I’ll skip explaining what long-form C-drama is in the textbook way, because if you’re here you’ve probably already watched one, maybe several, and you don’t need me telling you what a 40-episode historical drama is. But digging into the genre makes me curious for more and it also changes the articles and observations I share. Going back I can see this evolution and understanding changing as well.
That is also one of the reasons I don’t like to make claims and predictions but rather observe and share. In the long run, reality and my personal exploration can lead me elsewhere. Now this particular one is all about a personal brainstorm I got on the way.
My own understanding of long-form C-drama
A long-form C-drama is usually anywhere from 30 to 80 episodes, each running 40 to 50 minutes. Usually it is produced for platforms like iQIYI, Youku, Tencent Video, and Mango TV, or for broadcast television directly. At least this is how it reaches the audience in general and for Westerners one of the channels acting as an entry point is Netflix. It all works with relevant budgets, planning and of course dedication of actors, studios and costumes. Similar to what Hollywood does but my personal impression is that shooting schedules are relentless and faster than the Western show productions.
How it reaches the West
The one surprising thing is that, at least for me, C-drama arrived somehow quietly. There was no marketing campaign or some sort of exposure to a studio pushing it into my radar. It just found me somehow more organically than anything else and at the same time I only had to push through the surface to actually uncover the world below it.
Now I can clearly see the tons of fan generated content, similar to other genres that I somehow didn’t follow before that much. Starting from the Japanese anime and gaming fans, through K-drama and even Western fans when it comes to western produced series. However, when it comes to non-English series, the actual volunteer subtitle teams, downloading raw broadcasts and turning around English subtitles within hours (or days) is something that takes quite some effort and dedication.
Which is very telling about the audience itself before we even get to who they are. The curiosity of the people along with the unified effort and desire to share what they find interesting and valuable is a completely different evolution for the content than industry introduced trends or storylines narrated and produced for consumption. In a way, I think, this also navigates what happens after that and the one thing this audience truly has as a quality is loyalty. This is not something you would like to miss on.
Of course the distribution channels are catching up quickly but it all depends on selection processes, company policies and many other factors. I am not sure if Pursuit of Jade was planned to reach the Top 10 across several Western countries or if it just made it by chance but at least to me it seemed that there was no real huge budget behind it for marketing in the west. iQIYI mostly because it understands the diversity of Asia in general, has built out something closer to a real localization strategy, going beyond subtitles into actual cultural adaptation, but from what I can tell that effort is again aimed at Southeast Asia, rather than the West.
I am saying all this because if many viewers are like me, I think we, c-drama western viewers, are a selfmade crowd. I think I won’t be wrong to say that there is a pattern to it, too: discover, fall in love, dig deeper, understand more, learn Chinese (no joke here), watch more and more.
The filter C-Drama needs to go through
Now it wouldn’t be fair if we don’t tackle the topic of proper approval in C-drama and the censorship that each production goes through. We all know that each C-drama actually goes through an approval process, and it is managed by their organization called NRTA. Everything from script pre-publication approval to cast and content before the actual broadcast is vetoed. That means that the process is slow, expensive, and at the same time it needs some political navigation.
What I would like to point out is that this approval process and supervision actually built something much more interesting. From my point of view, it actually shaped C-drama into what it is right now. What you get as an end product is actors’ play and narratives that are placing emotional weight in gestures, pauses, and the space between what is said and what is actually meant. Subtext becomes a professional skill and also adds depth to the whole equation and the characters that are displayed on screen.
The one thing we need to be aware of, though, is that there is also actual censorship happening, especially when it comes to LGBT representation and particular historical gaps. That by itself, though, adds just one more layer to the audience qualities, as what happens is more research, more historical awareness, and more context to be gathered by the actual viewer. I like this particular outcome very much, as it teaches you critical thinking rather than blind faith in what you get served.
The value in C-Drama is the actor
You already need to be aware that in C-drama, the actual value for a particular production and in general for the genre is the actor. The industry goes like this: they have years of training, they have their pipelines for training idols, they have the fan economy, and at the same time they have all the logistics around it. Weibo accounts, studio accounts, other platforms too. It all centers around the actor, and the same is valid for how business goes with brand ambassador deals and everything else. Now, taking a look at the most famous breakthrough, which I’ve already covered in my blog in a previous article, Zhang Linghe, the funny thing is that he actually is not an actor by education. It is a self-made decision for him to break through, and this is what happened. What we can observe right now, though, is that he is being monetized big time by all the Western brands in the East as an ambassador, the same goes for Chinese brands, and the same goes for literally the platforms that can stream their productions. This is a massive money-making machine, and it is carefully navigated, it is managed by particular companies, and it is a much more deliberate and navigated effort than it is in the Western world.
This is valid for many more actors. I’ve already checked how it operates. We can clearly name Tian Xiawei, who is the female lead in Pursuit of Jade, Song Weilong, who is also very popular and has a huge following and fandom in China and is starting to become visible abroad as well, and many others.
Who is watching in the West?
We cannot go without acknowledging who is the actual viewer in the West and what the Western audience follows through in order to reach those C-drama productions. The typical viewers of C-drama are female, with a very broad age range starting from probably 20 until the 60s and so on, and with good income, stable, actively seeking culturally enriching content, and normally with a high affinity for books, good education, and proper cultural aspect of the production. How they usually discover the C-drama genre is actually either through word of mouth or by Reddit, social media, but it is not really an algorithm push in the general way. The one thing that’s very significant here is that there is a loyalty pattern, and usually those viewers are personally loyal rather than genre loyal. So, what would normally happen, I would envision a similar road to mine. If you watch Pursuit of Jade, then probably you will continue with all of his previous productions and afterwards you will wait for the next productions. Eventually, you would swap actors for others, mainly out of curiosity, research, and desire for diversity and to see more, so it’s mostly curiosity that drives their diversification of the loyalty pattern.
My curious observation for next
Now, this is a fully personal observation that came to my mind while I was digging into my favorite topics later, and I have a very peculiar perception of where things might go with C-drama now and its popularity. The one thing that actually pointed me in this direction is the next production of Zhang Linghe. What made an impression on me is that instead of being released to all major platforms or Netflix, for example, what’s going to happen is Road to Glory, and Overdue, his highly anticipated other productions, are going to be released specifically and exclusively on WeTV right now. So I started thinking, going back to my micro-drama article last week, what if now Chinese production platforms are actually making the same move towards infrastructure ownership for long-form C-drama? So, if viewers are loyal to actors, and they are culturally open and at the same time not always platform bound, then what actually is happening is that Chinese production companies are streamlining their most popular content into particular platforms that are the actual infrastructure to distribute them.
That might be an actual push for a second ownership of infrastructure for a very popular genre. That by itself remains to be seen if I’m correct.