young viewer in his 20s who works in the internet industry, said that when he first came across the show, he felt as if he were watching a spin-off in which familiar characters were simply going about their daily lives.
"In the past, we saw them on the road and fighting the demons. Now we see them eating together, chatting and working. That contrast really draws me in," he said.
In his view, the relationships among Tang Sanzang and his disciples remain familiar, but placing them in everyday situations gives those relationships a new resonance. "You start to feel that they're no longer mythical figures, but people around you," he said.
"We are not remaking Journey to the West. By preserving the basic characteristics of the characters while placing them in new everyday settings, we are bringing Journey to the West into the lives of ordinary people," Gao said.
The modern revival of classics is by no means limited to Journey to the West. Classic Chinese texts and poems taught in schools have also been turned into engaging short videos, local media reported.
Yet with countless classics to draw from, there is no shortage of adaptations that simply capitalize on established IPs or recycle old memes, and not every adaptation wins over audiences. What truly resonates is finding a thoughtful way to bring classics back down to earth.
Beijing-based cultural scholar Wang Deyan said the vitality of a classic lies not in repeating it word for word, but in its ability to forge new connections with contemporary life, emotions and aesthetics. "Short videos, livestreams and online fan creations have lowered the threshold for creative expression, giving classics opportunities to enter more tangible settings of everyday life," he said.