THREE brothers who emigrated to China nine years ago have hit the big time with a documentary about a Chinese pop star.

Tom, Max and Jake Sanderson, from Malton, first went out to China in 2008 “with nothing but themselves”. They initially developed a business to bring up-and-coming western musicians over to tour the country.

Now they have created a documentary, entitled Existence, about Wang Feng - “China’s biggest rock star”.

The film was written and directed by Max, co-produced by Max and Tom, with the music by Jacob, who composes music for adverts.

The documentary received a premiere in Beijing to more than 400 media guests. It was then released on China’s biggest video-on-demand platform “iQiyi”. Within a day it had been watched by one million people.

Tom, a former player for Malton Rugby Club, said: “This is an insanely successful release online – no other documentary of this category has been so well received in the history of China.”

The documentary charts the story of Wang Feng, from his childhood growing up in the “cultural revolution”, with parents in the military and “a strict childhood lost to violin practice”.

The film, which saw the brothers work closely with Wang Feng, then tells the story of his rise to superstardom after discovering Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and the Beatles.

As well as being lead singer in an influential Chinese rock band, Wang Feng is one of the judges on The Voice of China, and his song Fly High was the official song of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Max Sanderson, the director, said: “We founded our company SLA Studios in 2011 as a creative consultancy, and worked our way up through the Chinese music industry starting with a digital camera and a laptop, all the way to creating this feature film.

“This comes down to years of grinding, building our small start up in China. The film came from an incredible amount of hard work, and the passion was born out of believing in Wang Feng’s story.”