Why does Korea make the best dramas in the world?

 Anajwo:

yes it's true that that's all you might see on viki esp for on-air or upcomming dramas mostly being historical - but apart from Love O2O (and the historicals plus 2 crime shows) you don't hear no talk or praise of c dramas. Sure China produces all types of dramas like every other country, but 1) you don't hear such massive hype from international fans 2) they're not that high in quality - so the only "quality c dramas" end up being historicals - thus the quality of cramas is limited to a niche. Sorry I didn't explain it better in my first post. Also, China is high in population. It doesn't matter how shitty a movie or show is - if you can convince the masses to watch of course you will have high viewer ratings or profits. The difference with US is that a movie needs to be of higher quality and look promising enough to entice people to watch it to make their money back. Obviously an average movie in China (vs average movie in US) will make much more money simply due to population size. Furthermore everything in China is so restricted (including the limitation of foreign content) so if there is a major network or production company that holds monopoly or competition is weak, I'd imagine they won't care much for producing quality content as long as they've got the masses watching. Kinda like the The Toronto Maple Leafs. They suck & never win anything but the tickets still cost so high & the masses still pay to watch.

Obviously you don't hear any hype or talk from international fans because they don't have English subs or subs in any other language. Why would international fans go out of their way to hype up a drama that they will most likely not have the chance to watch with subtitles in a language they understand? However, the interest in Chinese dramas (and their quality) is certainly rising in international markets. Netflix acquired rights to Day and Night, Tientsin Mystic, and Burning Ice recently. All of these dramas are rated highly on Douban and have positive word of mouth but international fans wouldn't know about them for the time being because they don't have subs at the moment. 

The reason I think historicals are so popular is because it's truly distinct from the dramas international fans normally watch. But that's not a judgement of their quality. 

Even with censors, a lot of Web Dramas are released and are unaffected by it. If anything, censors would force directors/writers to be more creative to get around that just like the US with the Hays Code in the past.

 Yeah of course, the Chinese population as a whole are brainless sheep that will like anything you tell them to like. /sarcasm

Just because a drama gets high ratings or earns a high box office doesn't mean it's liked by the public at large. Maybe they only watched it because of the hype surronding it. But if you go on Douban, a lot of the dramas that are internationally known are generally not even rated that high, while the highly rated dramas are unknown to international fans and because of that people think that's all China has to offer in terms of dramas.

Again, I am not into Chinese dramas so I can't answer about them. I am sure they are good if you all write so passionately about them. Well except Chinese dramas then? The rest of the world vs Korea?

"USA: The Wire, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Freaks and Geeks, Friday Night Lights"

You are mentioning some really good ones here, like Breaking bad,  the wire and Sopranos. And while I agree that they are excellent, American dramas as a whole do not stand a chance in my opinion. Some of those you mention are old classics, every year Korea produces 2-3 new classics.

Also american dramas are often extremely slow paced, like Breaking bad, you need to watch 4-5 episodes to get a decent payoff, while a drama like Signal has a strong payoff every episode. And is extremely fast paced making you want to binge. This is another reason why Korean dramas are superior (I know there are trash Korean dramas too, but solid ones). 

I swear if America made signal with the exact same pace, production, music etc everything, but the actors were solid american actors, it would have become the best drama worldwide of all time that the whole world's population agree on, and would have had a 9.7 on imdb. 

I am still waiting for american or british examples of dramas that are as good/interesting/well written/perfectly paced as Its Okay thats love, Chicago Typewriter, Save me, Goblin, Memory etc.

 Jay:

Obviously you don't hear any hype or talk from international fans because they don't have English subs or subs in any other language. Why would international fans go out of their way to hype up a drama that they will most likely not have the chance to watch with subtitles in a language they understand?

If it's not available for consumption (whether due to licencing or no subs) then to the international viewers it's nothing but an obscure drama - even if it's highly successful or popular in China. I'm sure there's a great, amazing film or tv show script by an unknown small independent writer out there - possibly better than Inception,The Dark Knight, and the like - but if it's not available to the masses or for consumption then it doesn't exist.

 Anajwo:

If it's not available for consumption (whether due to licencing or no subs) then to the international viewers it's nothing but an obscure drama - even if it's highly successful or popular in China. I'm sure there's a great, amazing film or tv show script by an unknown small independent writer out there - possibly better than Inception,The Dark Knight, and the like - but if it's not available to the masses or for consumption then it doesn't exist.

So why should an international viewer's opinion hold more weight than anyone else's? 

If someone has decent sized knowledge with two countries' dramas, they're free to compare and say which is better.

You can proclaim your love for KDramas but you don't have to go out of your way to put down another country's dramas ESPECIALLY when you have little to no knowledge of that said country's drama.

 DancingGoat:

I can't quote people in this thread, you should really let people quote long posts as well.

The reason why I didn't like China was because the people were extremely rude overall, screamed all the time (always SUPER big voices even though they are in quiet places), dirty everywhere, crazy air pollution, saw parents letting kids poo on the sidewalks etc. Just search "crazy china" on youtube and you will get an idea how it is to actually live there. 

This is against no bashing on China, Im sure there are good points with it too. Maybe I was just unlucky. Just answered because someone asked about it.

Now, recommend me Chinese dramas like Save me, Goblin, Signal or Chicago Typewriter. I will for sure give it a try! Make me like China!

I can understand you having a bad experience during your time in China but to make a blanket statement saying you don't like the country and people is perplexing especially when that country has 1 billion+ people.  I would say I've had bad experiences with people and those people may have belonged to certain groups but I wouldn't say that based on those experiences, that all of those people that belonged to the group were at fault/guilty because of an individual's actions.

 DancingGoat:

I can't quote people in this thread, you should really let people quote long posts as well.

The reason why I didn't like China was because the people were extremely rude overall, screamed all the time (always SUPER big voices even though they are in quiet places), dirty everywhere, crazy air pollution, saw parents letting kids poo on the sidewalks etc. Just search "crazy china" on youtube and you will get an idea how it is to actually live there. 

This is against no bashing on China, Im sure there are good points with it too. Maybe I was just unlucky. Just answered because someone asked about it.

Now, recommend me Chinese dramas like Save me, Goblin, Signal or Chicago Typewriter. I will for sure give it a try! Make me like China!

My point was that you don't necessarily know how Korea is either, a drama fan recently posted about how they were disappointed about Korea after travelling there. Japan is a different story.

There might chinese drama like the above (Signal, Goblin, etc.), I haven't watched enough to know. Why not watch chinese drama to experience something new? If nothing is similar to Goblin or Signal, that doesn't mean nothing is "better" than them.

 Anajwo:

If it's not available for consumption (whether due to licencing or no subs) then to the international viewers it's nothing but an obscure drama - even if it's highly successful or popular in China. I'm sure there's a great, amazing film or tv show script by an unknown small independent writer out there - possibly better than Inception,The Dark Knight, and the like - but if it's not available to the masses or for consumption then it doesn't exist.

There are a lot of legit quality, large production companies in China that don't go to the trouble of license and distribution in foreign markets because it's not profitable, I mean what would be the point?! It doesn't mean the media content is obscure in China or inferior to anything foreign licenced it really comes down to the bottom line. 

Countries like China are extremely ethno-nationalistic so I'm not surprised that a lot of media doesn't make it into foreign markets without significant financial influence. That is one reason Japanese media is a pain in the ass to get legit.  Western owned/operated streaming companies only license what is offered to them unless they get enough fan requests to try to acquire a license which might not be possible. Illegal sites might pick up popular shows but 9/10ths I've seen mimick mainstream crap from the legit sites. There is more diversity in smaller fan hosted pages/groups which are always fighting to not get pulled off and never have enough people to subtitle (at least my experience). 

  I'm not sure of your nationality but to be fair it sounds like a typical American attitude to believe the world revolves around and should cater to us or it's insignificant. Not saying that as a insult but growing up smack dab in the heartland, USA I can't count how many times people have dismissed the relevance of foreign media simply because it wasn't in English, because subtitles are to much of an inconvenience.  Not meant as an insult just an observation.

 MyDramaObsession:

I'm not sure of your nationality but to be fair it sounds like a typical American attitude to believe the world revolves around and should cater to us or it's insignificant. Not saying that as a insult but growing up smack dab in the heartland, USA I can't count how many times people have dismissed the relevance of foreign media simply because it wasn't in English, because subtitles are to much of an inconvenience.  Not meant as an insult just an observation.

yes it's true. On one hand there may be great quality content from a foreign country - on the other hand, how do you evaluate it based on limited knowledge and resources? All I was pointing out was that what's available to a foreigner is limited - thus a more limited pool to make a judgement from.