Chinese television drama

Chinese television dramas (simplified Chinese: 中国电视连续剧) or mainland Chinese television dramas (simplified Chinese: 中国大陆电视剧) are similar to television dramas in North America, but are often longer. China produces more television dramas than any other country. It made more than 15,000 episodes in 2014.[1] The most popular genre of dramas in China is fantasy romance, with 47 of the 50 most watched dramas in the country in 2016 being in this genre.[2] Chinese television dramas are popular and regularly broadcast on TV throughout Asia, particularly in Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Cambodia.[3][4][5][6][7]

Since the 1990s, historical serials have been the dominant genre on prime-time television. The trend peaked in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with many palace (also known as "Qing") dramas shown on television.[8]

Popular Chinese television dramas, such as Nirvana in Fire, The Journey of Flower, Eternal Love, The Princess Weiyoung, Just One Smile Is Very Alluring, The Legend of Zhen Huan, Scarlet Heart, The Mystic Nine and more often garner billions of views among China's most popular video websites, iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video. Some dramas have been so popular and widely acclaimed that they were remade in other languages, or were spun off into a sequel.

Many series end each episode in a cliffhanger. The channel CCTV-8 airs TV series around the clock. Series are divided into several rough categories: historical (subdivided into historical fiction, nationalist-rallying, historical re-enactment and wuxia), police and politics, comedy, and the more modern family conflict drama genre. Episodes usually begin with opening theme music over credits and end with further theme music and more credits.

The series of episodes runs on together to depict a series of events that happen one after another in relevance to the main plot of the drama. Like a novel, the drama contains characters, conflict, plot, climax, and resolution that intrigue the audience’s interest. The large number of episodes allows the plot to be carried in much more detail than in a short movie. A particular aspect of life such as high school, college, or work life of a person, or a specific job is shown with much greater details that allows the audience to acknowledge that particular area in detail. This gives the audience a better understanding of the characters and their perspectives as well as the entirety of the storyline.

Long-form Chinese television series vary in quality, although in recent years, observers have noted a sharp increase in production values and script quality in some series. Also, a number of Chinese television series used music from Hollywood movies as incidental music.

Dramas are generated with a specific genre like romance, comedy, horror, family drama, sports, or a mixture of these in the form of ancient, historical, Republican era or modern to highlight the theme and suits the audience’s interest. Chinese-language dramas are often classified by where they were produced, such as mainland dramas, Taiwanese dramas, Hong Kong dramas, and Singaporean dramas. Each differs in the style of filming and editing format. Most consist of romance, family and friends with the combination of pop cultural themes.