Thailand and China cooperate because of their strategic locations; Thailand receives the third-largest volume of trade from China among all ASEAN countries, and China is Thailand’s largest trading partner. The exchange and interaction is not limited to trade; Thailand and China have had long-standing television and film exchanges.
Why Thailand is imperative for Chinese series
Thailand is home to the majority of Thailand’s overseas Chinese population, which accounts for 7% of the country’s total population. As a result, Thailand is an important overseas market for Chinese films and television series, and almost all of their products are well received in Thailand. Chinese films and television series have been a huge hit in Thailand, with consistently high ratings. Legend of the Sword and Fairy, Returning Pearls, Shanghai Beach, and others are among them. Thai remakes of Chinese series include Three Lives III, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, Returning Pearls, and Gege.
Chinese series and the impact on Thailand
In the 1990s, four Chinese literary masterpieces, “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” “Water Margin,” “A Dream of Red Mansions,” and “Journey to the West,” were adapted for television and broadcast in Thailand, where they received a warm reception. The “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” has had such an impact in Thailand that some chapters from the Thai version of the series have been chosen as primary school textbooks. The Thai audience may enjoy the series because they are familiar with the storey, key plots, characters, and the excellent cast, as well as the series’ adherence to the original. The “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” television adaptation is so popular in Thailand that the educational television channel airs TV columns for the series, inviting experts from the social and commercial sectors to interact with the audience. In Thailand, the term “Three Kingdoms” is also used in political analyses. The Thai National Television rebroadcast the 1994 film “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” during prime time on weekdays for Thais to enjoy classic television.
In Thailand, Chinese costume dramas, in which the actors dress in period costumes, are extremely popular, particularly in the martial arts drama genre. Waves produced on the Mainland Push Forward In the Thai market, China is the most competitive series. These “costume dramas,” as they’re known in Thailand, helped popularise novels and gave Thais a glimpse into Chinese martial arts. The twists and turns in these costume series are also well-known.
Another favourite genre of Thais is costume legendary fantasy series. The publication of Flower Thousand Bones boosted sales of the novel on which it is based. Chinese fairy tales have influenced Thai fairy tales. Thai authors, in addition to reading Chinese fairy tale books, created fairy tales with Chinese names for characters and Chinese structures, paying homage to the fairy tale culture. In Thailand, ancient court dramas have a large following. The Legend of Zhen Huan, a Chinese series, sparked a new trend of recreating Thai videos and images and remixing Thai dubbing.
Given how deeply ซีรี่ย์จีน are woven into Thai culture, it is impossible to deny China’s influence on Thailand through its television shows and films. The rise in the number of Chinese series with Thai subtitles or simply in Chinese has struck a chord with Thais.
