Why are Chinese audiences going for Korean musicals rather than Western shows?
A scene from Mia Famiglia / Courtesy of Hong Company
As the lights dimmed in the Shanghai theater, the string quartet struck up once more for the encore.
Tina Zhang was fully drawn into the psychological thriller, but it was not until after the show that she found out that the musical was originally from South Korea.
Zhang, 39, saw the official Chinese adaptation of Interview for the first time last year.
"The logic was tight, the plot was well-structured and interwoven, and it was genuinely engaging," she said.
Over the past few years, a number of licensed South Korean musicals have received a warm reception in China, where cultural overlap helps them to win over audiences more easily than their Western counterparts.
Xu Jianing, a 23-year-old postgraduate student in Shanghai, said Interview was the best South Korean adaptation she has seen so far.
"Every character is vividly portrayed, and everything connects seamlessly. At the same time, while the main storyline stays intact, different actors still have room for interpretation, and there are intentional ambiguities that invite the audience to think for themselves."
This trend has taken root despite an unofficial ban on South Korean entertainment.
China's boycott began 10 years ago when Seoul's deployment of a US missile defence system angered Beijing, which viewed the move as a threat to its security interests.
Although Beijing never formally announced a ban, South Korean films, television dramas and pop acts virtually disappeared from the Chinese market. Only in recent years have there been signs of a thaw, with several K-pop artists quietly returning to the Chinese mainland for small-scale events to meet fans.
However, the theater scene seems to have flown under the radar.
Although there are no official statistics, licensed South Korean musicals reportedly comprise somewhere between a third and a half of all productions now staged in China.
In Shanghai, one of China's largest musical theater markets, adaptations of the Korean musicals Mia Famiglia and Mio Fratello have been well received since their premieres in August 2020 and April 2021.
The highly immersive productions - which have been on open-ended runs - have attracted a loyal following and had sustained commercial success, with people travelling across the country to see them.
A research paper published in April in China's Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Exploration pointed to the nations' shared cultural background as a reason for this effective collaboration.
"China and South Korea belong to the broader East Asian cultural sphere and share similarities in cultural traditions, social values and aesthetic sensibilities. These commonalities have provided comparable cultural foundations for localisations of the musical, an art form originally imported from the West," the researchers wrote.
Zhang said she found there was no cultural barrier at all. She said she did not have a second thought about whether the original story was from another country.
On the other hand, Western shows can miss the mark.
Mio Fratello's cast / Courtesy of Kontentz Planning
While the most famous shows retain their loyal fans - all 64 performances in China for the 40th-anniversary run of Les Miserables was sold out - not all productions are successful. Many imported musicals are criticised for their "outdated storylines", according to social media posts.
"When will Western musicals move beyond all the melodramatic romance, cheating husbands, mistresses and love-triangle drama?" one wrote on a dedicated group for theatergoers on social media platform Douban.
At the same time, the cultural affinity between China and South Korea also means the exchange can flow both ways.
In July 2024, The Butterfly on the Bund 1939 became the first Chinese musical to be licensed for a South Korean production. Set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, the work struck a chord with Korean audiences through its portrayal of the shared historical experience of colonial rule and wartime suffering in the two countries.
More recently, the Chinese musical #0528 - which follows the story of an aspiring actor on Broadway - was also licensed for a South Korean production that debuted in Seoul late last year.
Some of the South Korean musicals staged in Shanghai are based on classics, while others are original stories. The original plots include the musical Fan Letter, which won critical acclaim when it premiered in South Korea in 2016, before being remade in Chinese in 2022.
Adaptations for the Chinese market often make changes to fit with the country's history.
For example, Fan Letter's Chinese version is set in Shanghai, rather than wartime Seoul. Nevertheless, the protagonists in both versions navigate similar challenges during the Japanese colonial era.
However, when the musical The Goddess Is Watching, which is set against the Korean war, was adapted, the backdrop was reinvented.
For many such productions, the teams behind the scenes usually include the original South Korean production's director and crew. When the original creative team is involved, adaptors may gain a deeper understanding of the creators' original intentions and the essence of the story.
Xu said the practice was "a very positive model".
"At the very least, as an audience member, it allows us to experience excellent works - even if we cannot watch the original Korean production, we can still see a Chinese version," she said.
Over the past few years, China's appetite for musical theater has grown.
Last year, the number of performances rose 15 per cent year on year, bringing in 1.8 billion yuan ($265 million) - more than three times the 2019 figure, according to media reports.
The trend shows no signs of abating, with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his South Korean counterpart Lee Jae Myung agreeing at a summit in Beijing earlier this year to "gradually" increase cultural exchanges between the two countries.
In the long run, Xu said, greater collaboration between the countries could "contribute to the growth and professionalisation of China's own musical theater industry".
In recent months, a number of domestic productions have been criticised over their storylines and stage design.
The Pirate Queen, from a critically acclaimed domestic production team, was eagerly anticipated. However, many viewers left critical comments on social media platforms after it premiered last month, arguing that the supposedly feminist story about a real-life pirate leader lacked a narrative for the protagonist's growth.
Zhang said she hoped that Chinese productions could learn from their Korean counterparts and "convey their cultural depth" using a more mature approach.
Read the article at SCMP.