“Beauty Hao Lan” Faces Broadcast Delay
Producer Yu Zheng hints at censorship concerns
Hot on the heels of The Story of Yanxi Palace <延禧攻略>, the highly anticipated premiere of Beauty Hao Lan <皓鑭傳> in November has been postponed. While fans are speculating that the reason for the delay was to enable the web broadcast to coincide with its television premiere, producer Yu Zheng (于正) hinted at the real reasons on his new Instagram account.
Censorship to Blame for Delay?
Famous for his fiery speech on Weibo, Yu Zheng started his Instagram account in November. When fans speculated that Beauty Hao Lan’s screening was delayed due to timing concerns, he denied making edits to the production’s music in order to strive for perfection.
Recently, he also posted a picture from the drama and quoted a verse from Chinese poet Li Po’s (李白) poem, with the lines “I’d cross the Yellow River, but blocked by ice I can’t go. I’d climb Mount Taihang, but the sky’s darken’d by drifting snow,” hinting at the drama’s premier being fraught with difficulties. When a fan commented that delays are fine as long as scenes are not cut, Yu replied with the cryptic “The talk of insignificant people are ignored,” implying that censorship is indeed the issue.
Other Period Dramas Also Affected
According to Sina, web dramas and films are usually self-regulated, but due to recent rulings, future web productions will need to be reviewed by authorities and subject to the same approval process as television productions. Besides Beauty Hao Lan, other period productions like Peace in Palace, Peace in Chang’an <天下長安> and Goodbye My Princess <東宮> have also been pulled from their premiere dates.
Ever since the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) set new regulations to restrict period dramas, television channels have been reducing episodes for period productions, leading to numerous lengthy period dramas being cut or even pulled from their airing slots. Many big budget web productions scheduled to premier in 2019 including Empress of the Ming <大明皇妃孫若微> and Eternal Love, The Pillow Book <三生三世枕上書> will be subject to the same strict reviewing process, casting doubt on whether they will also face delayed broadcast.
Source: Ettoday
This article is written by JoyceK for JayneStars.com.
Yes to limiting the number of episodes. 50 episodes+ is the new average. Jeez
@tiffany pretty sure 2018 – period drama avg is 60 lol. But I agree, we need to go down to 40-50. And modern drama need to be sub 30
That’s a good news to me…reducing the number of episodes for Mainland period dramas that are often very long & draggy.
Hopefully that regulation applies to Mainland modern dramas too. That would help to promote Mainland dramas to audiences like me who are not keen to watch long dramas.