Beijing: A wave of 1980s nostalgia for the Monkey TV series wasn't confined to Australia this week.

In China, there has been an outpouring of grief at the news that pioneering TV director Yang Jie has died at the age of 88 in Beijing.

Chinese actor Zhang Jinlai in a Monkey King costume poses next to a wax figure base on his performance at Madame Tussauds in Beijing. Credit:AP

While it was a Japanese TV show that brought Monkey Magic to Australian screens, the Chinese version has been seen by billions of people worldwide since it first went to air in 1986.

The year was 1981, China's television was changing under Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, and state television station CCTV had one instruction to the young female director Yang Jie, tasked with bringing a Chinese literary classic to the screen: Make it better than the Japanese series.