Youku Changing Modern Workplace C-drama Irreplaceable with Zhao Jin Mai and Wei Da Xun into 20-minute Medium Length Episodes Aligned with Industry Trend and Policy Changes
So this may be the start of a new format that will become commonplace, time will tell. Reportedly Youku will cut it’s already finished modern workplace C-drama Irreplaceable with Zhao Jin Mai and Wei Da Xun into 20-minute episodes and turning it into a medium length format. The current long form dramas are typically 40-60 minute episodes and of course there are the short/micro dramas with mere minutes an episodes. Policy makers have already curtailed drama lengths by mandating a 40-episodes max, that led to dramas changing to multi season to get around it. Now the push is to remove filler material and keep the dramas focused on the main plot, hence this potential evolution to mid-length dramas. I’m really sad that the era of true storytelling with the dramas being as long as needed to really take its time to flesh out the story are gone, and this push feels like it’s feeding into the short attention spans of people that is already not a good thing.
Honestly I’m glad. Always feel cdramas add to many fillers. Like second cp story that I rarely care and always skip. Should just make story about main couple and another drama for 2nd couple. If Kdramas can be 16eps and jdramas kan be 10 eps why do cdramas need 40 esp for modern dramas.
40 to 60 minutes isn’t long for an episode, it’s just that production companies or broadcast platforms wanted to maximize profits so they insisted on having as many episodes as possible. This resulted in many filler materials and reduced the quality of the dramas. We can see they still want to keep as many episodes as possible, that’s why they turned to reducing the time per episode instead of the number of episodes.
This new policy perhaps temporarily solve the common dragging issue of Cdramas. But for the long run, it will not enhance production quality. The central problem prevailing in Cdrama production is lack of creativity and professionalism. Nepotism doesn’t help either. lol
The long-form drama market has been going through a long period of winter meanwhile the short one has been developing to the point their actors have seen their fans’ numbers grow consistently (some names will perform at the four major CNY festicals), then the quality of their productions have been improving slowly but surely and a big brand like L’Oreal has resorted to use the vertical short drama format for their latest campain starring Tiffany Tang and the short drama actor Shen Hao Nan.
Now everyone wanna go the short drama route for their production even when certain storylines demand some development. I don’t know if I like that.
Mmmmm love me some Shen Hao Nan.
20 minutes still seems short to me though. I would prefer 25-30 minutes. Let’s not forget how long the intro and outro songs can be in Chinese dramas. That can take up so much time. Sometimes it seems longer than the drama itself. I appreciate dramas that have been using instrumentals for intros more so because the soundtracks are nice but it can give too much away like spoilers but that might just be me who feels this way. Anyways like anime’s length usually works enough to convey a story per episode so why can’t a drama? But lately short dramas have been hit or miss mainly due to terrible execution towards the end. They really need to work on making concise finales.
The production quality is already bad, it is just going to get worse.
I don’t know what the Chinese are thinking. The quality of their dramas is much lower than say Koreans yet they want to try and compete. It is ridiculous. Even the locals aren’t watching this slop they keep producing and it’s only going to get worse now.
Have to disagree with you here. There are some truly wonderful Chinese dramas (exquisitely produced with excellent storylines, some I recently just watched) that are just as good as dramas from other countries. There are also Chinese dramas that are poorly written and produced. Just like there are truly excellent Korean dramas (so many masterpieces!), and really poorly written and produced Korean dramas too. Don’t mean to pick a fight here, just an objective observation. I don’t think it’s fair to say the quality of Chinese dramas is much lower than others. Every country has its own unique storytelling style and types of dramas they are good at producing, and every country produces good and bad dramas, with its own set of production woes and nepotism. I wouldn’t say any country is doing better than another in that respect. Oh, and also plenty of locals watch Chinese dramas (the danmu and discussion forums on Chinese sites like XHS after episodes are wild). Let’s stay respectful and give everyone a fair shot, yeah?
That’s your opinion. I can’t say it’s objective observation. Personal opinion is always subjective unless you were talking about rocket science. Obviously this is not rocket science. Nope? lol. Not to pick a fight either, but beg to differ.
There are reasons why many ppl like me speaking perfect Mandarin can’t finish 99% of Cdramas we checked out. There were very few exceptions we enjoyed tremendously. Nevertheless, I have to be honest. Cdrama writing/directing/camera work/editing in general can’t rival SK counterparts, let alone there are too much nepotism meddling in crappy casting that many C actors ruin leading roles.
@Riri Wondering if you have watched Love Between Lines which completed airing recently? That drama rose to my Top 10 list of excellent modern Chinese dramas. I agree with you that every country has its own unique storytelling style. People also tend to put on rose-tinted glasses for dramas where they aren’t fluent in the language and culture, but the glasses drop when it comes to dramas with language and culture they are familiar with, because fluency strips away the veil of exoticism and forces them to confront poor writing, unnatural dialogue, and cultural inaccuracies that were previously masked by the novelty of the setting.
Overall quality of cdramas is way lower than kdramas. There are always individual good dramas but on the whole China is producing slop. Kdramas aren’t watched in the world in general for no reason.
Also buzz off with that let’s stay respectful. This isn’t a Reddit sub, you can go there if all you want is gushing about something with no criticism allowed. Reminds me of that cesspool cdramafans. That toxic waste sounds just about right for you.
Err there are alot of cdramas and movies that have way better production quality than korean dramas. All the costume dramas from korea cant even match that of China’s. The latter just has the scale and grandiosity and also very unique costumes designs that the Koreans can never match. The minute korea started selling their souls to Netflix, the unique selling point of their dramas went down the drain and effectively killed off a big part of the local drama and movie industry. That said, china dramas have a long way to go when it comes to getting their act together on the screenwriting. Its terrible. Most modern cdramas are just crap. Their acting talent also pales significantly vs korea cos they hype up looks and fame so much more than the Koreans it’s unbelievable
I think one of the reasons the Western world have come to appreciate K and C dramas are how they take time to develop a story – it gives depth and understanding to the characters and enables the viewer (if the actors are good!) to experience their story/emotions with them. This is something that is very much lacking in western offerings.
Hoping this 20min episode will not apply across the board.
Hmm good and bad actually. Cdramas would be way shorter if they didnt put so much nonsensical filler in their episodes. The writing would ve tight the first half or something then completely fall off cos of the filler or the writer trying to drag the story to hit the episode ceiling.
However 20 mins is kinda short – how do you develop a story like that? Even delicious romance was around 30 to 35 mins. Long enough to develop a plot point but still not too long for the viewer
It’s doable. I hate fillers. Like someone said, they cut length of time, but not episodes so…directors, screenwriters, and production team would have to come together to make this work.