Yangcheng Evening News reporter Gong Weifeng
It is not new for Chinese dramas to "go overseas", but the situation has changed in the past two years: although costume dramas such as "Twelve Hours in Chang'an", "You Fei" and "Qing Yu Nian" are still the "leaders" of going overseas, with " Thirty Only", "The Hidden Corner", "The Silent Truth" and other dramas have gone overseas and attracted attention, and domestic urban and suspenseful dramas have gradually gained a place overseas; these two years, "Shan Hai Qing" and "Awakening Age" The main theme dramas such as "Dajiang Dahe 2" are going overseas; recently, the hit drama "The World" has also announced the news that it will be broadcast on overseas platforms... The number is increasing and the types are getting richer. Is the period of rapid growth coming?
Looking back at the "going overseas" process of Chinese dramas in recent years, the achievements have been accompanied by a significant improvement in the production level of Chinese TV dramas.
However, there should also be cold thinking behind the hot phenomenon: how to create a global phenomenon-level hit when the national drama "goes overseas"?
"Going to sea" national dramas can't sell at high prices, how can they be broken?
To solve these problems, domestic drama creators still need to continue to work hard.
1 Phenomenon
Only one month after the start of shooting, "The World" has been booked overseas
This year's Spring Festival, after the first round of the TV series "The World" was broadcast, it touched countless audiences, setting a new high in the ratings of a set of CCTV's prime TV series in the past eight years, and the Douban score also reached 8.1 points.
During the hit of the show, the main creator revealed in an interview that "Disney bought the overseas broadcasting rights of "The World", which aroused the attention of netizens, and related topics entered the hot search list on Weibo.
It is reported that in just one month after the filming of "The World", Disney pre-ordered the exclusive overseas distribution rights.
Director Li Lu said: "I told all the main creators on the set that every shot and every line must have an international perspective. At least we must take good shots from the perspective of international expression, and we must think about how foreigners view our five Ten years of change."
Li Lu explained: "The international perspective we are talking about now means that the quality of the episodes must be first-class, and the stories told must be plain and true. Love and hatred are the same all over the world. If we want to educate someone, it will play a negative role. Therefore, the story should be told vividly, close to the heart, and with a furry life texture." He hopes to let foreigners see the great changes in China, society and people, "the expression must be accurate and of higher quality."
On March 16, Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, publicly recommended "The World" at a regular press conference, believing that the play is both good-looking, educational and inspiring.
As the topic continues to ferment, the overseas spread of "The World" is highly anticipated by netizens.
It is reported that the English translation of the play has now been selected as "A Lifelong Journey".
Since the beginning of this year, there has been a lot of good news in the national drama "Going to the Sea".
"The Beginning" featuring the concept of "unlimited flow", the urban emotional drama "You Are My Fortress" and the urban romantic comedy "Love is Delicious" were introduced by South Korea.
Last year's hit drama "The Son-in-law" was broadcast in South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and other countries, and the response was enthusiastic. This year, the Korean streaming platform Watcha bought the remake rights.
There is also a group of broadcast news of domestic dramas that have "going overseas": the suspenseful online drama "Who is the Murderer" has been broadcast in South Korea on March 23; "The Beginning" will be launched on Netflix on April 1 and will be launched in Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries and regions; "Ace Trooper" is scheduled to be broadcast in Japan in July this year.
2 veins
After costume dramas, urban suspense dramas are popular overseas
The 1986 version of "Journey to the West" and the 1994 version of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" were the first batch of domestic dramas to "go overseas", which once triggered a frenzy in Asia. Monkey King, Zhu Bajie and the characters of the Three Kingdoms also became the first batch of "going overseas". The image has profoundly affected foreigners' perception of Chinese culture.
In recent years, costume dramas have maintained a stable rhythm of "going overseas": "The Legend of the Harem: Zhen Huan" became the first domestic drama to land on Netflix; in 2018, "Langya Bang" was broadcast on mainstream media in Argentina, causing a sensation; "Chen Qing Ling" It was once popular in Southeast Asia and ranked first in Asian dramas on the overseas rating website Mydramalist, with more than 100 million views in Thailand alone; in 2019, "Twelve Hours of Chang'an" was delivered as paid content through multiple platforms such as Viki and Youtube. Launched in North America; in the Chinese dramas that South Korea purchased and broadcasted the copyright in 2021, costume dramas occupy half of the country, including "You Fei", "Zuofu", "Long Song Xing", "Yu Lou Chun", "Shanhe Ling" and other high popularity episodes.
It is worth noting that although the "power" of costume dramas is still there, in recent years, suspense and urban themes have also begun to go overseas, and the distribution momentum has gradually stabilized.
The suspense drama "Chasing the Murderer in the White Night" is the first online drama in mainland China to be purchased by Netflix for the overseas distribution rights; "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth", which are also suspense dramas, have been released in many countries; It has received up to 500 million views on YouTube and was remade in Japan; the urban women's drama "Thirty Only" has been broadcast in more than 100 countries and regions around the world, on more than 20 platforms such as YouTube, Viki, iTalkBB, Dailymotion, etc. On air, it became the Chinese TV drama with the highest new media on-demand rate in 2020 in Malaysia, and was bought by South Korea and Vietnam for the remake rights; after the urban emotional drama "Life of the Rational School" was launched on the Netflix platform, it once ranked 30th on the global hot list.
Today, domestic dramas have achieved normalized "going overseas" in Asia, especially in South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and other places with stable markets and audiences.
Local platforms have gradually formed a set of standards for purchasing dramas - in addition to costume dramas and Chinese hit dramas, they will pay special attention to dramas produced by some major Chinese companies.
Taking the Korean market as an example, due to the good results of the broadcast of "The Pretender" and "Langya Bang" in South Korea, Korean TV stations and senior TV viewers have more recognition for TV dramas produced by Noon Sunshine.
This year's "The Beginning" produced by Noon Sunshine has not yet been broadcast in South Korea, and the discussion on local social networks remains high.
Showing the changes of China's times, realistic dramas attract attention
Today, national dramas are moving from sporadic "going to the sea" a few years ago to "going to the sea" in batches.
While costume dramas, suspense dramas, urban dramas, idol dramas and other dramas go overseas, high-quality reality dramas also attract the attention of overseas markets, leading the new trend of "going overseas".
Before "The World", the high-profile reality drama "Shan Hai Qing" had successfully "goed overseas" last year and landed in more than 50 countries and regions around the world.
Data shows that two weeks after the first episode of "Shan Hai Qing" was launched on the YouTube hit theater channel, the number of broadcasts exceeded 800,000, and the online audience's like rate was as high as 98%.
Up to now, the 23-episode feature film of "Shan Hai Qing" has exceeded 10 million views on YouTube.
For domestic reality dramas, some netizens once worried that overseas audiences would be difficult to understand.
After "The World" was announced to go overseas, there were voices of opposition on the Internet: "Can foreigners understand the 50-year life history of Chinese people?" In this regard, director Li Lu once explained: "In these years, we have introduced a lot of It is also time to make some good local films and dramas for Westerners to see. We want people to see the Chinese people and realize that it took China decades to surpass the capitalist world and hundreds of years of development. s reason."
At the end of last year, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued the "Notice on the Evaluation Results of Excellent Overseas Communication Works in 2021". In terms of episodes, "Shan Hai Qing", "Awakening Age", "Dajiang Dahe 2", "Ideal City", and "I'm Good in Another Country" 5 were selected.
It is worth mentioning that these TV series are all realistic dramas showing the style of contemporary China.
Among them, "Shan Hai Qing" focuses on the achievements of poverty alleviation, "The Age of Awakening" reflects the process of cultural innovation, "Big River 2" presents the changes of the times of reform and opening up, "Ideal City" tells the stories of contemporary Chinese workplaces, "I am very good in a foreign country" " presents the struggle experience of young people.
3 Development
Self-built "going overseas" platform to improve overseas distribution channels
At the 2019 Beijing TV Program Fair (Autumn), Zhou Jihong, deputy director of the International Cooperation Department of the State Administration of Radio and Television, put forward three suggestions for Chinese TV dramas to continue "going out": "Strengthen the precise dissemination of TV dramas in the international market, Global TV drama market; strengthen international cooperation in TV dramas; strengthen communication on traditional media and new media platforms.”
In the past, Chinese TV dramas broadcast overseas, in addition to landing on local TV stations, mainly relied on four major international Internet platforms - YouTube, Viki, Netflix, Hulu.
However, in the past two years, Chinese film and television companies have continued to cooperate with foreign companies and gradually established more complete distribution channels.
For example, China Zone, a brand of China International Television Corporation's Chinese film and television program area, has settled in overseas platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Viki, North American ODC, and Russian SPB, and has opened 11 multilingual channels such as English, Spanish, Arabic, and French. , broadcast to more than 200 countries and regions around the world.
In addition, well-known domestic streaming media platforms are also building their own global broadcast channels for film and television works.
Platforms such as iQiyi International Edition, Tencent Video WeTV, and Mango TV International Edition are highly recognized overseas.
The series "Together" has been broadcast in more than 200 countries and regions through Tencent Video WeTV, iQiyi International Edition, Youku, Mango TV International Edition, Yaoke Media YouTube Official Channel, and Disney's Satellite TV Chinese Channel. It has been translated into English, Vietnamese, Persian, Mongolian, etc., and has landed on TV stations in more than ten countries.
In addition, the "China Joint Booth Online Platform", a Sino-foreign film and television exchange and cooperation platform established with the joint support of the State Council Information Office and the State Administration of Radio and Television, has been launched for nearly two years, boosting the promotion of "Together", "Glory and Dreams" and "Thirty Only". Many popular domestic dramas have appeared overseas and have been recommended at major international film and television exhibitions.
Many of the TV dramas of "Going to the Sea" are adapted from online literature works. They echo the online literature of "Going to the Sea", forming a diversified "going to sea" model of digital publishing, entity authorization, overseas originality, IP content and copyright output. .
At the end of 2019, while the TV series "Celebrating More Than Years" aroused a national upsurge of chasing dramas in China, it landed on new media platforms and TV stations in 27 countries and regions, and scored 9.5 points and 9.1 points on the two platforms of Rakuten Viki and Mydramalist respectively.
Subsequently, after the Korean version of "Celebrating More Years" was launched in South Korea, it quickly became a "Celebrating More Years", and it was listed on the NAVER bestseller list, a well-known search engine and portal in South Korea, the "Topic New Book List" of YES24, the largest online bookstore in South Korea, and a large-scale Korean The online bookstore Aladin ranked first in the "Book Real-time Search Ranking".
4 Outlook
Create global phenomenon-level dramas and increase overseas distribution prices
It must be admitted that compared with the global competitiveness of American, British and Korean dramas, domestic dramas still lack phenomenal dramas with global influence.
Last year, "Squid Game", a collaboration between South Korea and Netflix, swept the world as soon as it was broadcast, triggering a frenzy of drama-chasing, and repeatedly refreshing Netflix's on-demand data.
Why hasn't there been a similar phenomenon since the national drama "going overseas"?
Tang Lijun, a well-known producer who has produced the hit drama "Thousand Bone Flowers", once pointed out in an interview that cross-border cooperation in film and television creation is difficult, and it is necessary to distinguish whether the domestic market or the overseas market will be the main focus in the future, "If you want to take care of both, In the end, neither market may rely on it.”
Compared with American dramas and Korean dramas, the overseas distribution price of domestic dramas is still relatively low.
Industry insiders have disclosed that in the past years, the overseas copyright prices of most domestic dramas ranged from a few hundred to thousands of dollars for a single episode. .
The price of domestic dramas with realistic themes such as "Chasing the Murderer in the White Night" and "Undocumented Crime" is only about US$10,000 for a single episode.
In contrast, big-budget reality-themed Korean dramas can easily sell a single episode overseas for $300,000 to $500,000.
"The first share of Chinese TV series" Huace Film and Television once revealed that in the past 10 years, the overall overseas selling price of Chinese TV series has increased nearly 30 times; The copyright fee broke the record for the sales price of a single episode of a Chinese film and television drama.
However, such a price is still not high compared with the price of a single episode of a domestic drama in the domestic market, which is often more than one million yuan.
In the future, the national drama "Going to the Sea" still has much room for improvement in all aspects.