Having recovered from a slump, Taiwan’s film and television industry has been achieving outstanding results in recent years. The Taiwan Literature Base in Taipei City—a venue devoted to the interdisciplinary potential of local literature—is currently hosting an exhibition entitled Taiwan Waves Renaissance. Focusing on screen adaptations of literary works, it explores the context in which this new cultural trend emerged in Taiwan.

The exhibition begins by looking at A Boy Named Flora A, a TV drama produced by Qseries in 2017. A member of the curatorial team at the Taiwan Literature Base tells us that in recent years there has been a drastic change in the way Taiwanese literature is given audiovisual form. A Boy Named Flora A is an adaptation of a collection of short stories by Yang Fumin. While the original stories do not have a common protagonist, the screenwriter assembled characters from different story­lines and pieced together an overarching plot. In this way the drama departs from the once-common expectation that an adaptation should be faithful to the original text. Truer to the audio­visual form than its predecessors were, the project marks a transition in the history of screen adaptations of literary works in Taiwan.

Nikky Lin, director of the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, believes that screen adaptations can introduce more people to local literature. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)

Dramas of everyday life

In 2016 international subscription streaming platforms started to arrive in Taiwan, disrupting the old norms of the local film and TV industry. Since then, the industry has witnessed a general increase in the scale of production, as well as an evolution in subject matter and screenwriting techniques. Genre dramas can thrive in a segmented streaming market if they have a clearly defined audience. As long as a story is attractive and unique, it will find viewers. Producers are interested not only in fiction—the genre most often chosen for screen adaptations—but also in literary journalism, non-fiction, articles disseminated on social media, and Internet celebrities.

Good stories can be found all over Taiwan. “How else could we produce so many dramas here?” says Hsu Chin-yun, a senior producer at Taiwan Public Television Service (PTS). Recent successes include stories that portray working people (such as Workers and Mad Doctor), sci-fi productions (such as On Children), and period dramas (including Seqalu: Formosa 1867 and Gold Leaf).

Gold Leaf is a case in point. “There have been many TV dramas on Hakka traditional industries, but this time we wanted to break away from familiar plot elements such as life in the countryside and solipsistic love,” says Hsu, the producer of Gold Leaf. The series breaks new ground by reinterpreting the life of Jiang Axin, a 20th-century tea merchant in Beipu, Hsinchu County. It tells the story of the export trade in Taiwanese tea in the years after World War II. Not only is Gold Leaf the first drama in Taiwan to feature the Hailu dialect of Hakka, but it also combines exquisitely crafted scenes with a historical narrative on a grand scale. Gold Leaf has a remarkably long “tail,” continuing to boost local tourism and drive sales of peripheral merchandise. It is perhaps the most successful case of intellectual property (IP) development in Taiwan in recent years.

Hsu Chin-yun, a senior producer at Public Television Service, has successfully produced Gold Leaf. The TV series makes a major contribution to Taiwan’s Hakka drama. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)

Licensing opportunities

The transformation of the film and TV drama industries has drawn the attention of writers and publishers to the value of literary content. “We used to think of publishing as the ultimate goal of creative writing, but the latest trends tell us that a publication can lead to more than ten different kinds of derivative products,” says Tung Cheng-yu, general manager at Mirror Fiction. A book’s content can be turned into an e-book, audiobook, graphic novel, TV drama, film, stage play, tabletop game, online game, murder mystery game, and so forth. The possibilities for IP licensing are infinite.

Sharply attuned to the potential of IP, Mirror Fiction—Taiwan’s largest and most ambitious content development company—has established both an online writing platform and a publishing house, aiming to attract talented writers from all walks of life. The editors pick the most promising works from their platform and publish these in book form. They then actively explore opportunities to generate derivative works. In 2018 Mirror launched its biennial awards for fiction writing. The awardees are given priority for publication and screen adaptation. The Attorney from Bachimen, due to be released in 2023 and already a hot topic, is adapted from the novel that won first prize in 2020.

The Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) has also brought out packages that encourage collaboration between content creators, publishers, and the film and TV industry. Every year the agency invites publishers to submit books for consideration, and from this list investors and producers select 50 titles that are most suitable for adaptation. Then after the rights are licensed the agency awards grants to facilitate the adaptation process. It has also set up IP Meetup, an online platform that allows content creators and publishers to upload their publications, graphic novels, video projects, games, and other works, to increase their exposure and foster collaborative opportunities.

It is not just literary fiction that lends itself to adaptations. Essays and other non-fiction works can also be given audiovisual form. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)

The Attorney from Bachimen won first prize at Mirror Fiction’s biennial awards for fiction writing in 2020. It has since been published in book form and adapted into a TV series.

Speaking to all

While there’s no lack of good subject matter in Taiwan, what other factors determine whether a drama can become a smash hit? This is a question that preoccupies Lu Jiun Wei, deputy chief executive officer at TAICCA.

If films and TV dramas were purely works of art, they would only need to embody the idiosyncratic ideas and visions of the directors, with no need to pay heed to ratings and box-office earnings. But in the film and TV industry, one must consider the preferences and habits of the audience, as well as market demand and marketing strategies. “We often refer to films and TV dramas as ‘works,’ but actually they should be called ‘products,’” Lu says. It is necessary to adjust the way we conceptualize films and TV dramas.

The commercialization of audiovisual works doesn’t mean that they have to pander to vulgar tastes. Rather, they tell stories through a language that can be understood by the highly educated and the general public alike across the world. Commercial screenwriting can stimulate interest in Taiwan’s local cultures. “A topic like religious culture certainly has a place in the international market, but it has to undergo some sort of transformation. We can’t simply present a straight­forward narrative as if it were a documentary,” Lu observes.

With regard to IP development, Mirror Fiction has designed a set of selection criteria for stories and scripts. “A good story must have three-dimensional characters. There must be conflicts, so that the plot will move forward, rather than going round and round in ­literary ­monologues. As well as attracting readers, it has to impress producers and make them want to adapt it,” Tung Cheng-yu says.

In order to create a literary work suitable for adaptation, editors have to give targeted advice. As a result, at Mirror Fiction, authors no longer insist on “zero changes.” Tung says that the novels published by her company often go through six or seven drafts.

Mirror Fiction taps into the journalistic resources of its parent company, Mirror Media. Mirror Fiction proposes compelling collaborative projects, inviting journalists with a good writing style to try their hands at literary fiction. It also draws on its professional networks to forge new connections, enabling writers to conduct research and interviews before they begin to write. “Writers produce locally grounded, credible works not by dreaming up their plots at home, consulting foreign publications, or recycling stereotypes, but by doing field research,” Lu says.

Connecting with the world

The influx of global streaming platforms has sent shockwaves through Taiwan’s film and TV industry. Seismic changes across the world, talent returning to Taiwan, and the country being in the international spotlight are all factors that have contributed to the trend. How to seize these favorable opportunities and reach out to the wider world has become a vital issue.

In order to gain a stronger foothold in foreign markets, in recent years TAICCA has been actively participating in film and TV industry trade shows overseas. Priority is given to potential markets in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Europe. The agency has signed a memorandum of understanding with Series Mania, Europe’s biggest festival dedicated to TV series, becoming its first long-term collaborator from Asia.

For its part, Mirror Fiction is working hard to promote its publications in South Korea. “South Korea’s film and TV industry is among the strongest in Asia, catering to the country’s enormous demand for creative content. However, after developing for many years, they have encountered some bottlenecks and are welcoming stimulation from foreign cultures,” Tung tells us.

“The most precious thing about Taiwan is our creative freedom,” Tung says. The immense popularity of Korean films and TV dramas across the world confirms that the development of the film and TV industry is predicated neither on the scale of the domestic market nor on how many people speak a certain language. Taiwanese writers are already blessed with freedom of speech. If we build on this solid basis, actively engage in inter­national exchanges, and always insist on quality, Taiwan’s audiovisual culture can also take the world by storm.