Who would have thought this time last year that we would be getting so many BL dramas adapted from popular Chinese BL novels, yes proper BL dramas, not the bromance drama adaptations we are used to in the last 5 or 6 years from China. All of these new “Chinese” BL dramas are now cleverly circumventing China and being produced and broadcast outside China!
However that is not to say there haven’t been any Chinese BL dramas being made the past few years. There have been a few independent small-budget Chinese BL dramas being made in China for broadcast outside China only, but mostly from original scripts and not adapted from popular BL novels.
Then last year a remake of the 2016 banned Chinese BL series, Addicted 上癮, based on the Chinese BL novel Are You Addicted? 你丫上癮了 by Chai Jidan 柴雞蛋 was broadcast on the Taiwanese LGBTQ+ streaming platform, GagaOOLala, in July. The remake was Stay with Me 哥哥你别跑, and it was tentatively the first season since it ended with a cliff hanger but no news of the second season has been announced. Not only that but at the same time Thailand was also filming their own adaptation of the same novel to be called Heroin The Series.
Also around June last year, another new series The Only One 某某 based on the very popular Chinese BL novel A Certain Someone 某某 (Mou Mou, also translated as Someone I Met That Summer) by Mu Su Li 木蘇里 started filming in Taiwan. Although a Taiwanese series, both leading actors are from China. This series was rumoured to air the first quarter of 2024 but so far no date has been announced.
Then towards the end of last year, Thailand announced the cast for a new series called My Stand-In ตัวนาย ตัวแทน. It is adapted from the Chinese BL novel Professional Body Double 職業替身 by Shui Qian Cheng 水千丞, from one of her very popular 188 novel series. This new drama series will premiere on April 26, 2024.
Another series which is already and currently airing is Unknown 關於未知的我們, a Taiwanese adaptation of the Chinese BL novel Da Ge 大哥 by priest. This series was only officially announced at the beginning of this year after the filming and post production were already completed and ready for airing, so it was a surprise when the announcement was made. They sure did keep a tight lid on this series beforehand!
And that is not all, just in the past couple of weeks or so, two more BL drama series based on Chinese BL novels were officially announced. These two new upcoming dramas are Meet You at the Blossom 花開有時頹靡無聲 ก่อนดอกไม้…บาน and Battle of the Writers รัก…ใต้บรรทัด. Meet You at the Blossom is adapted from another novel by Shui Qian Cheng 水千丞, in fact it is from her first ever novel, Blooming Flowers, Silent Sorrow 花開有時，頹靡無聲. This is the only period wuxia BL drama series so far in this bunch and it’s an interesting collaboration between Taiwan, Thailand and China! The director Nancy Chen 陳怡妤 is Taiwanese, who is already known for directing Taiwanese BL series such as both seasons of Papa & Daddy 酷蓋爸爸, HIStory4: Close to You 近距離愛上你 and HIStory5: Love in the Future 遇見未來的你. The series is filmed in China with a mostly Chinese cast! It has completed filming in January so we can anticipate the series to air soon.
The other series Battle of the Writers is from Thailand and it’s adapted from the Chinese BL novel, The Great Battle of Games 遊戲大作戰, written by Pingguo Shushushu (or Apple Treetreetree) 蘋果樹樹樹. They have just revealed the two main lead actors a couple of weeks ago…
Last but not least, news just filtered through in the past few days that the extremely popular BL novel Saye 撒野 by Wuzhe 巫哲 has been licensed for film rights outside China. We all know the television series Chasing the Light 左肩有你 based on the same novel has been put on limbo due to censorship in China with little chance of seeing the light of day, so this is quite exciting news as we may finally be able to see a live-action adaptation in movie form in the near future.
Update May 23, 2024: The teaser for the Thai adaptation of Addicted 上癮 has just been released and it looks like it has followed the novel quite faithfully… It will premiere in August…
Update June 21, 2024: This is quick… Battle of the Writers will premiere on July 29, 2024. Below is the official trailer…
Update June 23, 2024: Here are some BTS clips of the upcoming series Meet You at the Blossom 花開有時頹靡無聲…
Update July 4, 2024: Meet You at the Blossom 花開有時頹靡無聲 will premiere on July 11, 2024! They have released 2 versions of the trailer, one in Mandarin, the other in Thai…
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