China bans King Bae´s The Legends

the reason why jumong and the legend aren’t allowed to be shown in china is because of an on-going debate about the ownership of goguryo. jumong is about the founding of goguryo, and the legend is a myth-like portrayal of gwang gae to the great. korean historians argue that since it was koreans who founded goguryo, it’s korean history. chinese historians argue that since the land that was goguryo is now a part of china, it’s chinese history. as you can see, there is a big dispute and the chinese government doesn’t want korean dramas influencing popular opinion.

p.s. kwfong, i forgot to mention the recent chinese historical drama that won the best series at seoul drama awards. its name escapes me now, but it stars chen dao-ming and cast of thousands. from the youtube clips, it looks amazing, with top-notch acting across the board (real academy-trained ones who act in the “older” style compared to the sometimes fluffy, modernized, or bombastic-because-of-time style on saeguks perhaps!) the plot seems amazing and real stickler to “true history”, probably to avoid criticism from anybody. ironically enough, chinese literature and ancient history is rich (or enough to fill a long series), that creativity to “reinterpret” is not quired. and as we know, TV/film industry “progress” because they “reinterpret”, make new from old…

jennifer: i too am from taiwan and consider myself chinese in parts. how could we not, it’s all drilled into you i used to feel lots of cultural pride in seeing chinese characters, influences of pronunciation or whatever in japanese and korean culture, esp. in context of all the “china, raped and pillaged” history of victimization. while pride in your country is a good thing, it’s a double-edged sword that can get too sharp to even stay in its own scabbard. have we ever thought of, other people “borrowing” chinese culture to use for their own benefit, such as the ease of using a linguistic system already made complex and useful enough after generations of trial and error? it’s all about getting on with life more easily. nobody really “owns” anything ultimately, we all build on what people eons before us have started. (apparently there are no qualms about using copious english words by chinese, as far as identity goes.) but the powerful need to know, feel and be someone, to belong, an identity, makes it all problematic. and even more so when political interests get into the game (even politics of economy, social groups, etc. like to make people buy products of one ethnicity over others…)

i don’t know about the back story on the zhao wei series. surely there are overzealous people on both sides, but also “pacifists” who think this squabbling is a bit silly — even if they’re in the minority. why would broadcasters, who mostly are ruled by money than nationalism if they had any sense, try to suppress zhao wei’s series? perhaps they were trying to promote their own show, which they had bigger investment in than what they paid for to distribute the zhao show? that is, they stood to lose more if the korean series didn’t do good enough, while the zhao show already earned back what they paid? i’m not saying they’re not fishy, but matters of money can make it more complicated than “suppress the chinese culture in korea”. and obviously this is infuriating to chinese point of view, who WOULD like to see “chinese culture “invade” korea”, to counterbalance korean wave LOL

kwfong: i learned from “X” on twitch (who now writes only in korean, his own blog) about saeguk. it is the term for historical/costume drama as a genre. for revenue, do you mean who does better biz on K-drama, between chinese TV and pirates? i thought china’s own historical epic dramas are competitive too. K-drama has the “exotic” factor, the beautiful faces across the board, glossy production, and generally just something different. i’d think if The Legends is off-limits to chinese TV, they’ll just show something else chinese. there may not be BYJ’s type of TV star in china, but not all of china is under his spell either, true?

I’m from Taiwan, but I still consider myself chinese~
I mean, it has always been like this~ Korea and China have so many similarity in historical way. I mean, no matter how koreans deny it, a lot of the cultural stuff is passed on to the koreans from the Chinese. When I watch korean dramas, some of the pronounciation is not that different from chinese~

Princess pearl by Vickie Zao (Zao Wei), remember that drama?? Was also broadcast in korea back in the year 2000. Because it went too well, koreans move the drama to 11:00 o’clock.
Why is that???

I’ve never been to china, but one thing you can’t deny is china is currently moving to become the world power.
And yes, some part of china is still in poverty, but that doesn’t mean that is everything.

All I could say is, don’t let the media fool your eyes.

the Chinese government are in denial with certain parts of their history..they can ban this drama and certain movies all they want but the truth of the matter is like all greedy empire back in the day they were brutal..we all know how shady the chinese government can be because they are still a communist government..they can’t “shield” their citizens from the world anymore..not in this modern day and age..so they need to stop the corruption and greed and stop inprisoning journalists who are telling the truth and innocent people they are stealing lands from..

*sigh* about 90% of jet li’s movies are banned in china because its not “realistic” enough. with china wanting to go modernized in every aspect of their country, they should rethink how they approach their attitudes to their neighboring countries. this is getting ridiculous!

kezrel: u r most welcome to ask for clarification. “Korean dramas will price its way out of their traditional markets ” means that the rising cost of making Korean drama (due to many folds increases of the salaries to the actors and overseas locations, etc increase cost of production) will make the selling price of these dramas to their usual markets more expensive. In the past, Korean dramas were good and cheaper to buy the rights (as compared to American dramas) to broadcast by the television stations of the countries to which they are marketed. Asian countries where Korean dramas r popular, with the exception of Japan, Taiwan, Hongkong have generally less purchasing power will find buying the rights to air Korean dramas increasingly more expensive, therefore, more difficult to find sponsors to sponsor the broadcast of the dramas locally. If I remembered correctly BYJ was offered 10x his previous asking price to entice him back to Kdramas.

akon n ed: well, relationships bet neigbouring countries have always been dicey and sometimes strained, some of the reasons given by Ed. Just like France with Britain and Spain, Malaysia with Singapore and Indonesia, China with Taiwan, Japan and Tibet n vice versa, and the list continues!! It is territorial rights=money, power and in case of China in tis context, pride at work. In the name of sovereignty, all tension mounts!

Ed: what is “saeguks”? I agree the pirates make big biz on the streets and they even went upmarket by moving into big shopping malls selling their wares, I personally know of a street pedler moving to a shopping mall in expensive Pudong, Shanghai doing the same illegal biz openly. However, Kmovies were a little difficult to get (copyright) when I was there last Nov but American movies were still readily available! However banning these 5 kdramas will cost an impact on the numerous televsion stations in China as they will never have to buy these dramas for screening to their viewing audience. I am not sure which has a bigger ticket value in terms of loss of revenue: piracy or broadcasting rights. The pirated DVDs do not necessary give the same quality of the production, i.e. missing episodes, only option of chinese subtitles, poorer quality, etc.. but due to its cheap pricing i.e. rmb5 (approx. USD0.75) for each DVD (a 16 episode drama in VCDs cld easily cramped into 2 DVDs) works out to be far cheaper than buying an original pack of VCDs. Eg. Jumong´s 45 episodes crammed into 1 DVD, so really poor quality. Advance markets like Japan will not be affected as they value quality and shuns piracy, so Yoonsama will be save there!

Read abt Korean soaps in Crisis: http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200709/200709070016.html