If you pay attention to the development of TV series, you will probably find that there is a characteristic in the past two years. That is, Korean dramas are still very popular on the Internet in the country, especially realist works.

text | Linghu Boguang

If you pay attention to the development of TV series, you will probably find that there is a feature in the past two years. That is, Korean dramas are still very popular on the Internet in the country, especially realist works. Korean idol dramas that were popular in the world (especially in Asia and Southeast Asia) were not very good.

For example, "I Want to Do Nothing", "Understanding of Love", "The World You Are Stolen", "Youth Multiple Choice Questions", "Pinzi Ball Game" , etc.

I remember the last time that the Korean idol drama was still popular in the country. In fact, it is "Hyung Bin's Crash Landing " starring Hyun Bin and Son Ye-jin . That is the TV series in 2019. There have been Korean idol dramas in the past two or three years, but there are few idol dramas that were popular in the past.

For example, "Itaewon" and "That Year, Our Summer" starring Kim Domi , and then " The Younger Son of the Chaebol Family ".

These dramas are somewhat similar in terms of themes, but they are still significantly different from the idol dramas that were popular in Asia and Southeast Asia before. Especially the dramas listed above that either focus on reality and life, or have large scale and weird sets.

Domestic idol dramas that domestic audiences have always despised have become popular in the world (especially Asia and Southeast Asia). For example, " Roseland Art ", " Star Han Qiang ", " Starting ", etc., as for dramas such as "The Thousand Girl", " Don't Play Wild with Sister ", " Deadly Housewife ", domestic audiences may not have watched it before.

Of course, idol dramas are not ruled out, but the more discussed works are often works with realistic themes, such as " People in the World " and "Police Honors" and so on. And they are often criticized for reasons such as floating and ungroundedness.

eventually led to a state where domestic audiences praised Korean dramas, and overseas audiences began to pursue domestic dramas.

Of course, strictly speaking, Korean dramas are still very popular all over the world, especially Southeast Asia. But we can clearly see a phenomenon. That is, Korean dramas are becoming more and more like Japanese and American dramas, and idol dramas that they were once good at are no longer possible. The two aspects of domestic dramas are very lacking, but idol dramas have begun to export culture. Why is this happening?

Early copy of Japanese and Hong Kong and Taiwan dramas, but now copy of British and American dramas? Behind Korean dramas is a "character history"

Every country will develop the economic development of and society, and it has its mainstream TV series type. Why is Korean idol dramas no longer possible now? The reason is that the "romantic love"-style tragic comedy in South Korea before 2020 was actually absorbed from Japanese dramas. First, Japanese dramas created the pure love film genre.

There are some Hong Kong and Taiwan regions, but they are more ancient and various fantasy themes. The idol drama set is mainly Japan.

However, due to the deformity of South Korea from construction to development model, the lower class has no way out in reality. This mentality of changing destiny and achieving class leap is reflected in film and television works. Therefore, works that are completely out of reality, or Cinderella-like chaebols fall in love with me, or super-powerful genius-like super-powerful genius fall in love with me, and and other works.

I have to say that Korean dramas are really amazing in creating an atmosphere. They can portray completely illusory and unrealistic things to you as if they are real. Countless women are trapped in colorful soap bubbles, so that reality and illusion are inseparable.

This is the peak of Korean idol dramas. I think it was around 2015, which was the beginning of " Man of Fancy " in 2010. It was almost not very good after 2018.

Although Japanese dramas also have pure love streams, they are relatively based on objective reality and are possible in reality, which is much more real. And pure love flow is just a genre of Japanese dramas, much richer than Korean dramas. I won't give this example, because there are really many.

In recent years, we can clearly feel that Korean idol dramas have declined. The reason is probably that the Asian idol drama base Japanese idol comics are no longer possible. In ancient idol dramas, South Korea has been copying domestic dramas, from the early days of Hong Kong and Taiwan to the present mainland, there are too many examples. Korean dramas have also begun to upgrade over the years, and this upgrade is in two aspects.

First, some delicate works about real life, urban workplace, and urban male relationships that I have talked about at the beginning. This level is indeed like a Japanese drama, but the reason is that in reality, South Korea has become a developed country, and urbanization, commercialization and industrialization have further deepened.

Such as "The Fragile Hero", " Drunkard Urban Women Season 2 ", " Little Ladies ", "Black Word Lawyer", etc. Domestic audiences are quite envious of Korean dramas in this regard. It is not that domestic dramas with this theme cannot be filmed, but they are professional in the workplace, real life, and are not down-to-earth.

The second is a work that obviously learns the themes of British and American dramas. The 2019 Korean zombie drama " Kingdom " is its benchmark. After the success of .com , it has become the weather vane of this type of Korean drama. Most themes are copying British and American dramas in different ways.

For example, there were a lot of zombies, and then exorcisms were shot by a lot of police and gangsters, suspense and revenge themes. Anyway, all kinds of large scales, bloody and exciting themes are all this way, and finally the situation of " Squid Game " was popular in the world last year.

2022 is almost over, and the same way is used in Korean drama themes. But until now, there are no popular works in the world!

The audience looks down on it, but it is becoming more and more popular overseas? Why can domestic idol dramas "cultural output"

Chinese TV dramas, as a literary and artistic work, actually continued the narrative of critical realism , and realism is the mainstream type of our country. However, in the past few years, I grasped the financial capital of film and television creation, and the presupposed viewing of works was the middle class, so realism has been declining and almost disappeared. Soap bubbles created for the middle class are gradually becoming popular, and this kind of soil is naturally suitable for the growth of Korean dramas, so there are traffic and young actors in recent years.

However, the times have changed in recent years. When the soil of the market changes, it will force film and television works to change accordingly, and should not be eliminated. The mainstream value pursued by the new generation of young people has begun to return, so the main theme returns to its stage center. From " Great Rivers ", " Awakening Era ", " Mountains and Seas ", " Anti-Black Storm ", " Merits ", " Opponents ", to this year's "The World", "Police Honors" and so on , every wonderful realistic work has caused a huge social response.

But at present we are still focusing on period dramas and life dramas, urban workplace dramas, emotional dramas of young men and women, etc.

Although there are works such as " Dear Kids ", " Sanyue has a new job ", "Rock and Roll Flower", etc., it is not good overall, and it is still the case that the audience scolds and is not down-to-earth. Moreover, this kind of TV series is relatively weak in cultural output, because it is related to national strength and ideology . Currently, China is still weaker than the West, so there is no way. The other two TV series that can be exported to the outside world.

A is a large-scale work such as pornographic, violent and dirty. As mentioned above, we have many restrictions here, and it is not down-to-earth when filming. TV series on these two levels have never been very good, so it would be fine if we don’t mention it.

Another type is idol dramas, including modern sweet pets, costume idol dramas, etc. Idol dramas have become a powerful tool for Chinese cultural output, gradually replacing the status of Korean idol dramas, especially those in ancient idol dramas.

The ancient puppet drama is actually because of the low requirements. First of all, there are better styling and clothing bonuses for male and female characters than modern dramas. Some people can modify their body shape when wearing ancient costumes, and wearing modern costumes will expose their height and figure. Ancient operas can put on heavy makeup and apply high-gloss high-filters. Can you adjust such high-high filters in modern operas?

In addition, ancient puppet dramas (non-historical dramas) have low requirements for acting skills, and their acting skills can be cope with them. However, the characters in modern dramas all appear in people's lives. If a person who is in a play who is always pouting and glaring will never be accepted.

The previous two years Angelababy was named the best horror heroine because of a staring smile sitting in the back seat of the car. This was just a result of an inappropriate smile. I won’t mention the failure caused by other inadequate acting skills.

Therefore, the acting requirements of modern dramas are higher than those of ancient puppets. In other words, although they have been invested in filming, the bonus to actors is not large, and it is not easy to become popular after filming, but it is easy to lose its reputation.

The ancient puppets have lower requirements for screenwriters and directors than modern dramas. It doesn’t matter if they randomly describe social rules in the plot. As long as a superficial dynasty is set, who can know the laws of your dynasty and people’s daily rules of conduct, which will reduce the chance of discovering plot loopholes and rule loopholes.

Some people may want to talk about the problem of traffic stars. Gu Ou itself is a way to cultivate traffic stars. Singing and dancing boys/Gu Ou Ou/Danmei/Tianmei are some of the most powerful tools for traffic cultivation. Most of the traffic actors are popular with ancient puppets. I won’t give too many examples. Now the talent show and Danmei are gone, and all companies that want to promote new traffic are focusing on ancient puppets.

The question arises at this time. Since that is the case, why can domestic idol dramas become popular abroad?

The simplest truth is like "traffic stars" and " Untamed " that became popular in Southeast Asia. Audiences all over the world are superficial and lack interest in heavy works such as the history, culture, social reality, etc., unless your entire country is different at the reality level, let other countries need to understand your reality level.

Otherwise, this work that is exported to the outside world will always be pornographic, cultural curiosity and various relaxed and pleasant entertainment products. Domestic idol dramas are doing well in this regard, with a large number of good-looking young actors, with strange settings and themes. In recent years, China's film and television industry has made obvious breakthroughs and progress, including beautiful costumes and makeup, beautiful pictures, etc.

We cannot say it is a final winner, but they have indeed snatched the ecological niche of Korean idol dramas overseas, especially in Asian and Southeast Asian countries.

One outputs idol drama, the other outputs pornographic and foul? The good days of Korean dramas are coming to an end

If you want to compare the advantages and disadvantages of current domestic dramas and Korean dramas, probably with the development of the economy and society of the two countries, they each came to a new era after 2020. Korean literary and artistic works have also begun to pay attention to real social issues, and there are also breakthroughs in scale that have always dared to shoot.

Korean workplace and realistic TV series are better filmed, and they already have their own cultural aesthetics and cultural style, and are quite mature. Perhaps it is the third modern and commercial urban life in Asia after Japanese dramas and previous Hong Kong dramas.

But this output is naturally not good, because you will definitely not be able to overcome the Western modernization accumulated over hundreds of years. In this regard, Japanese dramas are the most mature in Asia, but if you look at the cultural output, it is far less popular than idol dramas.

The most violent output of Korean culture is the pornographic and dirty works , but these are basically mixed British and American dramas. It should be because of cultural barriers. In terms of cultural aesthetics and cultural style, it still has the taste of being unacceptable to local conditions, and it is not as mature as Korean idol dramas in the past.

In recent years, South Korea has filmed so many zombies, exorcism and fantasy themes, but the most successful ones are "Kingdom" and "Squid Game" (Zombie Campus" and " Sweet Home " can only be said to be OK), and there is no exorcism theme, and it will be up to you to see how long it will last in the future.

(When watching "Squid Game 2" is the peak or the Waterloo, my feeling is that it has reached its peak).

The biggest advantage of domestic dramas is that they still have their own ecological niche. Early idol dramas also copied Taiwanese idol dramas and Korean idol dramas. In recent years, you have rarely seen any copying. At most, there is a bit of controversy in the industrialized cultural aesthetics (such as the issue of replacing China with Japan). The cultural content and cultural style are all based on online novels, and these are your own things.

In the next few years, if domestic idol dramas can develop further, for example, if about 5 different themes are filmed in a year, the "Cranlan Jue" with about 5 different themes will be expanded like this year's summer season, domestic idol dramas will completely seize the ecological niche of the former Korean idol dramas and Japanese idol dramas, becoming the largest cultural output.

As for the realist themes that domestic audiences are more concerned about, pornographic and dirty works and large-scale works, that is another topic.