China Arts & Entertainment
Overview of China’s 2016 Top TV Dramas
These are the 10 most popular TV dramas in mainland China in 2016.
Update: Also Read Our Top 10 of China’s 2017 Top TV Dramas Now!
#1 Descendents of the Sun (太阳的后裔/태양의 후예)
War & Romance Drama / 2016 South Korea
Aired since February 24 2016 / KBS2 / 16 episodes
Directed by Li Yingfu / Lee Eung-Bok (李应福)
The number one of this list is the only drama out of these ten that was not produced in mainland China; it was made in South Korea, and it is a huge success both in Korea as in the PRC.
‘Descendents of the Sun’ tells the story of the unlikely romance between special forces captain Shi-Jin (Song Joong-Ki) and surgeon Mo-Yeon (Song Hye-Kyo). After their initial love-at-first-sight encounter, Shi-Jin and Mo-Yeon soon discover they have very different outlooks on life.
While out on a military mission, Shi-Jin has to fight and hurt people in order to protect his people, whereas Mo-Yeon does all she can to keep people alive – no matter what ethnicity, religion or culture they have. But despite their strong differences, Shi-Jin and Mo-Yeon cannot let go of each other.
A large part of this drama was filmed in Greece. The series can be viewed on Viki.
#2 The Imperial Doctress (明代女医师)
Costume Drama / 2016 Mainland China
Aired since February 16 2016 / Online Drama / 50 episodes
Directed by Li Guoli (李国立), Zheng Weiwen (郑伟文) & Lu Zeliang (卢泽良)
‘The Imperial Doctress’, also known as ‘Ming Medicine Woman’, brings the most famous female doctor of the Ming Dynasty to the TV screen. Tan Yunxian (谈允贤) lived in the Ming Dynasty from 1461-1554, and was a female physician in a time when Confucian ethics played a crucial role in everyday life and women had a low status in society.
The costume drama tells the story of the Tans, a family that has the doctor profession in its bloodline – even its past ancestors were imperial doctors. But when the family is set up by a grudgeful enemy, the royal court no longer allows them to practice medicine. Young daughter Tan Yunxian, played by Liu Shi Shi (刘诗诗, a.k.a. Cecelia Liu) secretly learns the art of medicine from her grandmother and helps to cure plagues and illnesses among the common people. The drama follows her as she grows up and struggles with her pursuit to become the doctor she wants to be. Emperor Zhu Qi Zhen (actor Wallace Huo) comes to play an important role in fulfilling her destiny (Viki 2016).
#3 Legend of the Qing Qiu Fox (青丘狐传说)
Costume & Fantasy Drama / 2016 Mainland China
Aired Since February 8, 2016 / Hunan TV / 40 episodes
Directed by Lin Yufen (林玉芬), Gao Linbao (高林豹) and Xu Huikang (徐惠康)
‘The Legend of the Qing Qiu Fox’ aka ‘The Legend of the Nine Tails Fox’ is a drama that consists of different supernatural stories and folktales about fox spirits and ghosts, based on work by Pu Songling.
Pu Songling was a Qing dynasty writer. His most famous work is the classical Chinese Liaozhai Zhiyi (Strange Tales from a Make-do Studio), a collection of stories about ghosts, spirits, and other extraordinary phenomena.
The drama can be watched through Viki.
#4 Far Away Love (远得要命的爱情)
Urban & Family Drama / 2016 Mainland China
First aired March 1 / 36 episodes
Directed by Niu Le (牛乐) and Zhu Shimao (朱时茂)
‘Far Away Love’ tells the story of the romance between Shen An (沈岸, played by Korean actor Park Haejin) and Meng Chuxia (孟初夏, played by Li Fei’er).
Meng Chuxia is a kind-hearted and optimistic single 28-year-old ‘shengnu’ (‘leftover woman’) who takes care of the son of her long lost sister. Shen An is a businessman who has returned to China from overseas to start a new company. When Shen An and Meng Chuxia meet, they are both not expecting to find love. Shen An is engaged to be married and Meng Chuxia is struggling to raise her teenage nephew. But despite their life situations, different (hidden) pasts and prejudices, you can probably guess what happens..
AsiaStarz writes that this drama was already produced in 2013, but was only aired now due to the strict Chinese TV censorship policies.
This drama is popular in both China and Korea because of the lead played by Park Haejin, who is very popular in South Korea and mainland China. The actor also stars in the Korean television series “Cheese in the Trap,” which is also extremely popular in China. The series were sold to Chinese video platforms Youku and Tudou for $125,000 per episode – the highest price ever paid for a Korean cable drama according to the Korea Herald.
Check out the rest of our top 10 of Chinese dramas 2016 on the next page.
China Comic & Games
China’s Latest Online Viral Game Makes You Clap for Xi Jinping
Smart propaganda – now clapping for Xi Jinping has become a competition.
The major 19th CPC National Congress started on Wednesday in Beijing with a speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping that took nearly 3,5 hours.
The speech, that focused on China’s future and its rise in the world today, was repeatedly paused for the appropriate applause from the party members in the audience.
With the introduction of a new game by Tencent, people can now also clap along to Xi Jinping’s speech from their own living room. The game became an online hit on October 18. It was already played over 400 million times by 9 pm Beijing time.
The mobile game can be opened through a link that takes you to a short segment of the lengthy speech by Xi Jinping. In the short segment, President Xi mentions that it is the mission of the Communist Party of China to strive for the happiness and the rise of the Chinese people.
The app then allows you “clap” for Xi by tapping the screen of your phone as many times as you can within a time frame of 18 seconds. After completing, you can invite your friends to play along and compete with them.
The game has become especially popular on WeChat, where some users boast that they have scored a ‘clap rate’ of 1695.
If you’re up to it, you can try to clap as much as you can for Xi Jinping here (mobile only).
(Update Friday, October 20: the game link now redirects to the Tencent News site themed around the 19th Party Congress through desktop. On mobile, the game still works, and has been played over 1,2 billion times.)
With a score of 1818 you’re better than 99% of all players.
By Manya Koetse and Diandian Guo
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Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us.
©2017 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
China Celebs
Weibo Servers Down After Lu Han Announces New Relationship
A Chinese celebrity’s relationship announcement led to a rare breakdown of Weibo’s servers on Sunday.
“Hi everyone, I want to introduce my girlfriend @GuanXiaoTong to you.” It was this one-sentence message that set Weibo on fire on Sunday, October 8.
The message was posted by Chinese singer and actor Lu Han (鹿晗 1990), who is one of the most popular celebrities on Weibo. Lu currently has 41.2 million followers on his official Weibo account (@M鹿M).
The singer previously had 43 million fans on Weibo, but lost many followers after his relationship announcement. Many fans did not like the idea that their favorite star is no longer single. Lu was formerly a member of the South Korean-Chinese boy group EXO and its sub-group EXO-M.
So many people responded to the news of Lu Han’s new girlfriend that some servers of Sina Weibo experienced a rare breakdown. Chinese media report that, according to a statement released by a Weibo Data Assistant, the two-hour network crash was the result of a data surge caused by fans commenting, sharing and liking Lu Han’s update.
By Monday, the public announcement had received 2,4 million comments and nearly 5 million likes.
Guan Xiaotong (关晓彤) is Lu Han’s new girlfriend – and everybody knows it.
Guan Xiaotong is a Chinese actress with more than 20 million fans on her Weibo page.
It is not the first time that a public announcement by a Chinese celebrity causes so much consternation on Weibo. In 2016, Chinese actor Wang Baoqiang announced that he would divorce his wife Ma Rong after she had a secret affair with his own agent. That post became one of the top-trending topics of the year.
A day after Lu Han’s revelation, searches for his name on the Weibo platform were limited and only showed a “we can not display any results for this search” announcement.
By Manya Koetse
Follow @whatsonweibo
Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us.
©2017 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
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wendy mashabela
June 23, 2016 at 7:13 pm
I really like this Chinese movies , on channel 447 cctv4 .But what really hurts me is that these actors and actress speaks their language I really can’t hear them. if atleast they can explain or write in english on the screen please,,i really love this movies please help.And I’m from SA
Isy
October 17, 2016 at 12:42 pm
There’s a lot of websites where you can watch Asian drama’s with subtitles. Personally, I use a website called KissAsian. Hope I was of help!