Television

Blossoms Shanghai review

by at

Source: NYT (11/27/25)
‘Blossoms Shanghai’ Review: In the Mood for Commerce
Wong Kar-wai’s first TV series, streaming on the Criterion Channel, is a lush melodrama about an economic miracle.
By Mike Hale

A man in a suit walks in front of a neon-drenched restaurant.

Hu Ge stars as the Gatsby-like protagonist of “Blossoms Shanghai,” the first television series from Wong Kar-wai. Credit…Criterion Channel.

Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” with its silences and stillnesses and utter stylization, seems longer in the memory than it actually is. It’s a surprise to return to Wong’s most famous film, released in 2000, and realize that it’s over in a relatively brisk 99 minutes.

You might think of that, wistfully, while watching “Blossoms Shanghai,” Wong’s 30-episode, 23-hour-plus television series, which was released in China in 2023 and had its American premiere this week on the Criterion Channel streaming service. (Criterion is releasing three episodes a week; 12 were available for review.) Maybe highly art-directed nostalgia is better in smaller doses, or maybe this was just the wrong project. In either case, the bloom goes off “Blossoms” pretty quickly.

The series is set in Shanghai in the late 1980s and early ’90s as the Chinese economy is opening up and the Shanghai Stock Exchange is re-established after a 40-year hiatus. Grainy footage, archival or carefully fabricated, provides evocative glimpses of the Huangpu River, the Bund and the shopping street Nanjing Lu in the days just before Shanghai’s breakneck modernization.

But the story takes place almost entirely on the elaborate, beautifully appointed sets Wong and his visual director, Peter Pau, built for the series. And within that artificial world, it is as if the entire early history of the Chinese economic miracle took place on one corner of Shanghai’s Huanghe Road restaurant strip, where the characters spend much of their time plotting and preparing an endless round of meals. Continue reading Blossoms Shanghai review →

Queer TV Asia

by at

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to share the publication of the dossier “Queer TV Asia: Emerging Studies of Queer TV in a Globalising Asia” edited by Jamie J. Zhao in the journal Screen‘s latest 66.1 issue.

The dossier is available at: https://academic.oup.com/screen/issue. The introduction to the dossier is free access at https://academic.oup.com/screen/article/66/1/80/8090413.

The table of contents for this dossier is also attached below. Please help widely share it to colleagues and students who might be interested in this and related topics.

Table of Contents

Screen, vol. 66, issue 1, Spring 2025

Queer TV Asia: Emerging studies of queer TV in a globalising Asia Introduction
by Jamie J. Zhao (free access: https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjaf005)

Queering BL televisuality across Asia: queer polylocality across Thailand, Hong Kong and South Korea
by Alvin K. Wong (free access: https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjaf008) Continue reading Queer TV Asia →

‘Zero Day’ raises tough questions about China invasion

by at

Source: NYT (8/25/24)
What if China Invades? For Taiwan, a TV Show Raises Tough Questions.
Some think the drama, “Zero Day,” helps Taiwan confront an increasingly plausible scenario. Others say the show is alarmist and a tool of the government.
By Chris Buckley and Amy Chang Chien, Reporting from Taipei, Taiwan

A man walks past a barricade placed across a wide road. A large brick building with a tall tower is behind him.

Members of the film crew for the drama series “Zero Day” preparing for a protest scene to be shot on location in front of the presidential palace on Saturday in Taipei, Taiwan. Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

On the boulevard in front of the presidential palace in Taipei this weekend, Taiwan’s worst nightmare was unfolding in front of film crews. A crowd of actors and extras portrayed one kind of chaos that might come with a Chinese invasion: a protest descending into violence and bloodshed.

The scene being shot was for “Zero Day,” a new Taiwanese television drama series that depicts an effort by China to take over the democratically governed island. Beijing has long claimed Taiwan as its territory and urged it to peacefully accept China’s sovereignty. The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, has said he would not rule out using force to absorb it.

“Zero Day” will not air until next year, but it has already set off heated debates in Taiwan, after the release of a trailer. Supporters of the series say it could encourage a much-needed conversation about the threat that China poses. Critics have denounced it as scaremongering.

Cheng Hsin-mei, the producer of “Zero Day,” said she wanted to jolt Taiwanese people out of what she sees as widespread complacency and reticence about the possibility of war.

“How everyone would really face up to a war, how you would confront that possibility — nobody’s actually talking about that,” Ms. Cheng, who is also a main scriptwriter for the series, said in an interview. “I want to talk about it, because I think it’s the biggest fear in each Taiwanese person’s heart.” Continue reading ‘Zero Day’ raises tough questions about China invasion →

Look Back in Anger

by at

MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Thomas Chen’s “Look Back in Anger: The Long Season (2023),” an essay on the TV series The Long Season. The essay appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/online-series/the-long-season/. My thanks to Prof. Chen for sharing his work with the MCLC community.

Kirk A. Denton, MCLC

Look Back in Anger:
The Long Season (2023)

By Thomas Chen

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright July 2024)

Figure 1: Marketing poster for The Long Season.

First released in China in April 2023 and now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, The Long Season (漫长的季节) is the most popular and critically praised Chinese miniseries in recent memory. On Douban, China’s near-equivalent of IMDb, it has over 900,000 ratings, with an average score of 9.4 out of 10. What accounts for this stupendous acclaim?

The Long Season has an arresting storyline: complex, tightly written, and unpredictable. It is a double-plotted crime drama set in the fictional steel town of Hualin in northeastern China, deftly interweaving a mysterious hit-and-run incident in 2016—the present in which the series opens—with a case of murder by dismemberment in 1998.

Generically a whodunit, The Long Season is also a riot. The Northeast constitutes the wellspring of comedy in the Chinese cultural imagination. Some of the country’s most famous comedians hail from the region, and their skits and sketches on China Central Television’s annual New Year’s Gala have entertained generations of viewers. Directed by Xin Shuang 辛爽, a Northeasterner, the dialogue crackles with repartees, delivered impeccably in the distinctive local idiom by well-known actors Fan Wei 范伟 and Qin Hao 秦昊, both of whom themselves are from the Northeast. They play, respectively, Wang Xiang 王响, a former locomotive engineer for Hualin Steel who is now a taxi driver, and Gong Biao 龚彪, a fellow taxi driver who used to be an entry-level manager in the same factory. The third male lead is Ma Desheng 马德胜, a police captain turned amateur Latin ballroom dancer. All three give bravura performances in dual roles spanning almost two decades that anchor the temporal shifts in the narrative. Continue reading Look Back in Anger →

Louis Cha’s epic tale goes global

by at

Source: China Daily (6/21/24)
Louis Cha’s epic tale goes global
By Xu Fan

[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Adapted from one of the best-known works by the renowned martial arts novelist Louis Cha, known as Jin Yong, The Legend of Heroes: Hot Blooded has swiftly gained international acclaim, resonating across diverse overseas markets, as confirmed by its producers.

Set in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the narrative follows the journey of Guo Jing, a diligent yet unremarkable rural youth who evolves into a legendary swordsman through a series of adventures, intertwined with his romance with Huang Rong, the clever daughter of a daring swordsman.

The 30-episode series, Hot Blooded, premiered online on June 17 and is currently available on various overseas platforms like WeTV, Netflix, YouTube, and Rakuten Viki. The drama is either already released or scheduled for broadcast on numerous prominent local online platforms in nearly 10 countries, including South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Russia and Cambodia, with plans for further screenings in the United States, France, India, Africa and the Middle East.

Part of The Legend of Heroes franchise, which commenced two years ago with a vision of five stand-alone stories, each adapted from different Jin Yong novels and entrusted to five distinct directors, Hot Blooded is the initial installment based on The Legend of the Condor Heroes. This classic tale, serialized in the Hong Kong Commercial Daily from 1957 to 1959, has seen numerous adaptations over the years, including the popular 1983 version starring Felix Wong Yat-wa and Barbara Yung Mei-ling.

Directed by Yang Lei, acclaimed for the sci-fi drama Three-Body, and featuring actors Ci Sha as Guo Jing and Bao Shang’en as Huang Rong, Hot Blooded employs a dynamic narrative style to engage a broader audience, particularly the younger generation. The script strategically balances pace and depth, aiming to highlight the chivalrous themes and explore the intricate personas of characters like Yang Kang, a pivotal figure with complex loyalties, as noted by critics. Continue reading Louis Cha’s epic tale goes global →

East Asian Serial Dramas

by at

The Global Storytelling journal is happy to announce the publication of our special issue, “East Asian Serial Dramas in the Era of Global Streaming” (edited by Tze-lan Sang, Lina Qu, and Ying Zhu), which has gone live:

https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/gs/issue/214/info/.

The featured articles in the special issue include —

“The Therapeutic and the Transgressive: Chinese Fansub Straddling between Hollywood IP Laws and Chinese State Censorship,” by Ying Zhu

“Japanese Dramas and the Streaming Success Story That Wasn’t: How Industry Practices and IP Shape Japan’s Access to Global Streaming,” by David Humphrey

“Transmedia Adaptation, Sonic Affect, and Multisensory Participation in Contemporary Chinese Danmei Radio Drama,” by Yucong Hao

“The Nostalgic Negotiation of Post-TV Legibility in Mom, Don’t Do That!,” by Eunice Ying Ci Lim

“How Pachinko Mirrors Migrant Life: Rethinking the Temporal, Spatial, and Linguistic Dimensions of Migration,” by Winnie Yanjing Wu

Regards,

The Editorial Team of Global Storytelling

Chinese Fables of Wealth and Power

by at

MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of “Chinese Fables of Wealth and Power: The TV Drama Well-intended Love,” by Marco Fumian. The full essay appears at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/online-series/fumian2/. Find a teaser below. My thanks to Professor Fumian for sharing his work with the MCLC community.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

Chinese Fables of Wealth and Power:
The TV Drama Well-Intended Love

By Marco Fumian

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright July 2023)

In this essay, I present a reading of the Chinese TV drama Well-intended Love 奈何BOSS要娶我 (lit. “How to make the BOSS marry me”), a 20-episode series released in China in 2019 that I have been watching with the students of an MA course on Chinese language this year and discussed in a paper I presented at a workshop at the Oriental University of Naples (fig. 1).[1]

Figure 1: Promotional poster for Well-Intended Love.

I selected this particular TV drama for two reasons. First, I wanted to introduce my students to a series focused on the representation of contemporary Chinese society, to observe with them what kind of themes, values, and social relations it gives expression to, and how and why. I also sought to analyze the content of the series in light of the dominant ideological structures shaping mainstream cultural expression in contemporary China, where the processes of cultural production are typically supervised by the agencies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with the aim of infusing cultural works, especially in the realm of popular culture, with the narratives and values most supportive of the government’s views of social order.[2] The series, produced by the private studios Huachen Meichuang 华晨美创 and Wenhua Chuanmei 文化传媒, was the recipient of a number of prizes at the Fourth Edition Golden Bud Network Film and Television Festival—an event mostly designed to award film and TV works produced for the internet—including that for “one of the best 10 TV dramas of the year” and that for the “most popular director of the year,” awarded to the director Wu Qiang 吴强. If not necessarily a guarantee of the quality of the series, the awards are at least a sign that the drama was quite representative of the tastes of Chinese viewers, as well as of the organizers of the prize. . . [READ THE FULL ESSAY HERE]

TV drama depicts a healthy relationship

by at

Source: The China Project (5/12/23)
Hit Chinese drama shows audiences what a healthy relationship looks like
Written by Zhang Yingji, “Nothing But You” has won over audiences by depicting a romance between a young man and an older woman. But the show is about much more than age.
By Selena Guo

Nothing But You promo.

Nothing But You (爱情而已 àiqíng éryǐ), a popular TV drama that recently concluded its single-season run, has brought the topic of older women dating younger men — 姐弟恋 jiě dì liàn — to the center of discussion in China. But it’s about much more than that.

The original Chinese title can literally be translated as “It’s Just Love,” which might have put off some viewers accustomed to shallow TV romances full of melodrama and sap. But Nothing But You hit deeper, and achieved the rare feat of pleasing critics, ordinary people (it has a rating of 8.2 out of 10 on Douban), and authorities. The Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, ran a glowing review, saying that the show shines a light on many career and relationship anxieties faced by early- and mid-career young adults, and that the healthy romantic relationship between the two main characters was like a ray of “sunshine.”

Nothing But You follows the development of a romantic relationship between the 22-year-old badminton athlete Song Sanchuan (Leo Wu [吴磊 Wú Lěi]) and the 32-year-old executive assistant Liang Yongan (Zhōu Yǔtóng 周雨彤). In one scene, Song’s stepdad teases Song about Liang’s age, to which Song replies, “It’s not that I’m into people who are 10 years older than me, it’s that I am into Liang Yongan.” Continue reading TV drama depicts a healthy relationship →

Queer TV China

by at

Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to announce the publication of our new anthology Queer TV China: Televisual and Fannish Imaginaries of Gender, Sexuality, and Chineseness (Hong Kong University Press, 2023).

The 2010s have seen an explosion in popularity of Chinese television featuring same-sex intimacies, LGBTQ-identified celebrities, and explicitly homoerotic storylines even as state regulations on “vulgar” and “immoral” content grow more prominent. This emerging “queer TV China” culture has generated diverse, cyber, and transcultural queer fan communities. Yet these seemingly progressive televisual productions and practices are caught between multilayered sociocultural and political-economic forces and interests.

Taking “queer” as a verb, an adjective, and a noun, this volume counters the Western-centric conception of homosexuality as the only way to understand nonnormative identities and same-sex desire in the Chinese and Sinophone worlds. It proposes an analytical framework of “queer/ing TV China” to explore the power of various TV genres and narratives, censorial practices, and fandoms in queer desire-voicing and subject formation within a largely heteropatriarchal society. Through examining nine cases contesting the ideals of gender, sexuality, Chineseness, and TV production and consumption, the book also reveals the generative, negotiative ways in which queerness works productively within and against mainstream, seemingly heterosexual-oriented, televisual industries and fan spaces.

Edited by Jamie J. Zhao, assistant professor in media and cultural studies in the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong. Continue reading Queer TV China →

Sisters Who Make Waves

by at

Source: The China Project (9/7/22)
Same-sex ‘ships’ on the summer’s hottest talent show in China
By Nathan Wei

‘Shipping,’ a once-niche fan fiction practice of pairing two celebrities or fictional characters in a romantic relationship, has become something of a national pastime in China this summer, thanks to a popular reality show with an all-female cast.

As one of the most talked-about talent shows in Chinese television this summer, the recently finished Sisters Who Make Waves, Season 3 (乘风破浪的姐姐) has gained popularity among both women and LGBTQ audiences for weaving feminist and queer themes into performances. This is a defiant feat in an age where China has greatly stepped up its censorship of LGBTQ content on screens large and small.

Produced by Mango TV, a video-streaming site under the Hunan Broadcasting System, the show features 30 female celebrities competing against one another and fighting for a position in an all-women band to be formed at the final. While its format is nothing new, Sisters invites only contestants who are above the age of 30 and have established their careers in respective fields. However, while on the show, they were assigned new challenges that required skills beyond their expertise. Famous singers were asked to learn K-pop choreography, while veteran actors were made to sing onstage. With this novel perspective, the show branded itself as focusing on all-age women’s self-exploration and growth.

When the first season of Sisters came out in 2020, the show received many positive reviews from female audiences who praised it for being refreshing, empowering, and carrying an implicit feminist message. Many considered its cast of middle-aged female stars as diverging from the conventional preference for younger women in the entertainment industry. Its showing of competitors’ mutual support during training sessions was also praised as encouraging the idea of “girls help girls” and challenging the stereotypical display of fights between women that prevails in reality television. Continue reading Sisters Who Make Waves →

A Lifelong Journey

by at

Source: SupChina (6/24/22)
‘A Lifelong Journey’: A family saga through China’s past five decades
A drama focusing on the shifting fortunes of a Chinese family beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, filled with struggle and bittersweet nostalgia, has won over audiences both young and old.
By Brian Wu

Lifelong Journey

How have the past five decades of momentous change shaped the lives of ordinary Chinese families? That is the focus of the recent TV series A Lifelong Journey (人世间 rén shìjiān), which has been one of the most talked-about shows of the first half of 2022. Scoring a respectable 8.1 out of 10 on the popular ratings platform Douban, it has captured the attention of audiences both young and old.

The series is directed by Lǐ Lù 李路, who is best known for his 2017 anti-corruption hit In the Name of the People. Based on a prize-winning novel of the same name, it chronicles the shifting fortunes of the Zhou family, starting in 1969 with their humble beginnings in a shantytown located in the fictional northeast city of Jichun, where most of the story takes place.

With A Lifelong Journey, Chinese viewers found parallels with their own families’ experiences, from the rustic simplicity that characterized life in the ’70s and early ’80s to a shared bewilderment at the breakneck speed of social change as Reform and Opening transformed the economy.

The drama focuses on the three Zhou siblings — eldest son Zhōu Bǐngyì 周秉义, middle daughter Zhōu Róng 周蓉, and youngest son Zhōu Bǐngkūn 周秉昆 — who begin the story as teenagers sent far from home during the Cultural Revolution. Continue reading A Lifelong Journey →

Liu Yifei stars in A Dream of Spendor

by at

Source: China Daily (6/6/22)
Actress Liu Yifei shows off tea acrobatics in her latest outing
By Xu Fan

A scene in A Dream of Splendor. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A Dream of Splendor [梦华录], marking A-list star Liu Yifei’s [刘亦菲] return to the historic theme, has quickly hooked millions of views since the 40-episode costume series began streaming on Tencent Video domestically and its overseas platform WeTV on June 2.

Starring Liu as a brave and independent young woman, the tale set in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) is inspired by Jiu Feng Chen [救風塵], a four-act play about a sophisticated heroine’s effort to rescue her friend from domestic violence by Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) playwright Guan Hanqing [关汉卿]. Continue reading Liu Yifei stars in A Dream of Spendor →

Televising Chineseness book talk

by at

Virtual Book Talk (April 21): Dr. Geng Song – Televising Chineseness: Gender, Nation, and Subjectivity
Thursday, April 21, 2022
8:00 p.m. CST
Virtual event held on Zoom. Please register to attend:
https://kansas.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAkfuqtrjIsGNH2qUAtayvnUHjgBXK18E8q

This talk, introducing the author’s new book (University of Michigan Press, 2022), will look at the interrelationship between gender ideals and the production of subjects that are both loyal to the party and useful for the market in contemporary China.

By examining a range of new gendered images on the TV screen and in digital entertainment, such as the “bossy CEO,” the “little puppy,” and the “supreme heroine,” this talk will focus on Chinese-style neoliberal gender dynamics and will address a conspicuous paradox in Chinese popular culture today – the coexistence between an increasing diversity of gender presenta­tions and a revival of patriarchy.

Dr. Geng Song teaches in the School of Chinese, University of Hong Kong. He has written extensively on issues such as men and masculinities in China, Chinese television, and Chinese nationalism. Continue reading Televising Chineseness book talk →

A Lifelong Journey dives into China’s changes

by at

Source: China Daily (3/3/22)
Record-setting TV series dives into China’s changes
By Xu Fan | chinadaily.com.cn

Poster of A Lifelong Journey. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A Lifelong Journey, an epic drama chronicling China’s unprecedented transformation in over half a century, has earned widespread applause, shattering records and becoming the most-watched TV series on State broadcaster China Media Group in the past five years, according to producers during a recent symposium held in Beijing.

The TV series, consisting of 58 episodes, is adapted from renowned writer Liang Xiaosheng’s novel of the same name which won the 10th Mao Dun Literature Prize, one of the country’s top honors for local writers.

Starting in late 1960s, the story follows the ups and downs of three siblings in a working-class family in northeastern China, striking a chord with viewers for its details vividly bringing them back to old times.

Interestingly, Liang, regarded as a representative writer of the “educated youth literature” genre, revealed he was originally unwilling to sell the adaptation copyright as he believed it would be difficult to bring the story to life on TV. Continue reading A Lifelong Journey dives into China’s changes →

‘Friends’ is target of Chinese censorship

by at

Source: NYT (2/14/22)
‘Friends’ in China: Look for The One Where Ross’s Ex-Wife Isn’t Gay
The popular sitcom has become the latest target of China’s censorship campaign. The awkward cuts have not been missed by fans of the show in the country.
By Alexandra Stevenson

Cast members of Friends — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc — in a scene from “Friends: The Reunion.” 

Cast members of Friends — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc — in a scene from “Friends: The Reunion.” Credit…Terence Patrick/HBO Max, via Associated Press

HONG KONG — The wildly popular sitcom “Friends” is back on China’s best-known streaming services, but with some big changes to the script.

In the latest Chinese version, when Ross tells his parents he has split from his wife, he doesn’t explain the reason: She is a lesbian living with another woman, is now pregnant and plans to raise the baby with her partner. Instead, the scene simply cuts to his parents’ stunned faces, and the plotline ends there.

There are other, more subtle changes to the show, too.

Joey’s suggestion of a trip to a strip club is translated in Chinese subtitles as “going out to have fun.” When Paul the Wine Guy tells Monica, “I haven’t been able to, uh, perform sexually,” the subtitle says that he has been in “low spirits.” A lament by Rachel that she is more “turned on” by a gravy boat than her fiancé is translated as Rachel being more “happy to see” tableware.

The changes have prompted biting commentary on social media from the show’s many Chinese superfans, who mocked the prudishness of censors and said the alterations reinforced gender stereotypes. Continue reading ‘Friends’ is target of Chinese censorship →