Just kill someone, or frame someone for murder, or commit some kind of grave crime against humanity if you're in some kind of Asian soap opera. A long time ago I saw this Chinese drama called "Heroes", the basic story goes like this:
A. Protagonist is framed for murder for no apparent reason.
B. Protagonist becomes a fugitive and suffers unimagineable agony.
C. Protagonist somehow redeems himself.
D. Go to A 3 seconds after C, you can do this while he's being redeemed even.
Now this is actually an action series where most of the time the protagonist is throwing fireballs and blowing things up, but it's pretty obvious the main point is that he keeps on get framed over and over again and each time it's supposed to be totally sad, especially when he got framed 3 seconds after he redeemed himself. Now being framed is not some kind of Asian speciality. I watched 24 intermittently and I recall Jack Bauer probably was framed or misunderstood or something at some point of 24, but clearly the point of 24 isn't about Jack Bauer being framed. It's something that adds to what's happening but it's not really the central part of the story. The drama is created through other stuff.
The above template seems to be pretty consistent for Asian stuff. Even manga you can probably substitute "someone important dies" for A and that gets you the template for say, the story of Naruto or One Piece. Or substitute 'evil stepmother does nasty thing' and there's your template for a romance drama. Even more inexplicably in this case is that Asian drama tend to be shown in a traditional male dominated Asian society, and if the victim here is the son, he literally can just slap his stepmother silly and nobody ought to care in such a male-dominated society because he's the son. Liu Bei once said: "Wives are like clothing, if you lose one you can buy another one." Yet apparently if you're his son you'd be constantly abused by your new stepmother that was brought last week.
It's pretty clear that what drives drama here is injustice, i.e. something inhumane happens and we're supposed to feel bad for the characters involved. I never get the impression that injustice drives the story in a western-themed story. It's not that there isn't injustice in such stories, but it's very rare for me to see a western-based drama where the sole driving source of tension is injustice. I wonder if this is because Asian society have a history of corruption (especially China), so as a viewer we're supposed to identify with the guy who was framed for murder in 30 different states all at the same time because it can actually happen for you. The western world, even if people complain lawyers, generally has a far more equitable justice system. I really don't think you can engage a western audience with some act of great injustice because the society takes for granted that justice will be served. Sure you may think the fat cats in Wall Street ends up getting all your money while doing nothing, but I'm sure nobody in the western world will actually worry about being framed for murder with absolutely no evidence and then summarily executed, which is a surprisingly common plot in Asian drama.
Gou Long, a famous Chinese author, had two characters who are said to be the best friend forever. In one story, a girl asks them about their friendship:
Girl: "It's said that nobody can match the friendship between you (Fei) and Lee, yet I see you here alone without Lee. Does that mean Lee is dead?"
Fei: "Am I alive? Then Lee too lives."
Girl: "And if Lee dies, do you die too?"
Fei: "No, but nobody will see me again, either."
It seems like the average Asian drama expects an answer like: "Then I die too!" Never mind that this is a very unrealistic view on friendship. Of course that might be why Gou Long is actually considered on par with the Chinese Tolkien, while soap operas are shown during filler TV time. Is it really that hard to write a story without 'add instant drama by killing someone (or something simlar)?' I guess it's harder than sticking to a template, but these are supposed to be people doing this for a living.
A. Protagonist is framed for murder for no apparent reason.
B. Protagonist becomes a fugitive and suffers unimagineable agony.
C. Protagonist somehow redeems himself.
D. Go to A 3 seconds after C, you can do this while he's being redeemed even.
Now this is actually an action series where most of the time the protagonist is throwing fireballs and blowing things up, but it's pretty obvious the main point is that he keeps on get framed over and over again and each time it's supposed to be totally sad, especially when he got framed 3 seconds after he redeemed himself. Now being framed is not some kind of Asian speciality. I watched 24 intermittently and I recall Jack Bauer probably was framed or misunderstood or something at some point of 24, but clearly the point of 24 isn't about Jack Bauer being framed. It's something that adds to what's happening but it's not really the central part of the story. The drama is created through other stuff.
The above template seems to be pretty consistent for Asian stuff. Even manga you can probably substitute "someone important dies" for A and that gets you the template for say, the story of Naruto or One Piece. Or substitute 'evil stepmother does nasty thing' and there's your template for a romance drama. Even more inexplicably in this case is that Asian drama tend to be shown in a traditional male dominated Asian society, and if the victim here is the son, he literally can just slap his stepmother silly and nobody ought to care in such a male-dominated society because he's the son. Liu Bei once said: "Wives are like clothing, if you lose one you can buy another one." Yet apparently if you're his son you'd be constantly abused by your new stepmother that was brought last week.
It's pretty clear that what drives drama here is injustice, i.e. something inhumane happens and we're supposed to feel bad for the characters involved. I never get the impression that injustice drives the story in a western-themed story. It's not that there isn't injustice in such stories, but it's very rare for me to see a western-based drama where the sole driving source of tension is injustice. I wonder if this is because Asian society have a history of corruption (especially China), so as a viewer we're supposed to identify with the guy who was framed for murder in 30 different states all at the same time because it can actually happen for you. The western world, even if people complain lawyers, generally has a far more equitable justice system. I really don't think you can engage a western audience with some act of great injustice because the society takes for granted that justice will be served. Sure you may think the fat cats in Wall Street ends up getting all your money while doing nothing, but I'm sure nobody in the western world will actually worry about being framed for murder with absolutely no evidence and then summarily executed, which is a surprisingly common plot in Asian drama.
Gou Long, a famous Chinese author, had two characters who are said to be the best friend forever. In one story, a girl asks them about their friendship:
Girl: "It's said that nobody can match the friendship between you (Fei) and Lee, yet I see you here alone without Lee. Does that mean Lee is dead?"
Fei: "Am I alive? Then Lee too lives."
Girl: "And if Lee dies, do you die too?"
Fei: "No, but nobody will see me again, either."
It seems like the average Asian drama expects an answer like: "Then I die too!" Never mind that this is a very unrealistic view on friendship. Of course that might be why Gou Long is actually considered on par with the Chinese Tolkien, while soap operas are shown during filler TV time. Is it really that hard to write a story without 'add instant drama by killing someone (or something simlar)?' I guess it's harder than sticking to a template, but these are supposed to be people doing this for a living.
