On the one hand, the slogan of "Taiwan drama revival" is getting louder, and on the other hand, there is a wave of Taiwan artists going north to "work".
Recently, there have been two seemingly contradictory development trends in the drama industry in Taiwan, China, which have attracted attention.
"The revival of Taiwanese dramas" has been a common topic in recent years.
This wave began in 2019, which reversed the stereotype of "Taiwanese drama = idol drama", "The Distance Between Us and Evil". After this social problem drama jointly produced by Taiwan Public Television and HBO Asia, there are phenomenal Taiwanese dramas that "break the circle" among mainland drama fans every year, including but not limited to "I Want to See You" (produced by Fox Media), "The Beginning of the Lights" (produced by Netflix), "She and Her Her" (produced by Netflix), "Imitation Criminal" (produced by Netflix) and so on.
Behind these "out of the circle" Taiwanese dramas, most of them are global streaming media platforms or multinational film and television groups.
The wave of Taiwan artists going north to "work" has only gradually surged in the past year or so.
In the years of the "revival of Taiwanese dramas" by foreign blood transfusion, Taiwan artists who were active on the cross-strait screen, including Ruby Lin, Jia Jingwen, and Ariel Lin, all chose to return to their hometowns and take charge of themselves. Popular Taiwan artists do not go north, it is a common choice.
But lately, the wind has taken a turn for the worse. On the cusp, of course, is Wu Kangren, who recently signed a contract with Yixin Entertainment.
In recent years, he has performed prominently in Taiwanese dramas such as "The Distance Between Us and Evil", "Hua Lantern Chushang", and "Imitation Criminal", and last year he also won the Golden Horse Actor with "Fudu Youth" (this movie was released in the mainland on September 21), and is a hot "top stream" in Taiwan.
It is reported that the emotional suspense drama "Obsession" directed by Xue Xiaolu is being filmed.
In addition, Jia Jingwen, who is leading the revival of this round of Taiwanese dramas, also has a medical beauty-themed Youku solo drama "In the Name of Beauty" to be broadcast.
Ariel Lin, who is also the "general" of the revival of Taiwanese dramas, also appeared in the recording of the latest season of the variety show "Heartbeat Signal".
It can be seen that although in recent years, with the blessing of global streaming media platforms, Taiwanese dramas have frequently broken the circle with their performance scales and controversial themes, but their initial ambition to leverage foreign capital to become the "spokesperson" of Chinese dramas has not been realized.
The trend of Taiwan's top artists going north to "work" proves that the current Taiwanese drama market is not saturated enough, and the second is not healthy enough.
The "blood transfusion" of foreign capital has caused 6 or 7 years of backlog
The foreign-funded "blood transfusion" drama industry has had a similar but different impact in Korea and Taiwan.
Similarly, the entry of global streaming media represented by Netflix has raised the cost of local drama production. The core production factors, including actors, directors, screenwriters, etc., have experienced a round of soaring in value after entering the global streaming platform. The original order of the local film and television industry has been seriously disrupted.
The difference is that Korean dramas are still the focus of global streaming platforms because of their good performance in international circulation. Although there is also pressure to "reduce costs and increase efficiency", the investment volume can still ensure the sustainable development of Korean dramas.
Taiwanese dramas are no longer the focus of global streaming media platforms because of their small scale, small number, and average global distribution results.
This has left a chicken feather for Taiwan's TV drama industry.
First, global streaming media platforms in the Taiwan market mainly adopt the "shoot first and sell later" model. In other words, most of Taiwan's local production companies have to advance funds to shoot the drama first, and the platform will decide whether to buy the broadcast copyright after seeing the finished product.
Broadcast in 2020, Netflix's first word-of-mouth Taiwanese drama "Who is the Victim" adopts this model, with the production company Hancao Cultural and Creative taking the capital risk first, and raising the filming cost to NT$5 or 6 million (about RMB 100-1.3 million) per episode.
Previously, in the era of TV station monopoly, the cost of a single episode of Taiwanese dramas was about NT$3 or 4 million (about RMB 65-900,000).
After the "hit" is filmed, Hancao Cultural Creation's follow-up customized series for Netflix can get the upfront investment and get a definite profit figure before the broadcast.
This company also contributed two hit dramas "Copycat Criminal" and "Who is the Victim 2" to Netflix in the follow-up.
In other words, Taiwan production companies make custom dramas for Netflix, which is something that needs to be fought for. Most teams that want to work with Netflix have to take a big gamble.
Second, in the absence of the mainland market, the number of Taiwanese dramas that can be digested by global streaming media platforms is also limited. There are about 20 per year.
In 2021, stimulated by the success of "Who is the Victim" and the sky-high price of "Hua Lantern Chushang" (a total of 24 episodes in three seasons, NT$250 million, about RMB 58 million), a large number of Taiwan production companies are targeting Netflix standard projects.
But most of these projects have become "cannon fodder", according to Taiwanese media interviews with senior drama producers, in 2022 alone, "as many as 7 or 8 percent of Taiwanese dramas on the market cannot be sold, and they can only admit compensation".
Compared with these "cannon fodder", Alyssa Jia organized the family-themed drama "Mom, Don't Make Trouble!" that cost more than 100 million yuan (about 3 million US dollars). (premiered in 2022) Although there was a scandal with a miserable loss, it was already a lucky person to be able to be taken over by Netflix.
The investment in this drama, which broke the record of family-themed Taiwan dramas, is aimed at global streaming platforms. It was completed in October 2020, and it took a year to finalize the Netflix platform. However, Netflix only contributed $50,000 for one episode, and the total copyright fee for 10 episodes was only $500,000. Later, I found a company under CJ Group to co-produce it, and finally sold it for $300,000 per episode, barely tiring.
This is still the case for a big production led by Alyssa Jia, not to mention the situation of other production teams.
"National Drama" is gaining momentum when it goes to sea, and the revival of Taiwanese drama has turned
Nowadays, "foreign-funded" Taiwanese dramas have also formed a certain routine. The main themes are edged and challenged by scale, and creative talents are poached from the film industry or drama teams that are good at genre themes.
Since the beginning of this year, the Taiwanese dramas that can be exposed on the Netflix Top 10 list in Taiwan basically belong to this category.
"Life Cleaner" is adapted from the movie of the same name, and the protagonist is a group of cleaning club members who specialize in cleaning special death scenes;
"Zhenggang Branch" is a spin-off of the popular movie "About Me and Ghosts Become Family";
"Presumption of Innocence" is a legal drama that challenges the "first judgment before trial" and explores the issue of judicial fairness;
The upcoming "Soul Returning Strategy", directed by Chen Zhengdao and starring Shu Qi and Li Xinjie, is a dark suspense revenge drama with a fraud case as the background.
It is difficult to predict how long this kind of marginal, dark, and cold Taiwanese drama can maintain market popularity. However, when combing through the Netflix Top 10 list in Taiwan this year, I unexpectedly found that many domestic dramas have performed prominently in Taiwan.
"Camp with Love", "Shen Yin", and "In the Blizzard", which were on the list in February; "The Case of Tang Di Gong", "Don't Be Tempted by Me", and "Under the Alien" were on the list in March; "New Life", which dominated the list in May and June, and even rushed to the top of the list; "Between the Ink Rain Clouds" and "The Year of China", which were continuously on the list in June and July; "Spring Sends Lover" on the list in August; and "Half-Mature Men and Women", which was on the list in September.
Judging from the data provided by Netflix, almost every month there is a domestic drama that is popular in Taiwan.
This means that even in the case of global streaming media platforms, costume dramas, urban dramas and even suspense dramas that domestic dramas are good at have still become an important side dish for TV drama audiences in Taiwan.
This is not counting "Celebrating Yu Nian 2" launched through Disney+, and "Flowers" launched through Taiwan's local video website myVideo.
Another phenomenon that echoes this is that in the past year, the representative works of the revival of Taiwanese dramas have less and less relationship with "foreign investment".
For example, the recently popular "Applaud for Love Tonight" was developed and produced by One One Pictures, and premiered on eight major drama stations, which is a relatively traditional Taiwanese drama model.
"We Are Not Kind Enough", which received a lot of praise in the first half of the year, was jointly produced by public television and Taiwan's big brother myVideo, which was the best drama broadcast by myVideo in the first half of this year, and was also broadcast online on iQiyi International Station.
The hit family drama "Lifetime" in September 2023 is produced by Lin Xinru and TVBS TV in Taiwan, China.
Netflix and iQiyi International were simultaneously launched in Taiwan, and Bilibili was broadcast in the mainland.
Both belong to the Chinese-speaking cultural circle, and the revival of Taiwanese dramas is the same as the national drama going overseas, which is a good thing. However, it is a fantasy that Taiwanese dramas want to bypass the mainland market and become the "spokesperson" of Chinese dramas, which is not in line with the laws of the market, and it is impossible to realize even if there is a foreign "blood transfusion". Global streaming platforms, while well-funded, are not philanthropists either.
The next step in the revival of Taiwanese dramas will also focus on rebuilding local streaming platforms and further exploring mainland distribution.
[Text/Bian Yunlu]