For thousands of years performance art has revolved around a two hour performance criteria, plus or minus some time. Movies have not really changed that; however, long form tv drama is doing new things.

The long form tv dramas of east Asia have no real equivalent in the west.

A coherent story, with beginning middle and end like western movies; however lasting from 15 hours to over 30 hours. In episodes of course, all done within one year. A modern, creative use of tv technology and it is interesting how the various technical aesthetic problems of this extended format are dealt with. The views of foreign cultures are also interesting.  I just have watched romantic comedies, so to speak, maybe better labeled comedy of manners, taking Jane Austen’s novels (Novel in the sense defined in Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism) as my literary benchmark. I will be interested how this particular form of performance art develops, it’s still very new.

     In Korea, protagonists tend to be in early 30s, in China early 20s. I’ve come to prefer the 16 session, 1 hour format favored in Korea: more aesthetic coherence there. Also, South Korea being smaller, the dramas can be more culturally comprehensive and not as urban focused as the Chinese dramas. On the other hand, the Chinese dramas have broader cultural interest even with the explicit governmental oversight. In both cases, I’m very interested in the virtue ethics influence going back to ancient Confucian culture (see, for example “Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy by Byran W. Van Norden).

Korea 

See the wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_drama for the following three quotes

“A single director usually leads Korean dramas, which are often written by a single screenwriter. This often leads to each drama having distinct directing and dialogue styles.”

“The main themes of Korean television dramas are friendship, family values, and love, blending traditional Confucian with Western materialism and individualism.”

“In contrast to practices elsewhere, the first four episodes of Korean series are usually shot in advance, but the rest are shot continuously as the series is being aired. Scripts are not finished in advance, and may change according to viewer feedback and viewership ratings, where popular characters receive increased screen time and plotlines are changed to match audience expectations.^[9] These changes may occur a few hours before daily shooting, and the crew might receive only a few ready pages. The production usually works with three camera crews, who work in a rotating manner to speed up filming. Because of unregulated script changes and tight shooting schedules, actors are almost continuously on standby, and have no time to leave the set or sleep properly. The Korean media have a separate word to describe irregular, short sleeps that actors resort to, in often uncomfortable positions, or within the set: jjok-jam (쪽잠), or “side-sleeping”. Dramas usually air on two days every week, with following episodes having to be shot within the intervening five days. Some Korean actors have admitted to receiving IV therapy during filming, due to extreme schedules and exhaustion. Nonetheless, the live-shoot model remains widely used since the production team can react to real time audience feedback.”

For me, the archtype for this type of comedy of manners is the interactions of two large extended families with the ‘extended’ including friends and coworkers. The two families also have their own group differences, eg rural and urban, and there are also one or more sources of trauma. Sometimes the trauma is due to evil or psychotic people; however, my preference is for the trauma to be more from the general human condition. This artform is new and there is much room for development.

Queen of Tears 2024
Crash Landing on You 2020
Extraordinary Attorney Woo 2022
My Liberation Notes 2022
Castaway Diva 2023
Oh, My Baby 2020
Backstreet Rookie 2020
Clean With Passion for Now 2018
Welcome to Samdal-Ri 2023
King the Land 2023
Hometown Cha Cha Cha 2021

These in the standard 16 1hour episode format, more or less. Often in a “four act” structure: comic intro – tearjerks – development – resolution. The comic, which often revolves around playing with stereotypes, serves well for introducing characters and themes.

China

And here are four Chinese tv dramas for comparison:

 Amidst a Snowstorm of Love 2024
Meteor Garden 2018
The Rational Life 2021
When I Fly Toward You 2023

_____________________________________________________

In contrast, in the USA collegiate hookup ‘culture’ (see, e.g., Tom Wolfe’s novel I Am Charlotte Simmons) is drifting down to the high school level. For example see the recent Netflix series My Life with the Walter Boys.