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China Arts & Entertainment

Watch: Top 5 Popular Chinese TV Dramas (Spring/Summer 2020)

Some of the most popular Chinese tv dramas of the moment.

Jialing Xie

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These are some of the most popular TV dramas in China of the past weeks worth catching up on. An overview by What’s on Weibo.

It has been some time since we have made an overview of popular Chinese TV dramas to watch this season. It is high time to do an update, especially because – in the wake of China’s emerging COVID19 crisis in early February – there has been a peak in the already overwhelming popularity of TV dramas in China. Live streams and online shows have become people’s virtual stay-at-home “resort” to pass time and cope with anxiety and stress in times of corona.

While the stay-at-home orders have now been lifted and life is slowly returning back to normal, the popularity of some TV dramas has continued and even continues to grow.

We compiled a shortlist of China’s top TV dramas based on recent top search results on leading online video hosting platforms, including iQiyi, Sougou, 360Kan, and Baidu’s top charts for entertainment.

You can find most of the dramas with English subtitles available on YouTube. These are five of the shows that have been recently trending and are worth to catch up on!

 

1. Autumn Cicada (秋蝉 Qiū chán)

  • Date: Produced in 2017 and premiered on May 4, 2020
  • Genre: Action, historical, war
  • About: This drama is set during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in 1941 and revolves around Ye Chong, a Communist agent disguised as a military officer, who goes to Hong Kong to help build the Japanese military presence in the area. With the sworn loyalty to his party and countrymen, Ye operates under the codename “autumn cicada” to leak important messages from inside the Japanese intelligence to his comrades outside. 
  • Context: The surrender of British Hong Kong to Japan on 25 December 1941, also known as “Black Christmas”, marks the beginning of the Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong (香港日据时期). The occupation lasted for three years and eight months, until the Empire of Japan announced its surrender which brought WWII to an end.
  • Also: Autumn Cicada is probably not just popular because of its theme – spy activities during WWII have been an ongoing theme in Chinese popular culture – but also because its storyline is set in Hong Kong, a place that has become the focus of everyone’s attention ever since the Hong Kong protests erupted last year.  
  • Link: Youtube

 

2. Hunting 猎狐 Liè hú

  • Date: Produced in 2019 and premiered on April 14, 2020
  • Genre: Thriller, crime
  • About: Police agents Xia Yuan and Wu Jiaqi join hands to battle cross-border the financial crimes committed by Boling Wang, billionaire and chairman of Kerui Pharmaceutical Group. 
  • Context: The drama is based on China’s 2014 overseas campaign against corrupt officials, which was also called ‘Fox Hunt 2014′ or the ‘Operation Fox Hunt’ initiative. The campaign started on July 22, 2014, and had scored a victory with 428 economic criminals arrested from 60 countries and regions within 135 days
  • Also: Along with a domestic anti-corruption campaign named “beating the tiger” and “catching the flies,” the Fox Hunt initiative remains to be one of the largest crackdown campaigns on corruption China has ever seen.
  • Link: Youtube (no English subs)

 

3. Legend of Awakening 天醒之路 Tiānxǐng zhī lù

  • Date: Produced in 2018 and premiered on April 23, 2020
  • Genre: Action, adventure, historical, romance, wuxia, fantasy
  • About: In the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era (五代十国时期), the young Lu Ping escapes the haunted Shanghai Tower and discovers that he possesses a rare set of superpowers known as “six distinct souls.” Together with people he meets on his journey to defeat the evil forces in the martial arts world, Lu and his friends transcend to the legend of awakening.
  • Context: The story is based on the fantasy novel of the same name by an online writer nicknamed Blue of Butterflies (蝴蝶蓝) on Starting Point Chinese Net (起点中文网), one of the largest reading and writing online communities in China. The story Legend of Awakening comes belongs to the Wuxia and Xianxia genres and is influenced by traditional Chinese elements including Chinese mythology, philosophy, and martial arts. 
  • Link: Youtube

 

4. Serenade of Peaceful Joy / Held in the Lonely Castle 清平乐 Qīngpíng yuè

  • Date: Premiered on April 7
  • Genre: Historical, Romance, Period Drama
  • About: The drama revolves around the life of Zhao Zhen (赵祯), the fourth emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty, and his efforts to maintain a balance between governing the country during turbulent times and his love for his family. 
  • Context: The drama is based on Milan Lady’s novel Held in the Lonely Castle (孤城闭) which originally tells the poignant love story between Princess Fukang and eunuch Liang Huaiji.
  • Link: YouTube

 

5. Intense Love 韫色过浓 Yùn sèguò nóng

  • Date: Released in 2019 and premiered on May 2, 2020
  • Genre: Comedy, Romance, Life
  • About: Jinbei Su, a stunning actress, and Shiyun Zhou, a doctor, are set up by their parents to get married.  Although they initially refuse to follow their parents’ wishes, they later realize that their romance might be part of their destiny. 
  • Context: This tv drama has stirred quite some excitement on Chinese social media, with 998,000 hashtagged posts on Weibo (#韫色过浓#), the topic page attracting more than 2.2 billion views. While some netizens found pleasure in the drama’s somewhat cheesy storylines, others criticized the show’s unrealistic beauty and social standards.
  • Also: Shows like Intense Love may change in the future because of a new regulation issued by the National Radio and Television Administration on April 13 of this year in response to numerous problems underlying the TV industry. The new regulation states dramas cannot exceed 40 episodes along with a limitation on how much actors can be paid for their roles (#广电总局拟规定剧集不能超40集#). The TV dramas released prior to the issue of the regulation are still unaffected by the maximum 40-episode limitation.
  • Link: Youtube

Wanna read more on Chinese tv dramas? Check our other articles here.

By Jialing Xie
Follow @whatsonweibo

Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us. First-time commenters, please be patient – we will have to manually approve your comment before it appears.

©2020 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

Jialing is a Baruch College Business School graduate and a former student at the Beijing University of Technology. She currently works in the US-China business development industry in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a passion for literature and humanity studies, Jialing aims to deepen the general understanding of developments in contemporary China.

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China Celebs

Hong Kong Police Find Head of Murdered Model Abby Choi in Soup Pot

“Reality is more gruesome than fiction,” some commenters wrote on Weibo, where the Abby Choi murder case has drawn wide attention.

Manya Koetse

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The gruesome murder of the 28-year-old Hong Kong socialite and model Cai Tianfeng (蔡天鳳), better known as Abby Choi, has been all the talk on Chinese social media this week.

The Hong Kong influencer went missing on Tuesday. Just a week ago, Choi was featured on the cover of the magazine L’Officiel Monaco.

On Saturday, South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Free Press reported that Choi’s partial remains, including her dismembered legs, were found cooked and stored inside the freezer at a village house and that four people had been arrested for murder.

The village house at Lung Mei Tsuen in Tai Po was allegedly set up as a “butchery site” equipped with a choppers, hammer, an electric saw and a meat grinder that had been used to mince human flesh.

Choi was entangled in a financial dispute with her ex-husband’s family over luxury property in Hong Kong’s Kadoori Hill. The persons arrested in relation to her murder are her ex-husband named Alex Kwong, his elder brother, his mother and his father, who reportedly is a retired police officer.

Abby Choi and Alex Kwong had two children together, a daughter and a son.

Cho was last seen in Fo Chun Road in Tai Po on Tuesday afternoon. CCTV footage captured her before she went missing. Choi was supposed to pick her daughter up on Tuesday together with Kwong’s elder brother, who drove her. She was reported missing after she did not show up to collect her daughter.

While earlier media articles reported that some of Choi’s remains had still not been found, news came out on Sunday that the decapitated head had been found in a soup pot. Seeing over 300 million views, the topic went trending on Weibo (#蔡天凤头颅在一大汤煲中找到#), where many people have closely been following the latest developments in the case. Later on Sunday night, the topic hashtag was taken offline.

Local police disclosed that the head remained “intact” although it is believed that someone tried to “smash” it. Some of Choi’s ribs were also found.

“Reality is more gruelsome than fiction,” some top comments said. “What a terrifying family,” others wrote, calling them “inhuman” and “devilish.”

Another topic related to the case also went trending on Sunday, namely that Choi’s ex-husband and his family allegedly had been planning the murder for a month (#蔡天凤前夫家1个月前开始布局#, 180 million views).

Some Weibo bloggers said the case reminded them of another well-known and gruesome Hong Kong murder case, namely the 2013 murder of Glory Chau and Moon Siu. At age 63, the couple was murdered by their own 28-year-old son Henry Chau Hoi-leung and his friend. After killing them, the two chopped up Chau’s and Siu’s bodies and cooked their remains and stored them inside the refrigerator. The 2022 crime film The Sparring Partner (正義迴廊) was based on this story.

About the Kwong family, some Weibo users write: “Too bad that Hong Kong law does not have the death penalty.” Capital punishment in Hong Kong was formally abolished in 1993.

By Manya Koetse 

 

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©2023 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

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China Arts & Entertainment

South Korean Actor Yoo Ah-in Dropped as Brand Ambassador in China after Propofol Scandal

The current drug scandal involving Yoo Ah-in also has consequences for the South Korean actor’s activities in China.

Manya Koetse

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The South Korean actor Yoo Ah-in (刘亚仁) has become a trending topic on Chinese social media for getting caught up in a drugs scandal in his home country.

Yoo Ah-in (1986) is an award-winning actor who is known for starring in various well-known dramas and renowned movies, such as Voice of Silence, Burning, and Hellbound.

Yoo is currently being investigated for alleged illegal, habitual use of the anesthetic drug propofol and has been banned from overseas travel.

On Thursday, the hashtag “Yoo Ah-in Admits to Using Drugs” (#刘亚仁确认吸毒#) received over 310 million views on Weibo, where several accounts reported that Yoo allegedly started using propofol in 2021.

Yoo issued a statement via his management, saying he is cooperating with the police in the investigation. He also apologized for causing concern among his fans and followers.

The drug scandal also has consequences for the actor’s activities in China. Liu was the brand ambassador for the Chinese men’s clothing brand Croquis (速写), but Croquis immediately removed him as their representative after the scandal.

Croquis issued a statement saying the company has been closely following the latest developments regarding the investigation into the actor’s alleged drugs use, and stated that they have “zero tolerance” when it comes to drug use and therefore would temporarily take all content offline in which Yoo represents their brand.

South Korean media reported on Feb. 9 that Yoo is among a group of 51 people that is part of an illegal drug use investigation initiated by the Food and Drug Administration, which found that Yoo went doctor hopping and “hospital shopping” to obtain multiple prescriptions.

Propofol is a sedative that is widely used by anesthetists for the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia and for long-term sedation. Over recent years, the abuse of propofol in South Korea has been getting more media attention.

Although propofol is classified as a controlled substance in South Korea since 2011, the recreational use of the drugs has been a problem and various celebrities have previously been charged for illegally using the drugs.

On Weibo, some people say that there indeed should be “zero tolerance” for drug abuse among celebrities and artists, but there are also those who think Yoo Ah-in’s drug abuse is a result of his alleged (mental) health problems, and that he needs help instead of punishment.

By Manya Koetse 

 

Get the story behind the hashtag. Subscribe to What’s on Weibo here to receive our newsletter and get access to our latest articles:

Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us. First-time commenters, please be patient – we will have to manually approve your comment before it appears.

©2023 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

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