How Can Taiwanese Dramas Soar with Netflix?

Earlier last year, in the debut episode of the Taiwanese crime drama, The Victims’ Game, the police follow leads to a vacant building, where they witness a massive fire. After the fire is out, the most expensive dead body prop in the history of Taiwanese cinema is revealed to the audience. In order to prepare for that three minutes of screen time, Golden Bell Award-winning makeup artist, Chu Chia-yi (儲榢逸), devoted a full month of production time.

“In a dozen years in the business I’ve never encountered such a vast production,” exclaims Chu Chia-yi, winner of a Golden Bell Award for best art design, who has worked on the set of Stephen Chow film productions.

In order to create the dummy corpse, “Material and labor costs exceeded NT$700,000. In similar cases in the past in Taiwan, the budget would typically run only around NT$50,000,” relates Chu. It took Chu and his 15-member special effects team considerable work with a medical examiner to achieve the authentic appearance of a burned corpse.

Chu relates that The Victims’ Game has helped “establish a new order for Taiwan, paving the way for more precise division of labor among special effects makeup artists.”

“The Taiwanese industry has been really buzzing these past few years. And there’s been some innovation, which I attribute to the stimulation that Netflix has given everyone,” relates Phil Tang, general manager of Greener Grass Productions. “They’ve driven the entry of capital, and that’s a good thing for the Taiwanese movie and television industry.”

Greener Grass has been behind such hot Taiwanese productions as Wake Up and The World Between Us. Season Two of The Victims’ Game, expected to be released in 2022, is the first original Chinese-language drama to be renewed by Netflix.

‘Accident of history’ results in Netflix choosing Taiwan

Even as a principal beneficiary of the Netflix phenomenon, Greener Grass is not complacent.

Producer Hank Tseng notes that Taiwan was chosen as a base for Chinese-language TV and film production because Netflix remains shut out from China. “It’s an accident of history,” he remarks.

This happenstance might not continue for too long. This is because Netflix is only temporarily barred from accessing the Chinese market. The door remains open for a cooperative arrangement similar to that of The Victims’ Game, under which a Chinese-language drama is produced in China, then listed by Netflix, and goes on to compete with Taiwanese dramas on the platform.

For instance, the Netflix original Better Than Us, a Russian-language series, is about to begin production of its second season. With this, the setting will move from Russia to China, with financial backing including WD Pictures of China.

WD Pictures founder Gao Qun is the former president and executive vice president of the ChinaVision Media Group (now known as Ali Pictures). He also serves as managing director for CICFH Investment Management Company, Ltd.

“This is a new cooperative model,” says Zoanne Tan (陳薇如), producer at Singapore-based IFA Media. “If China can fund a Russian drama, of course they’ll fund the production of Chinese-language dramas,” she says.

Tan notes that Netflix is still feeling its way around the Chinese-language market. “China has completely different rules from every other place, but as long as obstacles can be overcome, it’s better to collaborate in China (over Chinese-language dramas),” she says.

As China’s TV and cinema industry is massive and experiencing extensive growth, if Netflix can work out a cooperative model and once Big Tech’s favor recedes, the Taiwanese TV and film industry will surely face the risk of marginalization.

“Taiwan mustn’t feel complacent,” says Tseng, who cautions against over-reliance on a single multimedia platform. Moreover, given Netflix’s ever-deepening involvement in productions, “extensive investment should be used effectively. The Taiwanese TV and cinema industry cannot allow itself to have tactics but no strategy,” says Tseng.

Consequently, Greener Grass is seizing on the resurgence of Taiwanese dramas to think of ways to boost the TV and cinema industry chain.

“The industry needs to be mature, and not just rely on gifts falling from the sky,” remarks Hank Tseng.

First, in league with 15 Taiwan-based multimedia platforms, they spearheaded the Wild Grass Program, uncovering top script writers and new acting talent from Taiwan, resolving a systemic problem of insufficient pre-production creative input in Taiwan.

Key #1: Learn from the ‘Show Bible’

This is a major pain point for Taiwanese dramas. From Wake Up 2 to Nowhere Man, through the latest Detention, scheduling conflicts between script writers or directors has been a recurring issue from the start.

Beihua Yu, director of the Taiwan Public Television Service (PTS) Program Department, relates that pre-production development was the most arduous part of the production process for Detention. “Maybe there’s a situation where the writer’s work lacks sufficient tension, or it’s too far off the mark… and it also needs to account for the feasibility of shooting. All these things must constantly be recalibrated. It’s quite tedious,” remarks Yu.

“This is an area in which Taiwan is relatively weak,” she says.

These days, Taiwan is starting to understand the importance of Netflix’s most high-caliber storytelling weapon – the Show Bible. Inside the studio shared by Netflix and the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), the Show Bible clearly sets out the key elements of each drama, namely “story theme”, “worldview”, “look and feel”, “role keys”, and “cross-seasonal structure.”

“The ‘bible’ isn’t meant to be followed as an exact formula,” notes Hank Tseng. “Its importance is that it allows the show runner to coalesce the director, scriptwriter, and producer’s roles together into a compass for guidance when the team encounters trouble.”

Key #2: Forge a Taiwanese Drama Post-production Ecosystem

Investment by Netflix and other online streaming platforms in Taiwan has triggered increased production costs for Taiwanese dramas. Meanwhile, the value of intellectual property for Taiwanese dramas has similarly tripled.

“It appears to be thriving, but in many instances money isn’t the only thing that solves problems,” remarks Tseng. “If its power cannot be concentrated to form an industry ecosystem, then the appearance of thriving is only an illusion,” he adds.

Apart from special effects makeup and scriptwriting, the television and cinema ecosystem also includes post-production. Zoanne Tan notes that a large hitch in Netflix’s acclimation to Taiwan is due to post-production.

“A lot of things that Netflix sees as industry standard are actually completely missing in Taiwan,” says Tan, who cites the example of a key quality control protocol during the post-production process, which requires using a Netflix-certified company.

After searching far and wide in Taiwan, Tan had no choice but to take the film back to Singapore for quality control.

“Other little procedural details, like file transcoding and material specs, are ripe for mistakes,” says Tan frankly. Constant issues with small details and escalating costs ultimately add up to become major issues.

“Taiwan’s TV and movie industry has a relatively low degree of industrialization, and can be said still to remain a handicraft industry,” says Beihua Yu. “Now that everyone’s budgets are higher, specifications and technical aspects should correspond to budgets, and a better job be done. This part is only just starting to bud,” she adds.

“The happenstance of Netflix has helped us create an excellent advantage,” says Hank Tseng, who posits that the local TV and film industry must seize the opportunity to strengthen its constitution.

“Can this advantage be leveraged to ourselves?” Netflix’s arrival in Taiwan has improved the long-term plight of Taiwanese drama series, beset by a small market and low production budgets. But when it comes to improving its constitution, Taiwan can only rely on itself.

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(Feature photo from Netflix)