国产剧为何比不过美剧韩剧？原来是这些原因降逼格！

 　　China’s first anti-corruption TV show In the Name of the People has been viewed over 350 million times.

　　Am I going to watch it?

　　Thanks, but no.

　　Actually, I have never watched a Chinese TV drama that was produced on the Chinese mainland¹. Correction, I have never finished watching a Chinese TV drama series because they are too long, and I have too little time and patience.

　　How long is too long? Compared to Korean and Japanese TV dramas, which usually have 10 to 20 episodes², Chinese dramas are famous for telling long stories. In the Name of the People has 52 45-minute episodes. The longest TV drama, Daughter-in-law, tells the story of an old Chinese couple’s culture clash³ with their foreign daughter-in-law. It has aired 3,100 episodes in the past 16 years, and the director said it will continue.

　　How do the directors make the stories last so long? Here is an example: Person A is killed by a Japanese soldier. Even though the audience might have seen how A was killed, character B would come and hold A’s body and repeat the story of how A was killed by a Japanese soldier. B then would tell C that A is dead and ask C to take revenge⁴. In this way, the message that "A was killed by a Japanese soldier" is repeated three times.

　　What is the point of making such a long dialogue? A friend of mine who used to be a TV drama writer told me that the longer the story lasts, the more money he would get.

　　So I was not surprised when The Legend of Zhenhuan, a hot TV drama that swept China off its feet in 2011, was aired in the US and its original 76 45-minute episodes were shortened⁵ to only six 90-minute episodes.

　　Another possible reason for the length is the target audience. Some of the shows target senior citizens like my mother. A 58-year-old housewife, she is a fan of Chinese historical TV dramas, and since many Chinese TV stations run two or three episodes every day, she could finish a drama within a month. When I asked whether she prefers the American TV drama format⁶ with less episodes, she said long TV dramas remind her of chapters in a novel, similar to those from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) that began each chapter with a summary couplet.

　　"The story is long, but it has many layers," she said.

　　Over the years, the Chinese TV drama industry has been trying to win young viewers. They produced a lot of fantasy dramas with pretty and handsome actors. But the most popular ones are those that have characters people can relate to. For example, the 2016 50-episode drama Ode to Joy has become one of the most popular dramas because it reflects China’s current economic and social realities.

　　Will I watch it? Probably not. It would waste 2,250 hours of my time.

1 mainland   

n.大陆，本土

参考例句：

• The new bridge will link the island to the mainland.新的桥梁将把该岛与大陆连接在一起。
• Hong Kong's prosperity relies heavily on mainland.香港的繁荣在很大程度上依赖于大陆。

2 episodes   

插曲，片断( episode的名词复数 )； 一集

参考例句：

• The novel deals with the romantic episodes of her early life. 小说叙述了她早期生活的浪漫插曲。
• Three episodes have been telescoped into a single programme. 把叁集的内容压缩成了一个节目。

3 clash   

vi.冲突，不协调，砰地相撞；n.冲突，不协调

参考例句：

• There is a clash between two classes at 2 p.m. on Thursday.星期四下午两点有两堂课是冲突的。
• The pot came down on the stone floor with a clash.锅“当”地一声掉到石地上。

4 revenge   

v.报...之仇，为...报仇 ；n.报仇，复仇

参考例句：

• She poisoned his mind with ideas of hate and revenge.她用复仇的思想来毒害他的心灵。
• There was anger in his eyes and revenge in his heart.他两眼闪现怒火，一心只想复仇。

5 shortened   

v.弄短，缩短( shorten的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She shortened the skirt by an inch. 她把裙子缩短了一英寸。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Vacations have lengthened and the work week has shortened. 假期延长，工作周就缩短了。 来自辞典例句

6 format   

n.设计，版式；[计算机]格式，DOS命令:格式化(磁盘)，用于空盘或使用过的磁盘建立新空盘来存储数据；v.使格式化，设计，安排

参考例句：

• Please format this floppy disc.请将这张软盘格式化。
• The format of the figure is very tasteful.该图表的格式很雅致。