Chinese GL

The team behind the short film When We Met (去年烟火, pinyin: qunian yanhuo; my preferred and more literal translation of the title is Fireworks of Yesteryear) has released a trailer, which promises a release date of 19 January. This is a live action adaptation of an AU extra from the contemporary baihe novel Kissing a Gardenia (都什么年代了啊, pinyin: ou shenme niandai le a) by Qi Xiao Huang Shu (七小皇叔). In a previous social media post, the team indicated that the film was 26 minutes long. It's not known yet what platform it will air on.


Earlier today, Qi Xiao Huang Shu sought her fans' views on whether they would welcome more 'commercial' live action adaptations of her novels (When We Met is not one such, being an independent film self-funded by the director). In the process, she revealed a number of things that might be of interest. Briefly:

• She was approached by a fairly large production company about adapting her first hit novel Reading the Remnants (问棺, pinyin: wen guan) as a live action drama. Negotiations had reached a quite advanced stage (to the point that she actually quit her day job) when she got cold feet and pulled out.
  
• Since then, she has had several discussions with producers of mini-dramas about the possibility of adapting Reading the Remnants in that format, but these were ultimately inconclusive. The author was not sure that the story would suit the mini-drama format (due, among other things, to the quite complex special effects work that would be needed) and was also concerned about censorship requirements.
  
• She has also been approached about a possible live action adaptation based on her trilogy of novels set in the baihe voice acting industry (which includes Kissing a Gardenia), but these also came to nothing. She notes that fans she spoke to at the time were quite resistant to having the novels realised on screen, as they did not like the idea of their beloved characters being embodied by flesh-and-blood actors who would never be able to live up to the characters in their imagination.
  
• In the second half of 2024, she was approached by a team who was interested in adapting Kissing a Gardenia. The team intended to distribute it outside China, which would allow them to preserve the romantic storyline explicitly. However, the team also felt that the overall story was not particularly dramatic plot-wise, so wanted to add several more tropey elements to the script. The author was resistant to this, so negotiations did not proceed further.