Taiwan's New Must-See TV: Korean TV Dramas

According to A.C. Nielsen ratings, radio audiences declined by 2.4% in the first quarter of this year. Industry insiders sense a threat, and tend to identify this decline with the popularity of television serial dramas. FTV's Flying Dragon, for example, has maintained high ratings throughout this period. Television dramas from Hong Kong and Japan have also scored consistently well. And the sudden popularity of Korean TV dramas has made a big impact on the public's listening and viewing habits.

A Mr. Chang, who works in the movie industry, is a new fan of Korean drama. As he tells it, watching Korean serial dramas has even affected his social life: "I work in the planning department of a movie studio, so I'm picky about what I watch, but I got hooked after watching Endless Love. If there's a good Korean show on the air, I won't go out during that time slot." Not only has his dating life been adversely affected, but his friendships as well. Friends who regularly follow the shows will fall into heated discussions with each other, while those who don't watch are sidelined.

Tearjerkers

The show Endless Love has certainly fueled the craze. Airing on GTV, viewership once exceeded 2%, tops among cable television shows. GTV, which was set up only at the beginning of last year and specializes in bringing in Korean TV dramas, has also achieved sudden popularity. Wen Chih-ping, the programming department director who selects which Korean shows will air, calls the phenomenon "a miracle."

Wen says that founding a channel dedicated to serial dramas has created increased demand. However, the Korean dramas shown thus far have represented only the first batch of shows his station has acquired. Because past audiences have had a stereotype of Korean TV dramas as being of low quality and sensationalist, GTV had to start anew in building up their image and audience. Using promotional methods borrowed from Japanese television dramas, creating regular media coverage, and inviting the Korean stars to Taiwan to promote their shows, GTV has generated the recent popularity of Korean serial dramas.

Seeing big potential, other Taiwanese TV stations have jumped on the bandwagon. Aside from channels such as FTV, CTV, Power TV, Videoland, and E-Pili, stations such as CTN have even decided to devote themselves exclusively to airing Korean serial dramas.

So just what is their appeal? Why are so many Taiwanese going crazy over these shows?

"They're so lyrical," gushes Tsai Wen-hsin, a thirty-something art school graduate. Tsai admits that most Korean dramas have somewhat ridiculous plots, much like their Taiwanese counterparts, which are also known as "tearjerker" dramas. But with a combination of superb cinematography, fine musical scores, and gorgeous stars in a single package, something clicks. The Korean shows appeal most to viewers who already have their own share of life experiences, enabling them to watch what might be their own stories, retold onscreen before them, rendered beautiful and poetic, with all of life's wild storms, dreams, and regrets.

The current king of the airwaves, Endless Love, is a soap opera classic. Two baby girls born in the same village are switched at birth. The switch is discovered only after fourteen years, with the girls in households of vastly differing economic and social classes. The biological daughter of the wealthy family insists that the two families switch back. The envious ugly duckling has now become a swan, while the ill-fated princess, who is the star of the show, turns back into a ragged Cinderella. The two families lose touch when the wealthy family abruptly emigrates, but they all meet up again years later. The lead character's "older brother," with whom she grew up but shares no blood ties, has fallen in love with her, as has his best friend. At the same time, the envious daughter, who moved from rags to riches, has also fallen in love the same friend of her older brother.

It takes twenty episodes to work through this four-sided love affair, with its tangled web of family ties, love, and hints of incest. The audience plays out its own fantasies of unattainable love in this pastiche that is filled with sweetness, envy, misunderstanding, and love without regret. The show ends with the death of the female lead, making for the ultimate tearjerker, and its plot proves compelling, thanks to skillful cinematography and the charisma of its stars.

Another TV drama that has gained quite a following is Sparks, the story of a one-night stand between the leading man and leading lady. Shortly after their encounter, each is married to another. Soon after their respective weddings, they discover that they really love each other after all. They finally escape their unhappy marriages and get together. The plot, enhanced by wonderful camerawork and beautiful actors, deals with the themes of the extra-marital affair and the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Sparks combines elements of such popular TV dramas as Lost Paradise and The Scandalous Daughter-in-Law.

All About Eve tells of the intrigues among television news reporters. All of the stars are utterly gorgeous, but while the good are positively angelic, the bad are nothing less than demons. The havoc makes for great entertainment.

"Lady-killers"

According to a 2001 Nielsen television survey, over 50% of Korean serial drama fans are females over 25, primarily working women or housewives. This demographic overlaps with that for the Taiwanese "tearjerker" dramas so popular a few years ago, but differs from the student-oriented audience of Japanese dramas, and from the primarily male audience for Hong Kong television dramas. Viewers of Korean shows tend to like the love stories and the way that they are skillfully put together. Even though Korean dramas take place in settings unfamiliar to their Taiwanese audience, their black-and-white plots and the basic elements of their tangled love stories have a universal appeal. Thus, FTV's programming director, Hsu Nian-tai, insists that there is nothing odd about having a Korean serial drama at nine o'clock, following directly upon the Taiwanese-oriented Flying Dragon. "Three-fourths of the audience will tend to carry over to the next show," he says.

Aside from their extravagant plots, wild energy, and the stunning beauty of this new crop of stars, Korean dramas have a cost advantage over already low-budget, shoddily produced Taiwanese domestic dramas. Hence, television stations have been snapping up Korean shows.

GTV is the first station to systematically bring the Korean serial drama to Taiwan. GTV's Wen notes that while Korean dramas are as diverse as those in other countries, Taiwanese stations typically only want those that are heavily star-oriented. In selecting dramas, they generally choose short series that serve as brisk-paced showcases for their stars. Also considered are how the show has been received in Korea, and whether its stars are popular in Taiwan. Historical dramas and shows with culturally distant content are rarely considered.

"Even though we weren't the first station to bring in Korean serial dramas, we were the first to go about it with a definite strategy," says Wen. Since the stars themselves are the key selling point, GTV regularly brings in the stars on promotional tours.

The Korean stars are very different from their Japanese counterparts. The Korean actors and actresses, while gorgeous, tend to project a more down-to-earth image. Take, for example, Song Hye Kyo, Wong Bin, and Song Seung Heon of Endless Love, or Lee Young Ae and Cha In Pyo of Sparks. These are real "lady-killers." Whenever such Korean stars have visited Taiwan, the media and fans are extremely eager to see them. When Song Hye Kyo and Song Seung Heon were in Taiwan in early June, fans were packed so tightly in front of the Hsimen MRT station that passage in and out of the area was just about impossible.

According to Tsai Wen-hsin, a star like Won Bin is her ideal leading man because he is the kind of person she could see running into in the course of her everyday life. Tsai often stays up late to catch him on TV, and often cries while watching the shows. When she tries to elicit sympathy from her husband, the only reply she gets from him is, "If you're going to get yourself all worked up over this, then I don't feel sorry for you at all."

Sighing, Tsai concedes that it is a bit much for her to be idolizing a TV star at her age. But at the same time it's hard for her not to fantasize about how wonderful it would be if her husband had Won Bin's looks and features. "If my husband had Won Bin's qualities, then even if he threw things around and fought with me all the time, I wouldn't mind," she says with a smile.

A Place for Taiwanese Stars?

Wen freely admits that the reason his station could spend so much on promoting Korean serial dramas was because, at first, the Koreans lowered their prices to get their shows into the market. This made for low costs and high profit margins for Taiwanese television stations. But now that other stations have followed suit, costs have at least doubled. Moreover, with the influx of Korean shows, both good and otherwise, viewership has dropped a bit over the past few months. "If the market is saturated," Wen says regretfully, "we'll have to move elsewhere to develop new sources for shows. We might move to countries in Southeast Asia, such as Singapore."

Casual observers may see only the hubbub surrounding the Korean shows, but those in the know realize that these Korean imports are not so different from Taiwanese dramas. So it is no surprise to hear Chiang Hsia, veteran actor and board member of TTV, ask: "When Korean serial dramas are welcomed so enthusiastically, does it mark the death of the Taiwanese television drama?"

According to Teng An-ning, director of prime-time serial dramas such as Girls Marching On, Taiwanese television dramas still fall well short of the refinement and quality of Japanese dramas. It's not that the industry in Taiwan is incapable of producing dramas that are as compelling, but everything depends on whether or not the Taiwanese industry is able to learn from their competitors from abroad. "The most serious obstacles currently facing Taiwanese television dramas are that they tend to go for the short term only, and put too much emphasis on commercial considerations," says Teng.

Teng, well known for directing high-quality television dramas, is set to direct CTS's next big drama. Though hopes are high, Liu says that Taiwanese television stars still need to be nurtured carefully. He notes that productions in Taiwan tend to be low budget, with poor scenery, lighting, and mediocre acting quality. A director can only do so much when working with actors who have never taken an acting class and pretty much pick up what they can on the set.

Art knows no boundaries. Star power reaches across all borders. Taiwanese audiences are enthralled by Korean and Japanese serial dramas, while others worry about a "cultural invasion" and the death of Taiwanese television drama. It may be time to think about how to make it more of a two-way exchange. If this were possible, one would of course still see Taiwanese fans of Korean and Japanese stars. But if one could also see fans of Taiwanese stars in Japan and Korea, then the feared "cultural invasion" would not prove so grave after all.

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Popular television dramas have caused a craze for Japanese as well as Korean pop culture. This young person on the streets, sporting a punk hairdo and a Korean-style T-shirt, provides a good illustration. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)

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Through the arrangements of Taiwanese television stations, Korean serial drama stars have been coming to Taiwan one after another, causing a "Korean wave." Pictured are the male and female leads of "Endless Love" at a press conference in Taiwan, Song Seung Heon (right) and Song Hye Kyo. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

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One is the "older brother" (without blood ties) that she grew up with, the other, a passionate son of a wealthy household. Song Hye Kyo (center) wavers between the love of Song Seung Heon (left) and Wong Bin (right), stirring the hearts of all the show's viewers. (courtesy of GTV)

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"Sparks" fired the first shot of the current wave of Korean serial dramas' entry into Taiwan. Lee Young Ae (left) and Cha In Pyo (right) were the earliest stars to make it big in Taiwan. (courtesy of GTV)