By Alyza Liu, bostonese.com
In the waning months of 2013 and the waxing ones of 2014, the Korean television drama You Who Came from the Stars (also translated as My Love from the Star, Man from Another Star) made large waves in East and Southeast Asia. Its premise was offbeat – an alien who’s been living in relative anonymity on the Korean Peninsula for almost three centuries meets a Hallyu star – but its charm was undeniable, combining science fiction with romance and even police procedural. You Who Came from the Stars was one of the most popular South Korean dramas (colloquially known as ‘kdramas’) to have aired in China recently.
The show, and its various accompanying plot points (including the chicken and beer its main character mentions several times as being her favourite meal) have become trending topics on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo, the Washington Post reports that Chinese government officials have had talks on why the show is so popular, and why Chinese dramas (known as ‘cdramas,’ which I will use to talk about Mandarin dramas in general) have not reached that level of popularity.
Different people have had different perspectives. Feng Xiaogang, the famous director of many a domestic blockbuster film, posits that the reason might be the censors, as every television series and film has to go through the approval of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television (colloquially known as SARFT). Indeed, many a drama has run into this very roadblock. The television adaptation of New York-based Chinese romance writer’s Tong Hua Da Mo Yao (known in English as Ballad of the Desert), which was heavily anticipated due to its star-studded cast of Cecelia Liu Shishi, Hu Ge, Eddie Peng Yuyan, and Han Dong, as well as the novel’s own popularity, could not be released in 2013 because it did not pass censorship due to its depiction of the Han Dynasty general Huo Qubing. The drama has since been renamed into Xing Yue Chuan Qi (Legend of the Moon and Stars), and Huo Qubing’s character renamed, and is slated to premiere in 2014.
Yu Zheng, the writer and producer of dramas such as Gong (Jade Palace Lock Heart) and the recent adaptation of Jin Yong’s wuxia classic Xiao Ao Jiang Hu (translated alternatively as State of Divinity or Swordsman), attributes the show’s popularity to its plot, which he stated, according to Global Times was “simple but has tension,” and was “worth studying.” Others have proposed technology, as You Who Came from the Stars required the plentiful use of special effects, or the use of big-name stars.
But it isn’t as if China isn’t capable of creating popular dramas. The 1998 China-Taiwan collaboration Huan Zhu Ge Ge (translated as My Fair Princess or Princess Returning Pearl) was popular not only in China and Taiwan, but also in Mongolia, South Korea, and Vietnam. Zhen Huan Zhuan (Legend of Zhen Huan) actress Sun Li was nominated for an International Emmy Award, and the drama was popular, at least among Chinese-speaking populations, globally. And Bu Bu Jing Xin (Startling By Each Step, Scarlet Heart) was not only popular, it’s often hailed as one of the most well-developed and well-produced dramas in China in recent years.
And while I am among those people who frequently complain of Chinese production companies’ poor production quality, bad CGI, and often tasteless costuming, I don’t think solving those problems would lead to better dramas, or even more popular ones.
The problem doesn’t boil down to Chinese production companies’ fondness for using polyester as a replacement for silk, or the way it’s often prone to using unimaginative and unappealing camerawork. An interesting plot and well-rounded characterisation is often more than enough to allow audiences to disregard any aesthetic flows, and while special effects remain somewhat unsophisticated, the costuming and coloring of historical dramas, at least, have improved significantly. And the problem isn’t even whether or not the plots themselves are repetitive, because, as every Asian drama fan knows, South Korean dramas are notoriously prone to using repetitive plot devices like sudden sickness or amnesia. The problem isn’t small-scale sameness like those plot points, it’s large-scale, conceptual sameness of a broad selection of dramas.
Of the major dramas even in the last two or three (not to speak of the last ten) years, very few have been original, non-derivative dramas, and those that have had tended to follow trends rather than create innovative narratives that break any sort of mold. The story of Yue Fei has been told countless times, yet in 2013, the Huang Xiaoming headed The Patriot Yue Fei aired. Similarly, the Taiwanese-Chinese joint production Lan Ling Wang, the story of an ill-fated historical prince of the Northern Qi Dynasty, aired in 2013. And within the space of a single summer in 2013, two versions of the same story of Hua Mulan, one headed by Hou Mengyao and Dylan Kuo and the other by Elanne Kwong, Yuan Hong, and Chen Sicheng, aired, and another, starring Yao Chen, is coming soon. These series were not unpopular, especially with the thrust of major star power behind them (Lan Ling Wang featured William Feng Shaofeng, Ariel Lin, George Hu, and Daniel Chan), but they are more iterations of the same historical tales that have been told for generations and are unlikely to be forgotten by coming ones.
Even the popular, mold-breaking dramas – I mentioned Zhen Huan Zhuan and Bu Bu Jing Xin – have been immediately followed by innumerable dramas trying to follow that success. Zhen Huan Zhuan’s morally ambiguous heroine, an innocent girl who was corrupted by palace intrigue, quickly launched an entire slew of palace dramas (which had been popular, but not to the same extent) which focus on the ways court politics change people – especially their female heroes. Bu Bu Jing Xin not only launched an entire genre of time-travelling palace dramas, but it was also followed up by two sequels of its own. A similar drama that features the same time-travel trope and Qing Dynasty palace setting, Gong (Palace), did not limit itself to two sequels, but also a film (though the film did away with the time travel). Even Huan Zhu Ge Ge received two sequels and, in 2011, received a remake.
Even the ever-popular wuxia genre, a staple of Chinese-language entertainment over the last century, is not spared this treatment. Since 2000, there have been three adaptations of Jin Yong’s Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre, three of Jin Yong’s The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (not including a Singaporean production which is less well-known to the mainstream Mainland Chinese audience), three of Duke of Mount Deer (including an upcoming Mainland production), and two of Demi Gods and Semi Devils. Very few, if any at all, wuxia TV series over the last few years have been original series. Books and legends and even video games are being readapted and serialized before their old adaptations have become obsolete, which leads to an onslaught of adaptation after adaptation of the same things.
Part of the fault of this is of course the multitude of Chinese-language markets that exist. But more at fault is the unwillingness of Chinese-language screenwriters to explore new narratives, new ideas. You Who Came from the Stars is not only a well-crafted, well-developed, and well-produced drama, it’s also a drama with a unique premise – what if an alien met a famous actress? And while Chinese history and Chinese literature and Chinese folktales have provided writers with much inspiration over the years, it’s become something of a safety blanket to fall back on, and leads to the regurgitation of the same well-known historical figures, the same well-known books.
It isn’t that South Korean dramas are never adaptations of previously existing works – the currently airing Empress Ki is based on the life of the Korean Empress of the Mongolian Emperor Huizong of Yuan, and the 2008 series Iljimae is based on a Ming Dynasty folktale of a thief who styled himself Yizhimei – it’s that they don’t rely on them. Stories about life at the court of Qianlong wear themselves out after ten similar – or even drastically different – adaptations. Even Yongzheng, who has only recently become as popular in popular media as his father and his son, is quickly becoming a tired character. And two Xiao Fengs within a decade, not to mention four Linghu Chongs in thirteen years, grow boring, even with constant reinvention. There is only so much you can do with the same set of characters growing up with the same set of historical or canonical events or people to motivate, to shape them.
And it isn’t only that these are the only dramas on the Chinese language market, because they aren’t. It’s that these are the only ones getting major hype or coverage. After the success of the Chinese-Taiwanese collaboration Queen of SOP, gorgeous stills and promotional shots for a sequel, Queen of SOP II, were released for what was ultimately a subpar plot, while dramas like Xiao Ba Ba (Little Daddy) are, despite their domestic popularity, more or less looked over.
Despite the fact that it was the glossy special effects and beautiful camera work that added a dimension to You Who Came from the Stars, that wasn’t, ultimately, what made the drama worth watching. It was how unique it was, how innovative, and how seamlessly it was able to balance light humor with serious emotion, the absurdity of aliens with the gravity of murder. And while Chinese dramas are, in my estimation, already very good – I certainly wouldn’t waste so much time following 40 episode series if I didn’t think that they had nothing to offer, narratively or characterization-wise – I think that stepping away from history, stepping away from tradition, and most importantly, stepping away from remakes and adaptations is the best place to start if one wants to make them better. History is a good place to start off from, is a good grounding point and backdrop – so long as it remains just that – secondary to narrative, secondary characterization, and not an overwhelming character in and of itself.