FEATURES
Perfect worlds
06 April 2018
China’s Perfect World Pictures is reviving Singapore’s biggest TV success in a big-budget scripted format play that rides soaring demand for premium Asian drama.
Ten years after its blockbuster run on a local Singapore Chinese TV station, the country’s best-known drama series, The Little Nonya, is back. The return is part of a trend fuelled by rampant demand for premium drama in China as well as for Asian stories, well, everywhere.
The sprawling multi-generational tale about an extended Peranakan family from Malacca is part of a debut slate from the Singapore-based subsidiary of mainland China’s Perfect World Pictures, which hung up its shingle in Singapore in May last year.
The Little Nonya is one of two scripted formats acquired from Singapore’s sole free-TV broadcaster, Mediacorp. The second title is The Awakening, a 1984 classic about Chinese immigrants in Singapore in the early 20th Century, from the 1920s to the end of the Japanese occupation.
The two new productions are among the biggest-budget series to be made in Singapore and Malaysia, with the exception perhaps of Netflix’s two seasons of Marco Polo shot at Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios.
The Perfect World version of The Little Nyonya will be made for between S$22 million/US$16.7 million and S$32/US$24.3 million. The Awakening is budgeted at upwards of S$30 million/US$22.7 million and could go to S$42 million/US$31.8 million.
Production on the 45-episode The Little Nyonya remake, with a script by the series’ original writer Ang Eng Tee, begins in July this year for a scheduled 2019 release. 60-episode period drama, The Awakening – New Edition, will follow in 2019; the release schedule has not been finalised.
John Ho, Perfect World Pictures Singapore’s chief executive, says the success of the original 2008 series drove his decision on The Little Nonya, which ran on Mediacorp’s flagship service, the Chinese Channel 8.
The original series was distributed across China by CITVC, and aired on four satellite channels and at least 10 provincial terrestrial stations, along with widespread distribution across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, where it was given a slot on TVB’s flagship Jade channel. The Little Nonya was also the first Chinese series to air dubbed in Malay on Mediacorp’s Suria channel.
Perfect World’s version is not the first mainland Chinese go at The Little Nonya s...
China’s Perfect World Pictures is reviving Singapore’s biggest TV success in a big-budget scripted format play that rides soaring demand for premium Asian drama.
Ten years after its blockbuster run on a local Singapore Chinese TV station, the country’s best-known drama series, The Little Nonya, is back. The return is part of a trend fuelled by rampant demand for premium drama in China as well as for Asian stories, well, everywhere.
The sprawling multi-generational tale about an extended Peranakan family from Malacca is part of a debut slate from the Singapore-based subsidiary of mainland China’s Perfect World Pictures, which hung up its shingle in Singapore in May last year.
The Little Nonya is one of two scripted formats acquired from Singapore’s sole free-TV broadcaster, Mediacorp. The second title is The Awakening, a 1984 classic about Chinese immigrants in Singapore in the early 20th Century, from the 1920s to the end of the Japanese occupation.
The two new productions are among the biggest-budget series to be made in Singapore and Malaysia, with the exception perhaps of Netflix’s two seasons of Marco Polo shot at Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios.
The Perfect World version of The Little Nyonya will be made for between S$22 million/US$16.7 million and S$32/US$24.3 million. The Awakening is budgeted at upwards of S$30 million/US$22.7 million and could go to S$42 million/US$31.8 million.
Production on the 45-episode The Little Nyonya remake, with a script by the series’ original writer Ang Eng Tee, begins in July this year for a scheduled 2019 release. 60-episode period drama, The Awakening – New Edition, will follow in 2019; the release schedule has not been finalised.
John Ho, Perfect World Pictures Singapore’s chief executive, says the success of the original 2008 series drove his decision on The Little Nonya, which ran on Mediacorp’s flagship service, the Chinese Channel 8.
The original series was distributed across China by CITVC, and aired on four satellite channels and at least 10 provincial terrestrial stations, along with widespread distribution across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, where it was given a slot on TVB’s flagship Jade channel. The Little Nonya was also the first Chinese series to air dubbed in Malay on Mediacorp’s Suria channel.
Perfect World’s version is not the first mainland Chinese go at The Little Nonya story. In 2010, Mediacorp sold adaptation rights to Shanghai Media Group’s WingsMedia, which produced and distributed the series as Qian Jin. Mediacorp has also sold adaptation rights for six other titles – including Legend of the 8 Immortals, The Truth, Love Concierge and The Dream Makers – to Chinese production houses.
Ho says the story of The Little Nonya and The Awakening stood out because they speak of Chinese culture, both inherited and blended with local customs, about the spirit of hard work, the ability to adapt and mutual help among clansmen, all of which were among the traits of the early Chinese immigrants. For Mediacorp, those traits drove the series to heights unmatched ever since at home or abroad. Perfect World is clearly hoping for an encore.
Published in Issue One of ContentAsia's inprint+online 2018 (4 April 2018)
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