"The endurance of Mongolian horses is well known around the world. Genghis Khan's warriors rode them all the way from Asia to Europe," says Sun.
Other stories range from a gentle horse comforting patients in the United Kingdom to two wild stallions battling for mating rights in the untamed wilderness of North America.
Sun says that the documentary also highlights the story of Przewalski's horses — also known as Mongolian or Asian wild horses — once extinct in the wild and still among the world's rarest equine species.
China launched a breeding program in 1985 to bring Przewalski's horses back to their ancestral homeland, using 24 horses imported from Europe and the United States to repopulate the subspecies. Their population has since grown to about 700, with an estimated global population of 2,000.
"As the only true wild horse and the most endangered horse in the world, Przewalski's horses deserve to be back in the wild, and China has played a significant role in rewilding them", says Sun, adding that she feels it's a story that needs to be told to the world in the Year of the Horse.
Also mentioning that many wildlife documentaries broadcast on Chinese TV channels or streamed online over the past 30 years have been imported, Sun says their decision to produce Horse Power was driven by a desire to infuse the film with distinctively Chinese perspectives and values.
The documentary is scheduled for global release on Jan 1, 2026.
