From QQ:
Now there’s an interesting trend in China’s film and television industry: more and more time-travel themed dramas are made and aired. In these time-travel based TV plays, usually the protagonist is from the modern time and for some reasons and via some means, travels through time and all the way back to the ancient China where he/she will constantly experience the "culture shock" but gradually get used to it and eventually develop a romance in that era. Though obviously the Chinese audience is found of this genre of shows, the country’s authority -General Bureau of Radio, Film and Television, to be exact, is not happy about this trend and calls a halt to the making of this type of drama.
From the end of last year, the time-travel themed drama is becoming more and more popular. Most of these time-travel dramas are based on real historical stories but with many newly added, and usually exaggerated elements to make it funny and more attractive. Nothing is off limits in this television genre. While some find it hilarious, others think the exaggeration and even ridiculous elements added into the story is a real source of annoyance and is a disrespectful for history.
The authority’s decision was made on the Television Director Committee Meeting on April 1st. – but obviously it’s not a prank to fans of the drama genre. The authority has a good reason to go against the genre. "The time-travel drama is becoming a hot theme for TV and films. But its content and the exaggerated performance style are questionable. Many stories are totally made-up and are made to strain for an effect of novelty. The producers and writers are treating the serious history in a frivolous way, which should by no means be encouraged anymore."
![clip_image002[4]](http://www.chinahush.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/clip_image0024.jpg "clip_image002[4]")
Shen Hua (Myth) is the country’s first time-travel TV play and a successful one. The play depicts how a young adolescent travels through time to the China of 2000 years ago and becomes sworn brother with Xiang Yu and Liu Bang, (both are prominent military leaders and political figures during the late Qin Dynasty period of Chinese history) and eventually ends up being an army general leading troops of thousands of soldiers. On the same time, his twin brother and families in the modern days is fighting with a mystery man to find him.
![clip_image002[6]](http://www.chinahush.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/clip_image0026.jpg "clip_image002[6]")
![clip_image002[8]](http://www.chinahush.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/clip_image0028.jpg "clip_image002[8]")
Photos from the TV drama Shen Hua (Myth)
Shen Hua(Myth) is a success in terms of box office but too much made-up stories on the real once-exist historical person makes controversy inevitable. Also many people complain there’re too many mistakes on history facts, making it unbearable to watch.
Photo from Gong, another popular time-travel drama
Besides of the over-exaggerated time-travel dramas, the bureau is also making it clear that no more new film and TV versions of the Four Great Classical Novels should be produced and aired on the screen in the near future. Since 2010, dramas of the Four Great Classical Novels are respectively remade within one year. Attention are wide for sure, but people holds mixed opinion towards these remakes. The major opinion being that the remakes are made in a rush and with lots of changes of the original stories; the original TV version of the four great made years ago is classic and is not easy to be surpassed.
146 comments
lol. They’re worried about historical accuracy when the show is dealing with time travel?
I think it is fair enough , time travel was not invented until 2134 and became first safe in 2183 and only scientist with historical language skills are aloud to make research trips , Partly because of the completely screwed views people had on history for th last 200 years.
right.
Free Ai Weiwei
Mark, free all native american. they were about 100 million strong before european came in and now they stand at less than 1% of US population whilst european are the majority. yet you complaint about tibet, it still has majority tibetan population. Even if tibetan became only 1% of tibet’s population, china still has an excuse following up european example in US, canada, south america, australia, south africa!
100 million? This number you’ve pulled out of the air is wildly inaccurate. The estimates are between 1 and 18 million: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1357826/Native-American/273135/North-America-and-Europe-circa-1492 and that is for North and South America combined.
Furthermore, the #1 killer of native Americans was smallpox and other diseases.
Which were brought by the white man LOL Gary sit down you goof
I was responding to someone who wanted native Americans to be “free” and comparing the intentions of the European settlers who didn’t even know about viruses to the Han Chinese moving to Tibet knowing full well they are just trying to push out the Tibetans. That comparison is what is a goof.
Gary you goof, your logic is flawed. What does the American Indians have anything to do with Chinese/Tibetan relationship? It’s like saying well I’m a child molester but you’re a rapist. You are still a child molester! LOL what a goof sit down bro.
lol
hola china esta monje para mi enrename lucha de china
soy monje como monje
alexis
ask ‘true justice’ what they have in common – that’s who first made that stretched comparison
No, the diseases ravaging Native Americans was well known by the 17th century. Whites gleefully took advantage and saw this as evidence that God wanted them to finish the job.
As for the typical bullshit about Native Americans dying to disease, I don’t buy it. Relocations and brutality no doubt increased death rates from everything to disease to starvation.
Unfortunately for your argument, the American Indians began to die from smallpox brought by Europeans by the early 1500’s, not the 1700’s.
Initially, it was not intentional.
Go back to school and try again, please.
… You believe the stuff they told you in school… I have been to the trail of tears… believe me it wasn’t just disease.
Cripes, I don’t know which of you two I hate more.
debunked numerous times. That conservative number is just used as part of the ongoing belief the americas were largerly uninhabited before the invasion And the number you put forth existed before the 1950s and is the conjecture on only one man’s study
debunked numerous times. That conservative number is just used as part of the ongoing belief the americas were largerly uninhabited before the invasion And the number you put forth existed before the 1950s and is the conjecture on only one man’s study
debunked numerous times. That conservative number is just used as part of the ongoing belief the americas were largerly uninhabited before the invasion And the number you put forth existed before the 1950s and is the conjecture on only one man’s study
True Justice you goof, your logic is flawed. What does the American Indians have anything to do with Ai Weiwei being imprisoned? It’s like saying well I’m a child molester but you’re a rapist. You are still a child molester! LOL what a goof sit down bro.
So, they can always make an alternative drama.
How people from ancient China traveled to our times and found that everyone is happy and everything is harmonious 🙂
of course people from ancient china find everyone in China is happy and everything is harmonious because PEOPLE who are NOT CONTENT either JAILED, DISAPPEARED INTO BLACK PRISONS, or UNDER HOUSE ARREST with TRUMPED UP CHARGES.
Hey, did you know that you are great at spotting sarcasm?
Nulle, she’s being ironic.
How about time travel to the future, where mainland China is a democracy united with Taiwan, elections contested by both Gongchangdang and Guomingdang? Oh well, I guess we’ll have to actually wait for that future before we can see such TV shows.
The hyper-nationalist party wins and decides to end the West financially.
Time travel again, Westerners eating each other and dying in the streets.
or just continue showing WW2 re-enactment, China can’t get enough of it
lol…exactly:)
China is obviously is a caring big brother of Japan on this issue, defending true accounts of WW2 history from still badly-hurt white-American male-masculinity, which resulted in this highly “masculine-missile” oriented time-traveled re-enactment of Pearl Harbor……… but with the stretched-penis benefit of nuclear aircraft carriers, F-14 Tomcats and Phalanx systems……..
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080736/
I’m so happy that them cheap Japanese Zeros were swatted-down like flies by our manly F-14 Tomcat fighter jets………. WOOT!
LOL no way. Fuck china lol bitches.
Strongly approve of this decision.
I wish they would ban time travel drama in the US, because they are so incredibly lame and low quality.
Who is it that watches this manufactured crap? Give me a real and truthful historical drama instead.
Regardless how ridiculous a genre might become, I still prefer that any story can be produced. Besides, what is ‘real and truthful historical drama’? “Truthy” historical drama is usually about as close as you’re going to get.
1. Star Trek was high-quality.
2. Millions of people watch ‘that crap’
3. Imagination builds inventions
4. Enjoy copying the rest of the world for the next 100 years
Star Trek was crap. It was popular because everything else in those decades was crappier.
Crap or not, the fact is Star Trek is NOT BANNED in China. Just Baidu “星际之旅” (“Star Trek” in Chinese).
hola china y entraname al kung fu como monje karate kid como
monje soy monje mesale bien kungfu monje
karate kid soy
monje
Are you dissin’ THE DOCTOR?!?!
dude!!!
A Chinese version of hit US parallel-universe drama ‘Sliders’ could be pitched to get around the new edict. I’m sure there would be many D-grade Chinese actors fighting over who would play Quinn Mallory, the Professor & the black dude. any slapper for the girl [just like Dr Who] *wink*
Why does the stupid government always has a saying in everything the ppl do? We don’t need a “Mega Mom” to control each aspect of our lives…
Let’s make a movie about how ancient ppl travel to our times and find out how much China suck now.
because in the eyes of the CCP party, all citizens doesn’t have the intelligence (or brain cells) to think independently and have to told what to do, what to think, etc.
Nah, let’s make a movie about time travel so that CCP is defeated and a democratic government in society where people actually have common sense and moral. (versus the current CCP society where people are immoral, greedy and spine-less.)
I found the pictures in the post mistaken.It seems it’s not the photos of the Myth film,making it really confusing.
Gary, are you telling me that european “fully knowing they were pushing the natives”? How about those movies where whites portrayed gloriously for attacking and beheading native indian and “utilized” their organs.
Native american was a well established population (example: INCA in peru); but all got destroyed and white pushed their way all the way to become the dominant population; and complain when other race joined their country.
Also, australia didn’t even recognise the native aborigine until after 19th (the aborigine didnt have rights, and was “assimilated”). Imagine if chinese push tibetan to be around 1% of the population AND “assimilate” them, and tell them tibetan culture is inferior, and to adopt a chinese culture (of course, following noble european example in australia, meaning segregation of children from the parents (google: Stolen Generation), and educate their children in camps, without letting them to ever see their parents!).
I guess you have not heard of Indian Casinos….
I am afraid the CCP already doing that by FLOODing the TIBET region WITH HAN CHINESE so the tibetans would amount to 1% of the future target population then FORCE TIBETIAN ASSIMILATION BY BANNING THEIR LANGUAGE and CULTURE since SPEAKING TIBETIAN is ILLEGAL and MANADRIN STANDARD LANGUAGE in TIBET.
at least the “europeans” learned from their mistakes, compared to CCP who didn’t learn from history…
Are we meant to assume, from your comments, that the Chinese government would like to mimic pre-modern European treatment of native populations in territories it colonizes?
All races have committed atrocities at various points of history, but none should aspire to be compared with any other culture’s most villainous, imperialistic era.
Well said. Finally someone with half a brain around here…
Dr. Jones Jr.
.. When eastern countries adopted western attitudes and methods, they spit on the graves of their ancestors. So say Confucius.. so that is what this really amounts to… a hijacking of the ancestral ways by parties unknown… But it’s probably just the Bilderberg Group…
I love the way that Chinese authorities apparently cannot understand the concept of fiction. When people ask why China, despite its economic growth, has not produced many great writers, films, TV shows, etc, the answer is probably that the government is inherently opposed to creativity.
chinese are creative just that like you say, the government is afraid people getting smarter/more creative?
like first emperor of china who burned all scriptures and burned scholars, then you got the qing dinasty, despite zheng he exploration (pre-date colombus, and if continued may possibly made china remain the dominant power) burned all chinese ships and build the “lame wall”.
otherwise, china shoudnt experienced humiliation from foreign powers; and become the centre of science and technology like it had always been for thousands of years.
while I do agree to this complain. Without acknowledging these series or experiencing them I can rightfully tell that many of the stories would be made up. Eventually this can get many people confused with history.
Also who knows if the government want to hax the show to prevent history of China being spoken about…you know, the bad ones:/
Marxism is based on an absolute universe with the CCP as the pinnacle of historic development.
The fantasy of time travel, shows a new reality that is not based on scientific absolutism or absolute objectivity which is the basis of Marxism.
The fantasy of Time Travel gives the individual a post Newtonian freedom to reorder reality which the current Mandarins find most threatening.
The theory of time travel is based on a post Einstein/Bohr/Heisenberg sub atomic like reality, that is totally subjective, and one in which such odious things as the Chinese Communist Party can be rejected and reality reordered to suite the viewer.
Time travel dares to hint at the death of Scientific Marxism. The death of scientific Marxism hints at the finite role of the Chinese communist party. Time travel is part of a quantum reality which must by definition reject objective reality and nonsense like Marxism, and the historical myth of the CCP.
More about Heisenberg
The notion of the observer becoming a part of the observed system is fundamentally new in physics. In quantum physics, the observer is no longer external and neutral, but through the act of measurement he becomes himself a part of observed reality. This marks the end of the neutrality of the experimenter. It also has huge implications on the epistemology of science: certain facts are no longer objectifiable in quantum theory. If in an exact science, such as physics, the outcome of an experiment depends on the view of the observer, then what does this imply for other fields of human knowledge? It would seem that in any faculty of science, there are different interpretations of the same phenomena. More often than occasionally, these interpretations are in conflict with each other. Does this mean that ultimate truth is unknowable?
The results of quantum theory, and particularly of Heisenberg’s work, left scientists puzzled. Many felt that quantum theory had somehow “missed the point”. At least Albert Einstein did so. He was an outspoken critic of quantum mechanics and is often quoted on his comment regarding the Uncertainty Principle: “The Old One (God) doesn’t play dice.” He also said: “I like to believe that the moon is still there even if we don’t look at it.” In particular, Einstein was convinced that electrons do have definite orbits, even if we cannot observe them. In a conversation with Heisenberg he said:
One of the best Chinese-language “time-traveling” movies ever, Iceman Cometh 急冻奇侠 from 1989:
http://www.amazon.com/Iceman-Cometh-Biao-Yuen/dp/6305371636
ICEMAN COMETH is a GOOD TIME-TRAVELING movie, because it really doesn’t distort or pervert history, such as the white-prider time-traveling movie THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (starring Martin Sheen), a very BAD time-traveling movie that only further dumb-down our already languishing American intelligence.
Yes, time-traveling movies may be very ignorant and harmful indeed!
Why are you pretending to be American?
Seriously, why does the WuMao gang always have to try and deceive people? Can’t you use the truth to get your point across?
Why are you pretending to be two prehistoric cartoon characters?
You MeiFeng Dang r always pulling this McCarthyist crap. Prove it or put away your BS list.
No one under 30 watches this crap anyway
I am 40 years old and about to turn 21… my parents are both English literature professors. I am a HUGE fan of Doctor Who.
I am very well read so it is useless to tell me I don’t know what I am talking about. Conjecture is the heart of creative and metaphorical thought. Because something is not true only means you need not take it seriously… not the other way around. Fiction is fun. People burning books and movies about time travel is firewood.
ANY TIME YOU TELL A PERSON WHAT NOT TO THINK-IT IS OPPRESSION! (plain and simple)
And any of you that think you know better than any of the others of you, are just plain big headed. Get over your beliefs and start looking around you. “Who” knows, you may find reality waiting for you out there.
@nulle
” I am afraid the CCP already doing that by FLOODing the TIBET region WITH HAN CHINESE so the tibetans would amount to 1% of the future target population then FORCE TIBETIAN ASSIMILATION BY BANNING THEIR LANGUAGE and CULTURE since SPEAKING TIBETIAN is ILLEGAL and MANADRIN STANDARD LANGUAGE in TIBET.”
I might share the same concern about the assimilation part…
but…speaking tibetan is illegal in Tibet?? where do you get this groundless conclusioin from?
I have a few Tibetan friends, we talk about everyting…I’M SURE EVERYBODY IS FREE TO SPEAK TIBETAN IN TIBET…
Perhaps the Central Committee has watched too many John Nathan-Turner era Doctor Who episodes. Nearly every story from the late ’70s to the late ’80s seemed to end with The Doctor inspiring an overthrow of the local social order.
They could care less about historical accuracy. They just don’t want it countering what they have pushed as history. Communist China has been fearful of things that promote “feudal” china for as long as their has been Communist China. Taiwan might not be able to compete militarily but they ought to think about making entertainment that promotes the past. So the pen can be mightier than the sword.
This is hilarious. Selectively banning fiction seems entirely ridiculous.
Tangentially, _Myth_ looks awesome; please tell me someone’s releasing an English-subtitled DVD set of this series.
Maybe they’re concerned that the Universe will punish them for publicizing time travel, which could unravel the Universe … see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrRiFZ9rGtg
April fools, fool. “The authority’s decision was made on the Television Director Committee Meeting on April 1st”.
HUH???
Do journalist still fact check? With a shrinking world it’s not hard to plug the Chinese government press release into a translator, and find out it contains *no mentioning of time travel*. Here’s the Broadcast Administration announcement:
http://www.sarft.gov.cn/articles/2011/03/31/20110331140820680073.html
The phrase “神怪剧和穿越剧” litterally translates to “spirit-monster theme and transcendental theme”, refering to *crossing-over* (not time travel) ghost stories that are too scary for TV or time slot where children may be watching.
This is the same issue TV censor boards in US would consider.
ChasL appears to be right. That’s a beautiful link he posted there, with a good breakdown of just what is being produced in China.
The Google translate is a bit rough, but it appears that 35 of 2783 “sets” (shows?) are science fiction. Well, I hope the number is growing.
I am sad that time travel drama is not outlawed. I spent a few months in Shanghai and Tianjin, and my TV choices were as follows:
Historical Drama
Historical Drama with martial arts
Historical Drama
Historical Drama where someone whips out a cellphone
Historical Drama
Historical Drama
…etc…
The Cellphone in there was quite discontenting, and rather broke the mood set by everything else.
The real story is the fact there have been too many remakes of the Four Great Works of China in the last couple years, and some of the ridiculous lowbrow treatment are not worthy of historical context of the original work (eg “slapstick comedy version” of Red Chamber Dreams.)
All I have to say about this is, “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Wasn’t all Chinese history contains full of inaccuracies? starting from ancient to modern all distorted in the name of CCP.
It’s far more accurate than any other history, including laughable Korean and Roman accounts
Time Travel for Individuals – not Governments:
To break the restriction of a linear time sequence, the Lost need empirical data – uncorrupted, honest data. However, the Lost have filtered all their data with a scientific-religious presumption:
a finite universe with a finite number of dimensions.
The Lost do not understand, nor do they perceive their conflict with the Infinite Universe and the Infinite number of dimensions…
“…nothing can be added to it.
nor anything taken from it…”
Best Regards.
Frank Hatch
Initial Mass Displacements
Time Travel for Individuals – not Governments:
Governments have no imagination; they are locked into a limited governable analysis. By restricting their dialectical analysis to a linear time sequence, governmental concern is the acceptance of their historical data as the truth. Individuals with imagination are able to treat such truncated “data” as a variable. Such “disrespect” for their data is a totalitarian’s nightmare: the first crack in the governmental justification of dominance over individuals.
Best Regards,
Frank Hatch
Initial Mass Displacements
FrankHatchiii.com
Great, truth, and everything. Some governments are a whole dark side.
Great .That is one huge memorial !
It IS different from all,Thanks a lot for the post. Im a massive fan of the blog,I’m reading every word here.
Your summaries are always top-notch. Thanks for keeping us apprised. I’m reading every word here.
You can’t ban time travel movies … They just come back in time an kill the legislators..
lol
Great Idea….It IS different from all,Thanks a lot for the post. Im a massive fan of the blog,I’m reading every word here.and i thing no any one want to miss to read site .
Man, whoever wrote this article needs to improve their English writing skills. This is terrible!
And they are wiping out helpless African villages courtesy of the local governments in the name of Oil and civilization. what a crap the new era of invasion. I would prefer Alexander the Great and his conquering policy instead of these goof heads.
The west did such a bad job on Afrika for 2 hundred years, so the Chinese have to clean up the mess there and make the Afrikans the new slave worker.
It’s called fiction.
Why authorities making a big deal just about everything?
Did someone payed them to ban it because someone’s drama wasn’t as popular?
I’m not sure how it disrespects history, that could of been changed multiple times by now anyways.
Government opinions are as rich as dog’s fart.
Nothing personal, but they do so much random banning in different countries, it’s ridiculous.
It makes me wonder what makes their logic more reasonable then normal people.
But then again. Winners write history. Even if they’ll kill righteous. Right?
I love time travel dramas. However, time travel is impossible because aside from the obvious paradoxes it creates, time travel violates the first law of thermodynamics. That is, matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed. Time travel violates the law twice. Once by removing matter from one time and again by adding matter to another past or future time.
Well,sometimes Government can be too strict on unnecessary things such as banning this type of drama/movie,maybe afraid of revealing the true story on what’s happening in the past? Actually,if the government wanted to enforced the law of banning time-travel genre,they should provide better excuses rather than stating that they wanted to protect the accuracy of the history showned to the viewers.For me,I don’t think that Time-Travel exist,and it only and only exist in the fiction genre and not in the reality,get on your feet people,don’t get swayed away by the creativity of the producer,peace!
The Chinese government was offended, and afraid of the literature (in the genre, now banned), by Cixin Liu.
It is thoroughly NOT pro-communism. And describes the 1960s revolution for how it was (not the alternative history written by the government )
If you doubt this, read his 3 top selling novels in English.
I haven`t idea this case. I`m going to investigate.