After a very long hiatus, writer-producer Chai Jidan (Addiction, Counter Attack ) returns with her latest work One in a Hundred 百里挑一, a BL (or bromance?) drama about a D-list celebrity who decides to fake a bromance ship with his landlord. The 12-episode stars newbies Lu Dongxun and Liu Zirui and begins streaming on Youku today. The trailer and set-up look fun, I just hope they’ll release the whole drama in one go instead of only filming half of it like Addiction.
Baili Qianchuan is a country boy trying to make it into a big star in Beijing. When his new landlord accidentally walks across his computer screen in a towel during a live stream, fans are immediately convinced that they’re a couple. Under the advice of Qianchuan’s manager, the two decide to fake being a bromance ship for money and fake. But what happens when fans realize the truth?
I’m assuming it’s heavily censored too, nowhere near the same level of BL as “Addicted” managed to squeeze in, right?
The drama feels like it didn’t even go through SARFT because it has quite explicit innuendos (ex: there’s a scene where it was very explicit that all one character could think about was that the male lead is a top. He was definitely lusting over him. ). Maybe I’m overestimating what the olde men at SARFT understands.
Surprising! Of course “Addicted” was pretty explicit in many ways, any less from the author would make her/him seem like a sellout perhaps to the target audience. It’s not restricted or rated in any way, is it? With streaming it’s not like you can limit it to after hours.
I don’t think it can be streamed on Youku in China without going through the censors. It’s also streaming on bilibili. Same content. My feeling is as long as it’s very much over-the-top joke-like or stereotypical it gets a pass.
Caught up to ep 8 with fastforwarding. It has some clever jokes, but it’s definitely closer to Counter Attack than Addiction in terms of quality.
It will probably never get subbed into English, but I am curious to see it to compare
There is a lot of play on words and homophones. Probably very difficult to convey the meaning well in another language. I’m only somewhat familiar with cp fan circle and other Chinese cultural/web-specific terminologies. Some jokes flew right over my head.
Translation in general is difficult work (I’ve done English Spanish for general content and business) and getting tone is just part of the struggle. When you have to deal with humor or double entendres or cultural or idiomatic expressions it’s even more challenging! Thanks for the feedback.
Thanks for posting this. Checked out the drama, currently 4 eps released, each ep about 8 mins without the end credit, and much more like a sitcom. It also feels like a low-budget production. Bullet comments say the lead seems to be wearing his own clothing. Not-too-smart male lead and his antics drive the plot.