Late Chinese actress Chen Xiaoxu and actor-turned-director Ouyang Fenqiang play the leading roles Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu in the TV series. [Photo Provided to China Daily]

Apart from portraying the hundreds of characters in the novel, the 36-episode series would also offer a look at China in the philosophical context of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.

In the auditions, which began in early 1983, Wang says he was not looking for top professional actors. What he wanted instead was people who the experts reckoned shared the physical traits of the characters depicted in the novel.

Many of the actors were amateurs from many different walks of life, sieved out by the core crew members, including Wang, the cinematographers and scriptwriters, and once chosen the actors went through months of rigorous training.

From 1984 to 1987 the production team traveled to more than 40 regions across China to do the filming.

Eventually, in an era when there were so few television sets in the country that families and villagers used to mill around a communal set to watch programs, the first episode was aired on May 2, 1987, eight years after Wang had had his brainwave.

As television has become gradually universally available in China over the past 30 years, viewers of all ages have clamored to see the 1987 TV series, and TV stations around the country have replayed it a total of more than 3,000 times.

And just as The Forsyte Saga set the standard for period dramas all those years ago, Wang's production of Dream of the Red Chamber set a benchmark for television producers in China for years to come.