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Pervasive sense of inadequacy

By Raymond Zhou | China Daily | Updated: 2014-03-15 08:06

"I'm all for the easing of restrictions, but showbiz in China lacks the professional basis for making television series of this kind of quality," wrote Gao Qunshu, an outspoken filmmaker, in his microblog. He didn't go into details.

Personally, I don't see much difference in production values between, say, My Love From the Star and some of the top shows from China. Despite the genre of romance, the former does not feature steamy sex scenes, which might have made the show difficult to get past censors. It took 10 episodes for the lead couple to have an on-screen kiss.

The narrative element of time travel could be problematic because science fiction, like fantasy, is often viewed with suspicion in China. It is argued that viewers in less educated circles might not be discerning enough to infer the things portrayed on screen are not possible in real life and therefore should not be imitated at home. This could have been true half a century ago, but it seems condescending now that the whole nation enjoys a nine-year mandatory education and few adults, if any, would blur the line between fantasy and reality on screen.

Judging from Chinese shows in recent years, time travel is not strictly forbidden, but allowed when it is used as a background and handled with kid gloves. A spate of palace dramas is built on the premise that the female protagonist is transported from contemporary times back to antiquity, playing the game of a damsel in distress and a real prince coming to her rescue.

US and British television shows enjoy a somewhat exalted status in China, but their audience size is more limited due to their relatively unfamiliar culture and fast pace. Although there has been a sporadic effort to duplicate some of these shows, with a Prison Break wannabe a fiasco and The Love Apartment, modeled on Friends, a moderate hit, the scope in subject matter lies far beyond what Chinese showmen can reasonably yearn for.