Netflix outlines plans for Chinese-language content growth

Netflix is to further invest in Chinese-language content and focus on local stories with a particular emphasis on Taiwan.

The streaming giant launched in Taiwan in 2016 and has steadily been building its audience through licensing hit titles such as Marry My Dead Body and Incantation as well as commissioning original content, with a raft of projects unveiled earlier this year.

Netflix’s head of Chinese language content, Maya Huang, has now revealed next steps for the platform in the region.

“Our audience in Taiwan has such a strong passion and sense of pride for Chinese-language content,” she said during an on-stage conversation at the Content Asia Summit in Taipei. “To share that with our audience, we’re really tapping into the local creative community. Creators, producers, writers, and directors in Taiwan have a good understanding of genres and a very strong sense for universal topics that are not only relevant to our local audience, but also appeal to global audiences.

“We are trying to push the boundaries by bringing in more resources, investing in local stories more, and also helping creators dare to tell bolder stories, to make genres that have not been seen in Taiwan before.”

Citing the example of hit Netflix’s Taiwanese crime thriller series Copycat Killer, Huang said: “It was actually adapted from a Japanese novel, but the show’s Taiwanese creators were able to convert it, translate it, into a story that’s so authentic and relatable to the local audience. But in the meantime, it has the most thrilling and most engaging elements of the crime genre that are able to attract a wider audience, even outside Chinese speaking regions.”

Sharing upcoming titles for our Chinese language slate, including The Resurrected and Forget You Not, Huang discussed the focus on developing titles for the local audience.

“What we are looking for is really to have stories that will first and foremost resonate with our local audience, which is in Taiwan,” she explained. “When we talk about Chinese language content, we are not talking about a diaspora all over the world — we are more focused on Taiwan and then the APAC regional audience. Because it’s not just the language that we share, there’s also the cultural part, the history that we share.”

Huang also addressed how local productions and partnerships, such as the recently announced Netflix Fund for Creative Equity initiative held in collaboration with TAICCA, is helping to build skills in the next generation of local production crew and creators.

“The production ecosystem here in Taiwan has its own strengths and challenges,” she added. “What we are doing right now is really making long term investments in talent, both above the line and below the line. Each time we make an original show, we are working with local talent to really bring up the quality of the storytelling, the quality of the production, and also the best practice when it comes to safety and respect on-set.”

Huang used upcoming series Born For The Spotlight as “a great example of a local creator having a local success and then trying to do something bigger”.

The 12-part series is written and directed by Yen Yi-wen (The Making Of An Ordinary Woman) and produced by Olive Ting (Oh No! Here Comes Trouble) and is set amid the cutthroat world of showbusiness, exploring the inner worlds of actresses across three generations.

It will mark the first time that Taiwanese actresses Hsieh Ying-xuan and Cheryl Yang have starred alongside each other. They portray once inseparable best friends that have since become estranged and bitter rivals.

“We believe the glamor and juicy drama of show business is going to have a universal appeal,” said Huang.

The series is the only Chinese-language title selected for the On-Screen section of this year’s Busan International Film Festival and will receive its world premiere at the festival in South Korea before its release on Netflix on November 7.

Netflix will have a strong presence at BIFF. The festival will open with the world premiere of Netflix Original Uprising, a Korean period drama produced and co-written by Park Chan-wook, that marks the first time a streaming title has been set as the opening title of Asia’s biggest film festival.

The streamer will also increase its support on the industry side of BIFF as an official industry partner for the first time. As part of this collaboration, it will present the inaugural Creative Asia Forum, a one-day event designed to nurture emerging filmmakers, creatives, and production professionals.

Alongside Born For The Spotlight in the On Screen section, further Netflix titles include Japan’s Beyond Goodbye and the second season of Korea’s Hellbound. The festival line-up will also include Norwegian documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, which won two Sundance awards.

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