This Friday is the end of the American streaming platform Apple TV+ popular series "Pinclub Game".
Although this "era drama" with Korean immigration theme has not been introduced in China, with the influence of starring Lee Min Ho , Yoon Yoo-jung and the original "Bai Qing Ge", the drama has not paid much attention in China. . On social media, Korean drama fans are called "epic" about whether the drama is worthy of being "Epic", and Lee Min Ho's fans have been fighting for several rounds about whether the history of Gao Hansu (played by Lee Min Ho) in episode 7 was forced to add the show.
But for more ordinary drama fans, the biggest question in their hearts is probably whether this Korean version of " Human World " is a Korean drama or an American drama?
The same problem can also be copied to many Asian-themed TV series that have been popular in recent years: Is " Squid Game " a Korean drama or an American drama? Is "Tokyo Sin" a Japanese or an American drama? Is " Please give me four more cups of " an Indian drama or an American drama?
Answers of course are all American dramas. These three dramas are original by three American streaming platforms: Netflix, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime.
But the question that is more worth looking for is why American long video websites are getting more and more crazy when outputting Asian stories?
The battle for the "Asia-Pacific Market"
For this question, the easiest and direct answer is the competition for the "Asia-Pacific Market" by major streaming media platforms. Of course, this doesn't explain everything.
Since 2020, the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic has reversed the macro trend of the world, and has also unexpectedly cast a weight to decide the victory or defeat on the balance between the US streaming media platforms and the film industry.
Due to the impact of the epidemic, the theater operations continue to be bleak, and online traffic ushers in dividends. Media giants with large studios have given up their struggles on small issues such as the "window period" and instead focus on building streaming media platforms. The rapid growth of Disney+ and HBO MAX (owned by Warner Media) during the epidemic are all related to this background.
plus Apple TV+, which has long wanted to get a share of content with hardware coverage. In just over two years, the US streaming media platform has changed from the original three (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu) to the new sixth Big: Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, HBO MAX, Hulu. Among them, Hulu is also a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney Group due to mergers and acquisitions.
With so many new platforms in the market, they are all competitors with ambition and strength to compete for the global market, and the share of the "Asia-Pacific market" is bound to be re-divided.
Netflix has previously walked out of the way to customize, develop and invest in local film and television content if you want to expand the market in which country. So Apple TV+, Disney+, and HBO MAX also quickly followed and began to transfer capital to South Korea and Japanese film and television.
Judging from the investment plan disclosed by Disney+ in 2022, this platform with rapid growth will produce more than 20 Korean film and television dramas this year. Its person in charge said that the total investment amount of Disney+ in Korean film and television content this year will exceed that of Netflix, and far exceed that of the platform's investment in other languages of TV series in Asia.
Multiple platforms have been launched in parallel and a large number of funds have poured in. The increase in Asian film and television dramas originally created or invested by American streaming platforms is an inevitable result.
But if it is only for the "Asia-Pacific market", there is no need for Apple TV+ to burn $500 million to shoot "Pinzi Ball Game". can have strong market competitiveness as long as it develops and invests in the types of themes that Korean and Japanese dramas are originally good at.
According to the top 10 non-English dramas broadcasting time of Netflix in April this year, the most popular Asian dramas this year are the following: the nostalgic love drama "Twenty-Five, Twenty-One" (Korean drama, 9 weeks on the list) , Workplace romance drama "People in the Meteorological Hall" (Korean drama, 8 weeks on the list) Lightweight sweet pet drama "In-Society Blind Dating" (Korean drama, 7 weeks on the list), Legal and Crime drama "Juvenile Court" (Korean drama, 8 weeks on the list 7 weeks).
In other words, the most important small-language drama in the Asia-Pacific market is Korean drama. The most popular Korean dramas are mainly love, idols, and workplace dramas. If the purpose is only for the Asia-Pacific market, we can focus on these topics and appropriately develop some social problem dramas and costume fantasy dramas to adjust.
From top to bottom "Twenty-five, Twenty-one", "Social Blind Dating", "Juvenile Court"
In fact, there are also streaming media platforms that adhere to this development direction. For example, most of the Korean dramas that Disney+ layout this year belong to the era, love, and industry dramas.
has been broadcast so far, with a background set in Seoul's spy war romance drama " Snow Drop Flower ", which tells the story of the growth and love of the police academy, and the idol romance drama "Crazy Love" 》, music and love TV series "Soundtrack", etc. The upcoming drama series also includes the comic-motivated super-themed drama "moving" which claims to cost 260 million yuan.
From top to bottom "You and My Police Classroom", "Snow Drop Flower", "Crazy Love"
But Asian-themed drama development such as "Pinclub Game", "Tokyo Crime" and even "Squid Game" cannot be used alone Explain it using Asia-Pacific market logic.
Mainly supply the "internationalization" story of North America
From the perspective of theme, "Pinclub Game", "Tokyo Crime" and "Squid Game" do not have much relevance.
"Pinzi Ball Game" tells the story of four generations of Korean immigrant families. They came to Osaka, Japan during the Japanese occupation period, and experienced World War and Korean War , which lasted until the late 1990s. era Yokohama , Tokyo and even New York.
"Tokyo Crime" is adapted from the Tokyo Crime Investigation Documentary of an American journalist. It tells the story of a young American journalist who was fledgling with a police detective in the anti-gangster team and explored the Tokyo gang world under the neon lights in the late 1990s. story.
"Squid Game" is very familiar to everyone. It is a group of desperate people who have to bet on their lives to participate in a dystopian battle royale game in order to win high bonuses.
But from the aesthetic orientation, you can find that little correlation. That is, the topic of pan-identity politics advocated by the cultural leftists who dominate Hollywood .
The fourth generation Solomon Bai in "Pinball Game" is a walking ethnic identity disaster. He was covered in Korean blood, was born and raised in an exclusive Japan, and did not eventually obtain identity in college or employment in the United States. When facing the question of whether he is Korean , Japanese or American , he cannot give an answer.
The reporter Jack in "Tokyo Sin" is a young man who came to Japan to study from Missouri . Because of his ideal news, he insisted on staying in Mingdiao News to report in Japanese. The most attractive thing here is identity. What will be his feelings when a Westerner who has no cultural closeness or guilt sees the phenomenon of President Lin from Japan, from hierarchical relations, gender culture, from gangs and economic collapse?
As for "Squid Game", there is no need to explain too much, it is simply a complete collection of class identity symbols in the capitalist world.
In 2018, there was a social science book titled "The Pampered American Heart" (Chinese translation entitled "The Pampered Mind: How did "Steel" not be made?"), which became the best-selling list as soon as it was published.Authors Greg Lukinoff, Jonathan HatterHot pointed out in the book that contemporary American universities are popular in "identity politics" closely related to the cultural left. They are accustomed to looking at others from a moral dimension and treating daily behaviors. The difference is interpreted as ubiquitous "oppression" and "domination", and understanding life as a constant battle between good and evil, which leads to increasingly tense relationships between different groups. The identity allergies criticized in
are not clearly revealed in these Asian-themed dramas. But it indirectly proves the focus of the topic of "identity politics" in the current mainstream North American culture.
In other words, these works are still creating with the pace of the film school and the rhythm of North American social topics.
However, it may be that the stories of various minority identities in the United States, from ethnicity to gender to disability, have been discovered, and it is difficult to find new. The identity stories of other ethnic groups—such as Asian ethnic stories—have both spectacular and empathetic points that match social issues, so why not do it?
In fact, when it comes to Asian identity themes, for similar reasons, it is also one of the current hot topics in the field of film creation.
We might as well start from the link "Pinzi Ball Game".
One of the directors of this drama Guo Gongda is a well-known Korean film director. In 2017, he made his mark with a film "In Columbus", which tells the love story of Korean youth and American girls.
This year, in addition to the drama "Pinzi Ball Game", he also has a science fiction movie called "Fu Yang" released. This is a soothing and even Zen-like movie about the future of popularization of household robots. A family of white husbands and black wives bought a robot set as "Chinese" Yang to take care of them The story of adopted Chinese children.
also discusses the identity of Chinese. Here, the director Dan Guan , who is good at defeating everything, has no intention of Zen at all. When the star Michelle Yeoh and the parallel universe combine, it becomes the " Instant Universe " that is stewed but above.
Looking forward, the last one who tried to discuss Chinese identity in science fiction settings is Marvel's " Shangqi and Ten Rings Legend ". Although Japanese-American director Destin Critton performed poorly in this movie, his performance was very stable in "Tokyo Sin" collaborating with Michael Mann .
counts further, and Lee Isack Zheng, who shines at the Oscars with the Korean immigration theme " Minari ". What he is currently doing is the famous Japanese comic " Your Name " Preparation for the live-action movie. This has not counted the " Parasite " and "Don't Say to Her" a few years ago...
"Minari"
"telling titles" like this is not to highlight the prosperity of Asian themes in Hollywood , but rather a kind of alertness. When the target audience is a group of people who often cannot distinguish between Tsinghua, Japanese and Korean people, can we really expect the story of this ethnic identity to be explained clearly?
Just like Guo Gongda's "Hou Yang", the film is indeed a good movie, but seeing his camera Colin Farrell operates a Chinese tea shop in the United States, and she is also worried that loose leaf tea is not as good as Instant Tea is easy to sell When I was, I always felt that it was a little strange.
【 text/Tin Pi Xiaogu 】
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