Stuck at home for the New Year holiday? Shut off that VPN and delve into the world of China’s video streaming services. As more people forego TV for online viewing, exclusive rights to foreign hits are becoming a big business. While the industry is constantly changing with increased regulation, here are five hits legally available behind the Great Firewall.
1. True Detective
Time is a flat circle. That was just one of the lessons we learned from this Southern Gothic cop drama. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson give transcendent performances as detectives searching for a serial killer in Louisiana over the course of 17 years. It’s one of the many exclusives available at QQ as part of Tencent’s groundbreaking deal with HBO, and is available through their paid subscription model (RMB18/month, RMB40/three-months, RMB128/year) that provides access to recent films like critic favorite Boyhood, acclaimed new TV hits like Transparent and most tantalizingly, the upcoming season of Game of Thrones.
Available at: v.qq.com
2. The Knick
Film auteur Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Contagion) directs all 10 episodes of this acclaimed medical drama, which provides a fascinating (and at times, gross) look at early 20th century medicine. Clive Owen (Closer) stars as the drug addicted chief surgeon at the Knickerbocker Hospital who comes up with innovative and experimental techniques to treat diseases like syphilis and typhoid. Alongside The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, the show is one of Iqiyi’s Western exclusives. The Baidu unit has previously focused on obtaining rights to Korean and Chinese hits, but is aiming to buy distribution rights to over 1,000 US movie titles this year.
Available at: iqiyi.com
3. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Since successfully adapting The Office for American audiences, Michael Shur has crafted offbeat, intelligent network comedies like Parks and Recreation. His latest show follows Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg as the brilliant New York police detective Jake Peralta “who can figure out anything except how to grow up.” The show picked up last year’s Golden Globe for best comedy and is one of the few exclusives on LeTV. Last year, their total revenue grew to nearly RMB10 billion and CEO Jia Yueting has set this year’s target at RMB23 billion.
Available at: www.letv.com
4. Black Mirror Christmas Special
Charlie Brooker’s delightfully dark Black Mirror anthology series enjoys a rabid fan base in China. Last December, it returned with a Christmas special featuring three interwoven stories of “Yuletide techno-paranoia.” Mad Men’s Jon Hamm and Oona Chaplin (the unfortunate Mrs. Robb Stark) star in creepy stories that delve into a nightmarish world of technology and bring the social media concept of blocking people to real life. Original streaming service Sohu scored the rights to the special, adding it to their impressive catalogue of exclusives that includes The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live and Ellen.
Available at: tv.sohu.com
5. The Walking Dead
Xingshi Zourou (literally ‘Traveling Corpses, Walking Meat’) is China’s original online foreign hit. Its fourth season drew over 27 million views and the show has really hit its stride in season five, as its main group of survivors split up to fend off cannibals and zombies. The season resumes on February 8 and remains the crown jewel of Youku exclusives, which also includes the new Arctic-set murder mystery Fortitude. It’s been a big year for the company: Alibaba paid USD1.2 billion for an ownership stake, and Youku turned its first profit last quarter.
Available at: tv.youku.com
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