Over the summer I took a class on modern Chinese and Japanese film, and wrote a number of capsule reviews and research papers, which I published on the Harvard Extended blog.
Since then, I haven't had much time to watch Asian films, but my wife borrowed from a friend a DVD box set containing a 23-episode Chinese TV miniseries, 中國式離婚/中国式离婚 ("Chinese-style Divorce" or "Divorce of a Chinese Pattern," according to the box).
Before playing the discs, both of us were skeptical. Chinese and Taiwanese TV dramas have a poor reputation for quality -- most of the soaps and historical dramas we see on satellite TV have terrible production values and scripts, characterized by overacting, violence, overuse of dramatic close-ups, and out-of-sync Mandarin dubs.
But my wife was hooked by the 中國式離婚 series, and, after watching portions of two episodes, I could see why: Not only was the script well done (according to my wife) but also the production values are superb. The actors are pros, hysterics and violence are kept to a minimum, the sets look real, and the film-production standards are top-notch -- I actually believe they are using film to shoot it, instead of video. If Google is any guide, lots of other Chinese-speaking people think so, too -- there are more than 700,000 Web pages that contain the simplified Chinese title/phrase.
This is not an isolated example. Long-form, high-quality television miniseries are apparently very popular in China, according to two expatriates who we've talked with, and who buy or rent the box sets for marathon viewing sessions at their homes in the Boston suburbs.
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