'Chinese wave' needs quality productions to swell

News that the Internet novel-based drama Nirvana in Fire was purchased by a Korean TV station and will be broadcast on Tuesday has cheered its fans. In fact, the TV series had already entered North America last month and will be broadcast in countries and regions such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia, which is seen as a sign of wider overseas recognition for Chinese TV dramas, and possibly even the start of a "Chinese wave" similar to Korean wave sweeping Asia during the last decade.

Most TV adaptations of online novels have quite a bad reputation among Chinese audience, not only because these productions contain stupid factual mistakes and ruin the original work due to poorly executed adaptations, but also because it is clear all the producers care about is grabbing a bigger share of the TV market with a star-studded cast, rather than presenting quality work to its audience. Take The Lost Tomb for example: The adaptation of the novel of the same name, which enjoys wide readership, was criticized for its poor quality and lame storyline and it scored badly on major film rating websites.

Under such circumstances, it is not hard to imagine why Nirvana in Fire could win the hearts of millions of viewers and has generated as many as 3.55 billion tweets on Sina Weibo alone. Regarded as the Chinese version of The Count of Monte Cristo, the drama tells the story of how the hero, Mei Changsu paves the way for his friend to come to power as the emperor and avenges the injustices to his father, fatally wronged 12 years before.