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New Chinese drama has made its debut overseas with its unique traditional aesthetics and fantasy genre.
The costume drama
The Longest Promise is adapted from the popular novel
Zhu Yan by Chinese author Cang Yue. This 40-episode fantastic story depicts a hypothetical world in which three ethnicities each have unique magical abilities, ranging from resurrecting withering plants to changing tears into pearls.
The main plot revolves around a prince and a princess who fall in love and join forces to save the world from an unparalleled state of instability.
In addition to being one of the most popular Chinese dramas among domestic audiences, the drama also debuted on Netflix on July 7, five days after its release on WeTV, Tencent Video’s foreign streaming portal.
Since its debut on WeTV, which is available in over 110 countries and regions, the drama has emerged as one of the top five most popular series in Thailand, as well as the top spot for single-day viewership in several countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Since its debut on Netflix, the drama has been among the top playlists in countries including Indonesia, Nigeria, and the Philippines.
According to the latest data released by Flixpatrol, the drama ranks No. 28 in the global daily list of Netflix TV programs, and it once ranked in the top 8 on Netflix Singapore for its highest broadcast volume.
"From martial arts to the later fantasy genre, ancient costume dramas have been evolving to adapt to the audience's taste. Behind that is the continuous innovation of our popular culture. And it is also necessary to break free from constraints in order to go international," Sun Jiashan, a researcher at the Chinese National Academy of Arts, told the Global Times on Thursday.
The drama has received a score of 8/10 on My Drama List, a fan-aggregated review site for Asian dramas and movies.
The fantasy world system constructed by the drama also inherits the fantasy world described in the famous Chinese mythology
Shan Hai Jing.
The drama has also created a soundstage of nearly 30,000 square meters in order to commit to conveying the traditional oriental aesthetics to the audience.