in my admittedly limited experience, korea seems to make great suspense, intrigue, and twist-of-fate romance dramas, while japan seems better at the quirky and

in my admittedly limited experience, korea seems to make great suspense, intrigue, and twist-of-fate romance dramas, while japan seems better at the quirky and the heartwrenching. china seems better at historical/costume dramas (wuxia/xianxia being my current streaming obsession), especially for the costuming (obviously), sets, landscapes, and cultural history. they're not great for plot (holes out the wazoo), editing (quantity over quality), or writing/dialogue (uneven at best). they all lean much too heavily on tired tropes, like love triangles and (weirdly) amnesia, but are still really entertaining on balance. i've been on the look-out to see when wuxia/xianxia really crosses over in popularity with american/english-speaking audiences, given that it's basically the chinese version of the cowboy western, simple morality tales set in (seemingly) simple times. star wars, a westernized takeoff of xianxia (but in space) seemed like a logical stepping stone, and crouching tiger, hidden dragon (one of my all-time faves) even made the leap, but didn't establish a wider popularity for the genre. shang chi, marvel's recent and modernized foray, doesn't seem to have made much of a splash either.