Three days ago, netizen Janene Russeau was in the TV series "Tiansheng Long Song"Comments on YouTube homepage of:
I watched the 40th episode on the American version of Netflix, and I want to pay to watch the rest of the content. I really love this TV series, and I want resources and links! Thank you!
I thought that being labeled as "applauding without being a hit" was the final conclusion of a drama "cool". The experience of "returnees" who didn’t think that the flowers in the wall were fragrant outside the wall brought a second spring of traffic to Tiansheng Long Song.
In fact, the first domestic drama "The Tide of the Sea" took place in the 1980s, and works such as The Journey to the West, Princess Huanzhu and Romance of the Three Kingdoms are still regarded as classics by audiences in Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea.It is not unusual to go to sea, but it is favored by European and American platforms, but it is a proud pleasure.
Compared with the wind and rain of domestic dramas, the development of Xianxia net in Europe and America can be described as overwhelming.
Since the birth of WuxiaWorld, the first English translation website of online literature in 2014, the overseas versions of Gravity Tales, Volarenovels and Reading Point have also been launched. Full-time translator, original writer, fan post bar, proprietary vocabulary comparison table, and all kinds of "supporting facilities" are available. There is also an urban legend that American readers successfully quit drugs because they are addicted to Panlong.
The so-called good dramas with good conscience are produced every year, and the online texts are endless. What is the charm of these domestic cultural products accepted by European and American markets? In this issue, the all-media school brought home-made cultural products to the sea for illustration, and deeply analyzed the cultural genes of "costume drama" and "Xian Xia Wen" entering the European and American markets.
Double-sided tape for domestic dramas going to sea: selected and misunderstood
Domestic dramas become the strongest king in the contempt chain.
Empresses in the Palace, 2015.I like Netflix, and the netizens who like Dapu Ben rush to tell me, "It’s finally our turn to spoil the Americans!" English drama > American drama > Japanese drama > Korean drama > TVB > The contempt chain of domestic drama seems to have a chance to reshuffle.
However, Empresses in the Palace, the 6-episode edition, was cold in the United States, but it poured a pot of cold water on her expectant parents’ heads. A short month later, another media reported that the love of foreign netizens with long reflex arc for Zhen Xuan finally arrived late. They not only spontaneously produced 76 episodes of Empresses in the Palace with English subtitles on Viki and YouTube, but even praised it as "China’s female version of Game of Thrones".
Learning from the experience and lessons of Empresses in the Palace, the latecomers know how to read the minds of foreign audiences more and more.
In 2017, he landed on Netflix’s brain-burning suspense drama "White Night Chasing Murder"With the interlocking and climactic plot, American netizens called it "Sherlock in China" and got a high score of 8.7/10 on IMDb. Some viewers left a message in the comment area: "My God! This play is simply wonderful! You have everything you want to see! "
In 2018, domestic dramas going out to sea catch up with the beauty of the Premier League.
In the first half of the year, iQiyi broadcasted the online drama "River God" alone.At the new york International Television Film Festival, he won the Silver Award for Best Visual Effects, the Bronze Award for Best Director and the Finalist Award for Best Drama. Recently launched "Tiansheng Long Song"I have achieved good results in mainstream film criticism communities in Europe and America-I won IMDb8.8/10, rotten tomatoes received 100% full praise, I have a theme community on Facebook, and fans’ confession on reddit and Youtube is also extremely enthusiastic. "I was fascinated by the plot and beat the old routine of Hollywood romantic movies." "I’m sorry to know that I’m dead. I want to talk to the screenwriter about my life and read the original. Is there an English translation of this book?"
According to statistics, the total export of TV dramas in China in 2016 was 510 million yuan, an increase of one third compared with 380 million in 2015.Although the copyright transactions between Netflix and China video websites such as iQiyi and Youku have become more frequent, the situation of "hot in the east and cold in the west" of China TV series has not changed qualitatively.
As of the day before the manuscript was finished, Empresses in the Palace still didn’t score on the French version of Netflix. There were less than 100 users who scored "River God" on IMDb, only 24 people subscribed to the topic of "Tiansheng Long Song" on reddit, and less than 30 people scored rotten tomatoes.
On September 23, Stephen Mccarty, the entertainment critic of Post Magazine, wrote a polite complaint:
Tiansheng Long Song is a masterpiece with quite a style, but are there too many aristocratic legends with similar themes? The Moon in Qin Dynasty is Beautiful, The Biography of Chu Qiao, to the sky kingdom and Warrior Lanling … Even though they have their own merits, too many costume dramas are still aesthetically tiring.
This kind of evaluation is not a picky statement. Three weeks ago, netizen Traveler Pat left a message on YouTube saying:
China’s film and television industry seems to be addicted to dynasty stories and court struggles. I want to watch something else, which is light and humorous and close to life, like Please Answer 1988.
In order to find more opinions, the author asked on the overseas version of Zhihu Quora: "How many European and American audiences are China fans?" The high vote answer is translated as follows:
Most TV dramas in China are about tactics, beauties and history. It’s good to kill time, but you have to be a "fan" unless you like China history or oriental beauties.
Few spectators are expected, but how are China TV dramas represented by the category of court costume dramas?
In December last year, 36Kr wrote an article summarizing two characteristics of China’s sea plays in recent years:
First, most of them are ancient costume themes;
Second, the radiation range is basically the gathering place of Chinese in Asia, Africa, Europe and America.
After a lapse of nearly a year, the situation has not changed much. Although the domestic conscience drama has made great efforts to catch a lift from Netflix to explore the Asian market, buyers and sellers have unconsciously created a tunnel of cultural vision for European and American audiences. Although the Yue nationality transcends the world, it is not a good thing to become a stereotyped symbol: the costume drama under the "Oriental Filter", while being selected as an exotic spectacle, will inevitably escape the shackles of rigid prejudice.
A feast in the rivers and lakes: the advanced form of kung fu dream
"Xian Xia Liu" opens a new era of popular culture
On December 22, 2014, with the enthusiastic donation of American readers, WuxiaWorld was formally established, which opened the way for western "Taoist friends" to cultivate immortality. Since then, besides Hollywood, Japanese anime and Korean idol drama, a new viral cultural product, China Net Text, has appeared in the world.
Lai Jingping, founder of WuxiaWorldHe is a Chinese-American and fantasy novel’s Panlong.Translator. At the end of 2014, under the crowdfunding of book fans, Lai Jingping gave up his job as an American diplomat and established WuxiaWorld, the world’s largest English-Chinese translation website and forum for Asian websites.
At present, the team of translators of this website has finished including Panlong.Fight against the skyarms to move things aroundA total of 23 novels, including martial arts and fantasy, including some Korean online texts. WuxiaWorld has set up the industry standard of English-to-English Internet translation, Wild Age.Deathblade, the translator ofHe also taught translation lessons on YouTube.
Some fans even evolved into original writers, creating a new field of British and American best-selling literature: in 2016, Daman Dasi, an engineering student in Istanbul, Turkey, published his debut novel The Divine Elements on Gravity Tales., harvesting 20,000 fans; Tina Lynge, a Danish woman writer, finished Blue Phoenix.Series, widely praised on Amazon.
The success of WuxiaWorld indicates a new trend. With the help of the crowdfunding model of readers, large and small online translation platforms have mushroomed.
The net text is popular, but the subject matter is single.
Why did China’s net articles explode in Europe and America?
Wu Wenhui, CEO of Reading Group, once analyzed the reasons behind it in an interview:
Inspired by myths, legends, historical classics and so on, which have been circulated and evolved in China for thousands of years, this kind of online writing constructs a huge world view deeply rooted in China’s traditional culture, which is completely different from the cultural background of the western world and brings unprecedented reading experience to overseas readers. At the same time, it is full of twists and turns and bizarre plots, and the heroic struggle experience is hearty.
At this point, the net text, which has been looked down upon by the old pedant, has finally become the beacon of China’s cultural output. Going out to sea with net articles seems to be a grand event of boiling oil and flowers.
However, foreign netizens seem to have new views on this issue. Some netizens on Quora responded that Xianxia’s popularity is only a phenomenon in circles, which is inseparable from drugs for people who take drugs.
Some netizens have provided new treasures, saying, "Vietnamese readers are the loyal fans of China’s net articles".
Compared with Southeast Asian countries, European and American markets have a more specific and sharp taste for China’s online texts.
In 2017, iResearch published the White Paper on Online Literature in China. The statistical results show that the subjects most expected by overseas online users are martial arts and Xianxia. In the Ranking column of Gravity Tales, there are 53 books on the list, and only one is a non-martial arts fantasy book.
The only non-martial arts fantasy novel on Gravity Tales list.
At first, the author thinks that this phenomenon of single theme is caused by the imbalance of the gender ratio of online readers (92.4: 7.6). However, the survey data shows that there is no obvious difference between male and female readers in their main preference themes. Perhaps, as Wu Wenhui said, European and American readers’ love for martial arts online texts is essentially derived from their eastern imagination of China’s kung fu. Xianxia online texts are text versions of Mulan and Kung Fu Panda, and the deep-seated reasons for the popularity of online texts are the exotic and religious-mysterious cultivation chivalrous men.
Tunnel of Oriental Wonders: Zuo Zongtang’s Chicken Interest in the Rising Stage
In August this year, the all-Asian romantic comedy movie Crazy Rich Asians.The popularity in the United States not only rose against the trend in the off-season of school, but also created an unprecedented box office miracle, and the praise of rotten tomatoes was as high as 92%. Many netizens believe that the birth of this drama marks the highlight moment of Hollywood Asian actors changing their lives.
However, the well-connected netizens in China expressed their disappointment after reading the film: Although the performance lineup was remarkable, why did the Hollywood-style old-fashioned scripts and unrealistic characterization make European and American audiences want to stop?
Columnist Kai Yin attributed the success of this american born chinese film to conforming to the long-standing "Chinatown-style" aesthetic of European and American people in the article "What is a crazy and rich Asian, but an old American export turned to domestic sales":
Due to the extreme lack of in-depth understanding of China and Asia, the creator’s wishful thinking and grandiose imagination happened to be against the ordinary American audience who had more or less experience as curious passers-by in Chinatown. The two sides hit it off and introduced each other as confidants, which made the film have an explosive commercial market effect.
This Chinatown fantasy under the "oriental filter" appears in various European and American film clips involving China culture/China characters, and also exerts a subtle influence on the aesthetic taste of European and American people for China cultural products. For a foreseeable long time, the domestic TV series "studying abroad" may still be represented by historical costume dramas, and the online literature exported to Europe and the United States may still be dominated by the theme of Xian Xia. To some extent, the "Oriental Filter" from the perspective of Europe and America makes China’s content products go to sea as a proposition composition.
In 1978, edward said pointed out in Orientalism that the eastern society in the eyes of western countries in the 19th century had no real basis, but was an imaginary East, and the western world had a subtle but lasting prejudice against the people and culture of the East.
Today, domestic cultural products are still facing a similar dilemma when they go out to sea. It’s a long way to go in Xiu Yuan, and I’ll go up and down.
