TV Tuesday: Cultural Immersion

[yourlibrarian]

If you're watching non-English shows (Asian, Scandinavian, etc.), what attracted you to them? Was it the genre, the settings, the actors, or something else that appealed to you?

Comments

[linky]

For me the genre can play a big part. A good example being Tokusatsu, which is a genre that originated in Japan that focuses on special effects. (Though multiple countries outside Japan have made media that is classified as part of the genre too.) Both practical and digital effects are used, though practical effects still are very prominent in modern shows and films in the genre. And can use a interesting mix of both too! I really enjoy practical effects so I'm glad this genre is still using them a lot so many decades after it started.

[starfleetbrat]

I think many non-english countries do things differently to the UK/US so it can be quite refreshing. Less predictable. And sometimes those countries have their own unique culture and mythology to draw upon which can make for interesting stories.

There's also different ideas of what might happen far in the future for sci-fi, or in police/mystery shows they often have different laws and methods of investigating.

Sometimes its the setting, for example all those Nordic Noir where its perpetual winter and everyone is wandering around in the snow (I rarely see snow in my part of Australia) or along the coast with majestic mountains as a backdrop.

Its just the different-ness I guess.

[jo]

I'm not currently watching anything non-English, but I have, and will again, I'm sure. Some years back, BBC4 was on a Scandi Noir kick, televising every Saturday evening mostly Danish productions such as Borgen, Forbrydelsen (The Killing), Bron/Broen (The Bridge), and non-Scandinavian fare such as Engrenages (Spiral - French). I learned about them via The Guardian, and managed to find torrents online as that was the only way to access them. Borgen eventually found its way to TVO here in Ontario, and then ended up on Netflix, but the other series I don't think have ever been available by more legal means. Anyway, Borgen is, of course, a political drama, the others were police procedurals. Those are the main genres I tend to favour (in any language, TBH). Other examples I've watched (via Netflix) include Okkupert (Occupied - Norwegian - political thriller), Karppi (Deadwind - Finnish), Entrapped (Icelandic), and Sorjonen (Bordertown - Finnish) -- all police procedurals. I guess what appeals is learning about different legal/police systems (nice break from all the US stuff). Borgen appealed in large part due to its lead, Sidse Babbett Knudsen, and it was fun seeing parliamentary politics play out (and appreciating how it resembled/differed from the Canadian system). I also found that scenery/landscape, especially in the Finnish shows, reminded me a lot of Northern Ontario, where I grew up.

[executrix]

I used to like Borgen because the Prime Minister's husband was so supportive of and helpful do her. Then when he turned into a creep I stopped watching. I loved that the Spindoktor looked exactly like Pacey Whitter from Dawson's Creek, so I like to think THAT's what happened to him. (I guess he didn't want to wait for his life to be over, so he moved to Denmark.)
I watched all 10 seasons of Seaside Hotel on PBS Passport. You go, Amanda! And now I know the Danish word for bootlegger: "spritzmueller." Amanda's third husband sure had plot armor, though.

[tarlanx]

I'm really enjoying Asian dramas and movies at the moment.

I've always been a fan of mythology and martial arts/action but never got drawn into watching until I saw The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity on Netflix. I love all the high fantasy in shows like 'Eternal Love', 'Till The End of the Moon', 'Ashes of Love', 'The Blooms at Ruyi Pavilion' etc. I am fascinated by all the gorgeous costumes, the scenery and the magic element.

I love all the cultivation and martial arts in shows like 'Word of Honor' and 'The Untamed', which had the added advantage of being gay under the disguise of bromance. Again, the costumes, the culture, and all the action and adventure and romance.

Of course, I do tend to check out other works by actors I enjoyed so I've watched a few modern Chinese dramas too that have been very good like 'Advance Bravely' and 'Everyone Wants to Meet You'

I was also drawn to some of the Japanese and Thai BL (boy love) dramas such as the wonderful 'A Tale of a Thousand Stars', and to all the incredible horror/supernatural dramas coming out of South Korea like 'Mystic Pop-up Bar', Hellbound, 'Sweet Home', 'Tale of the Nine-tailed' etc.

In general though I have no problems with watching ANY non-English TV or movie no matter which country produced it, if it falls into my favorite genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror, action... as well as (gay-)romance!

[caramarie]

When I was a child watching Sailor Moon, I was intrigued when I learned it was Japanese (and that there was more to the story that hadn't been animated!) And then I got into anime (: So I guess I started young!

I think part of it's that my parents always happily watched subtitled movies, so I've never thought of stuff not being in English as a barrier. (Also, very little of what I watch is from my own country, so even though I'm a native English speaker most English stuff is still 'foreign' culturally.)

I do watch a lot of kdramas in the crime/thriller/horror vein – I guess the style tends to work for me, and then once you've watched a few you end up watching more because you like a particular actor or something ... and it just goes on!

[rogueslayer452]

For me, it was due to me feeling uninterested in American shows in recent years that I wanted something new and different to cleanse my palate.

I have been watching non-English shows on and off for years, since the early 00s (mainly jdramas with some kdramas) but it wasn't until 2020 when I truly dove right back into things, the gateway being The Untamed which I saw everywhere in the fandom spaces I follow, and my curiosity led me to that and has since expanded far beyond. Now, Asian dramas are the majority of my watching, mostly Asian dramas (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai).

I like seeing the different kinds of stories and tropes used in these kinds of dramas, the differences between not just Western culture and Asian culture but also other Asian cultures with their media, as well (ex: cdramas have fantastic costume and historical dramas especially with their wuxia/xianxia genres, kdramas have such emotionally gripping modern dramas, Thai dramas have such good BL/GL content). I think watching anything that isn't from your culture in general can expose you to so many great things, from the language and culture to the kinds of storytelling used in their fiction. Transmigration and isekai stories, for example, is a huge trope in Asian dramas/novels that it makes me giddy every time I see it because the concept can be used in so many different ways. A lot of it is tied to their culture (rebirth, reincarnation) and it's fascinating to see. In general I think the more you get exposed to these things, the more you start developing an extended palate and expanding your interests beyond what is mainstream in your own culture. Plus I like that there's more availability of viewing these Asian dramas now more than before.

[yourlibrarian]

Oh that's interesting, I hadn't heard of it before.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, I could see legal procedurals being quite interesting by comparison.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, I liked Borgen exactly because it was fascinating to see a political show with such a different frame of reference.

[yourlibrarian]

I thought that too about the two actors!

I think I confused that series with Hotel Portofino -- sounds like they have the same premise?

[executrix]

Not dissimilar, but I liked Hotel Portofino much less. I was amused to see that one of the characters in Hotel Portofino is played by the guy who plays Armand in Interview With a Vampire, because being a vampire would be handy for his character.

[yourlibrarian]

Are there differences between the Asian horror dramas and U.S. ones? It's not a genre I tend to watch so I'm curious.

[yourlibrarian]

Although I grew up multilingual, I almost never had access at home to non-English work. We didn't even have split language films or TV shows where it's a sort of half and half in terms of dialogue.

[yourlibrarian]

II think I'd find the historical dramas particularly interesting, especially since with English shows there tend to be two particular time periods where most historical stories are set and I'm pretty tired of them. So it would certainly be a way of getting different history shows.

[caramarie]

Yeah, it's great that things are so much more accessible now! I can imagine if I'd grown up even just in a smaller town (with less good video stores) I would have had much less opportunity to experience non-English stuff than I did.

[china_shop]

I watched my first Kdrama in 2013, after seeing a vid in festivids. The drama was You're Beautiful, about a nun-in-training who goes undercover as her twin brother in a boy band. I loved that it was crackfic on the screen, but even more, I adored the way it had so much fun the premise, lingered on emotional beats, and took its time with the story. Since then I've watched dozens of Kdramas, alone and with friends, and even spent a few years learning Korean.

There just isn't a satisfying English-language equivalent to this genre. They're often cracky (time travel, ghosts, prophetic dreams, telepathy, people who can't tell lies without hiccoughing, woman undercover as a man, man undercover as a woman, woman with face-blindness falls for an AI, man with an allergy to other humans falls for a woman pretending to be a robot), good-hearted, a blend of humour/drama/romance(/action), and romantic. They're generally a single 12- to 20-episode season, telling a complete story, no follow-ups. I go through patches where I have more misses than hits with the ones I try, but by and large, this is the genre of my heart. I mostly watch contemporary ones, but there are some amazing historicals too.

(I've seen two Chinese dramas: Guardian (2018) which is my primary fandom and is a completely different genre from the above, and Nothing But Love, a contemporary romance set in a tennis club, which felt Kdrama-adjacent to me. :-)

[yourlibrarian]

Haha, that really does sound like crackfic given a series!

[china_shop]

It's exactly as amazing as it sounds! :DDD

[flo_nelja]

When I started to read manga/watch anime about 30 years ago, it was because it had queer characters and female writers, and multi-episode arcs with an ending planned in advance.
Now I'm glad cartoons can do this too, but I kept the habit.
(Also I watch tv shows from my country sometimes, but there's no reason other than "people of my family talk about it" or "they're on tv right now")

[tarlanx]

To be honest, some of the horror series coming out of the US recently, such as The Last of Us and even The Walking Dead are equally as good as the South Korean horror but there are far fewer US shows in that genre. What I like a little more about the Korean horror is that it is often more imaginative and more tightly edited. There are fewer (if any!) filler episodes and in some ways that gives the quieter moments - of character bonding/romance - more impact.

[8hyenas]

For me, it's because I don't know the tropes. US shows are always predictable, and there’s almost always a moral lesson. Characters don’t cheat or get abortions, and if they do cheat, they never get away with it. With a Finnish show, I have no idea what’s coming next.

Non-US crime shows are also better because they don’t revolve around US police. It’s more interesting when the main suspect isn’t gunned down in the first fifteen minutes. US shows always have some over-the-top “here’s how I escaped the cops” moment, which just feels unrealistic and silly to me.

[barbaratp]

Depende muito. Assisti algumas novelas chinesas porque eram boas, com ótimos roteiros e atores incríveis. Os filmes asiáticos foram a mesma coisa, sempre porque me prendeu algo da trama e eu não pude deixar de assistir. Como dublagem e legenda sempre são ótimos recursos não me importo em quase nada com de onde vem o conteúdo, mas sim se ele é bom.

[feurioo]

I remember loving Tokusatsu Gagaga as a cute, little introduction to the genre.

[feurioo]

man undercover as a woman

Any recs that are not historical? ;)

[china_shop]

No, I'm afraid The Tale of Nokdu is the only one I know that did it well.

[yourlibrarian]

I do wish more shows had an ending planned in advance and also the right number of episodes leading up to it!

[yourlibrarian]

Definitely a big draw of certain shows to me is that I don't already know where they're going or where a story will end up.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, a quality show is a quality show and well worth trying out.

[feurioo]

I was afraid you were thinking of that one!

(Btw: I enjoyed Meet You at the Blossom but mainly because it was a setup for BL.)

[full_metal_ox]

You may not have heard the word “tokusatsu”, but you’ve seen it: Power Rangers—-which originated as a Westernization of the Japanese Super Sentai franchise—-Godzilla, and Ultraman.

[violateraindrop]

I'm German, but I rarely watch German TV productions. Occasionally I will watch something set in a place I'm familiar with. Friesland is a procedural which is set and shot around the area I spent all my childhood vacations. I also watched a made for TV movie which was partially shot in the town I live in, but it was atrociously bad.

The bigger productions, like Babylon Berlin, have a very Hollywood-feel to them. I would say overall German TV shows are not that different compared to US/UK productions.

There will be a German version of Ghosts. It'll stream (I think in its entirety) on March 7 and I'm kinda looking forward to that.

Sorry, it feels like my entire reply doesn't even fit the question...

[yourlibrarian]

Oh sure it does! Although these would be English language productions I have definitely tried out shows that were set in places I knew. I think it's also interesting to see how a show gets adapted in different languages and countries. As I understand it the UK's Office was made into at leat 8 other language productions, and I wonder if part of the reason it was adapted rather than just dubbed is because comedy is a difficult export, especially one which focuses on the everyday life of an average business -- which will likely be rather different from place to place given everyday habits.

[china_shop]

(Oh, interesting! Good to know. :-)

[violateraindrop]

Germany has a very loose adaptation of The Office which is pretty popular, but I think more focused on the main character than the original. I haven't seen any version of it, but that's the impression I get from the memes lol

With Ghosts it makes sense to have a localized version with different historic characters. While a finance bro from the early 2000s can work in different countries, a Lenape person is tied to a very specific setting. Although they managed to include a Viking...

[tinny]

Good question! And, weirdly, I haven't found my answer in any of the previous comments.

The original reason was BL. I didn't know that there was a strong BL tradition in Korean and Thai dramas, but I've always liked gay media, so when I realized that there were a lot of those out there, I got into Asian BL.

That's really it, for my base motivation. Other things happened (like Zhu Yilong), but on the whole "watch all the gay romance" is it for me. :D

[yourlibrarian]

Given that it's harder to find than many other show subjects that makes perfect sense!