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Netflix is ramping up its Chinese-language entertainment with five drama series set for 2025, toplined by Shu Qi, Lee Sinje and Alice Ko and directed by Rene Liu, Li Nien-hsiu and Chien Chi-feng.

The five series – four Taiwanese productions and one licensed title from mainland China – span romantic comedy, revenge and period drama and feature local stories from rising voices to industry icons.

Starring Alice Ko (Copycat Killer) and Jasper Liu (Twogether), I Am Married…But! is a romantic comedy series that offers an unconventional look at marriage through a woman who is trapped in a cycle of wanting to leave...

Netflix is to further invest in Chinese-language content and focus on local stories with a particular emphasis on Taiwan.

The streaming giant launched in Taiwan in 2016 and has steadily been building its audience through licensing hit titles such as Marry My Dead Body and Incantation as well as commissioning original content, with a raft of projects unveiled earlier this year.

Netflix’s head of Chinese language content, Maya Huang, has now revealed next steps for the platform in the region.

“Our audience in Taiwan has such a strong passion and sense of pride for Chinese-language content,” she said during an...

Netflix has unveiled plans to bolster its Chinese-language content slate, anchored by the streamer’s hub and partnerships in Taiwan.

The streamer’s head of Chinese Language Content, Maya Huang, detailed her team’s originals strategy in Taiwan and also unveiled the English-language teaser and release date for upcoming series Born for the Spotlight.

The 12-episode series will be the first time that Taiwanese actresses Hsieh Ying-xuan and Cheryl Yang star alongside each other.

Born for the Spotlight will have its world premiere in the On-Screen section at the upcoming Busan International Film Festival, before releasing on Netflix on November 7.

Written and directed by Yen Yi-wen (The Making of an Ordinary Woman) and produced by Olive Ting (Oh No! Here Comes Trouble), the series is set in the cut-throat world of showbiz, where Hsieh and Yang portray Hsueh Ya-chi and Chou Fan respectively. They start out as inseparable best friends...

After operating relatively quietly in Chinese language content since 2016, global streamer Netflix is now making a noise about its presence in the sector and in Taiwan in particular.

Among the highlights is “Born for the Spotlight,” a 12-part series about the unravelling of a friendship between two top actresses, and an upcoming youngster who will do anything to achieve success in show business. It is written and directed by Yen Yi-wen (“The Making of an Ordinary Woman”) and produced by Olive Ting (“Oh No! Here Comes Trouble”). It stars Hsieh Ying-hsieh and Cheryl Yang.

The series is also selected for the On-Screen section at the Busan International Film Festival, hosting its world premiere next month, and will be released on Netflix on Nov. 7, 2024.

With mainland China closed to Netflix as a streamer and Hong Kong largely working in the Cantonese minority variant of Chinese, Taiwan has become the de facto...

Netflix has unveiled a raft of Chinese-language titles and upcoming projects from Indonesia and Thailand as it continues to grow original content in Southeast Asia.

The streaming giant revealed four series from Taiwan, eight titles from Thailand and five from Indonesia that would debut on the platform throughout 2024.

From Indonesia, features include Monster, a dialogue-free suspense thriller directed by Rako Prijanto. The film, starring Marsha Timothy, Alex Abbad, and Anantya Kirana, premiered at the Jogja-netpac Asian Film Festival in November.

Further titles from the country include Borderless Fog, a crime thriller set in Borneo, from award-winning filmmaker Edwin; and action...

Global streaming giant Netflix has made a significant ongoing commitment to production of original content from Southeast Asia and in the Chinese language.

For 2024, Netflix has unveiled a slate of four Chinese-language series, all hailing from Taiwan. From Thailand, it detailed seven series and one film. From Indonesia, it has committed to five films and a series co-written and directed by the consistently successful Joko Anwar, marking his first partnership with the streamer.

Additionally, Netflix has confirmed the appointment of Maya Huang as its head of Chinese-language content.

The moves stand in sharp contrast to the mid-January happenings at rival global streamer Prime Video, which is cutting staff in the region and ending its brief experiment with Southeast Asian originals.

In Indonesia, Netflix says it is broadening its storytelling with a range of genres including comedy, action, fantasy, and sci-fi thrillers.

“Nightmares and Daydreams,” Anwar’s debut project for the company,...

Taiwan’s Studio76 is joining hands with Singapore’s MediaCorp launch a new script competition to be launched in 2021. The mission is to boost Chinese-language storytelling in the pan-Asia region.

Unveiled at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest, “Rising Stories” will begin accepting applications from Feb. 1, 2021 to April 15, 2021. Five winners will be selected, and results are expected to be announced in July. The script competition also has backing of Tencent’s WeTV and X Media Asia.

The competition aims to strengthen Taiwan as an incubation hub for Chinese language stories for talent from all over the world, and to create projects with global appeal that can attract investment from international financiers, Studio76 said.

Entries will be judged by a panel of adjudicators including actor Janel Tsai, director Chieh Hsueh-Bin, director Lester Shih (“The Bridge Curse”), scriptwriter-producer Maya Huang and Wang Li-Wen (“The Magnificent Bobita”).

Speaking Thursday at Tccf, judges said they were excited with the competition,...