Good Chinese TV shows?

jckeith
 May 03, 2009, 07:04 PM posted in General Discussion

I'm looking for some good Chinese TV shows to watch. It seems that Chinese movies have long caught up to American movies in terms of quality, but the Chinese TV shows I've watched seemed a bit lacking. Do you guys have any recommendations? I was considering just checking out 1 or 2 of the bestsellers on Yesasia.com.

I'm open to pretty much all genres, but I prefer action and sci-fi type shows (24, Battlestar Galactica, The Shield, etc), also dramas (House, Dexter, etc). Although, I'm guessing that the most popular shows in China are probably love shows...

Recommendations on good places to get TV shows are appreciated to.

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yuehan29
 May 04, 2009, 05:43 AM

Some recommendations:

  • 奋斗: decent source of 20-something urban speech, OK story.
  • 新上海滩: 30s Shanghai gangsters. I liked this show a lot. My wife says that the original was better (this was apparently a remake), but I've never seen the original.
  • 喜耕田的故事: show about farmers in Liaoning. I thought it was pretty entertaining, but the accents can be tough if you're not accustomed to them.
  • 武林外传: comedy, mocks the costume dramas so popular in China, can be hard to understand (humor is hard to understand in any foreign langauge). Funny as hell, though.
  • 东北一家人: oldie but goody. If you're not up on dongbei vernacular it can be tough, but it's funny.

As for watching them, I'd recommend Youku or Tudou. They load pretty slowly overseas, but you can find just about anything on them.

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suxiaoya
 May 04, 2009, 05:49 AM

A ChinesePod Twitter follower recommended 'Struggle', a Chinese drama series. You can read about/buy it here.

 

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jckeith
 May 04, 2009, 06:38 AM

Thanks guys. This looks like a great start. I'll definitely look into these.