China Report Issue 48 May 2017

(coco) #1

the decade’s most influential contemporary TV programmes, Heaven
Above.
The nation seemed riveted to the seventeen-episode China Central
Television (CCTV) drama. The programme gathered audiences of
nearly 40 percent of the entire population at its peak. It introduced
audiences to a corrupt high-ranking government official and Party
cadre (vice provincial governor).
When Lu wrote the script of Heaven Above, he was already a televi-
sion scriptwriter for the China Television Production Centre (CTPC)
under CCTV. Established in 1983, the centre produced a series of
outstanding period TV dramas in the 1980s, such as Journey to the
West (1986), Dream of the Red Chamber (1987) and Romance of Three
Kingdoms (1994).
In the early 1990s, Lu was asked to write a series focusing on so-
cial reality to remedy CCTV’s excessive reliance on historical dramas.
Corruption was the most hotly-discussed social phenomenon of the
time.
In August 1993, China’s then president, Jiang Zemin, launched
an anti-corruption drive, warning that “corruption is a virus that is
invading the healthy flesh of the Party and state institutions.” Jiang
told the Central Discipline Inspection Committee that “if we lapse
into soft-heartedness, if we allow it to run rampant, it could spell an
end to our party.”
Lu told ChinaReport that writers at that time, who had experienced
the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), would “shiver with fear” when
it came to writing about official corruption within the Party and gov-
ernment.
Lu finished writing the script in early 1994, but filming was de-
layed for a year. Within the Television Production Centre, opinions
were divided on whether the project should go ahead.
One of the leaders in the Centre, after reading the script, asked for
a major revision with 13 recommendations for change. The leader’s
first concern was that provincial-ministerial level officials should not
be portrayed as corrupt: “What if audiences relate the character to a
vice provincial governor in real life?” The second concern was the end-
ing: the anti-corruption hero eventually faces tragedy, which defies
the “happy-ending tradition” in CCTV productions that should give
viewers a sense of hope.
The most “fatal” advice, Lu told ChinaReport, was to replace the
name “Heaven Above.”
“Heaven,” in Chinese philosophy and traditional religion, indicates
the supreme authority and ultimate justice, a higher authority than
any organisation. “In socialist China, how can you appeal to Heaven?
What’s the message you want to give?” the leader challenged.
Revising the script to meet the leader’s requirement would mean no
less than a rewrite. As Lu refused to do this, the project appeared to


have been turned down.
Nevertheless, the work was eventually saved after the writer ap-
pealed to a chief in charge of television series supervision under the
SAPPRFT. Lu justified his depiction of high-level corruption by rea-
soning that CCTV had the responsibility of telling the public that
the Party’s anti-corruption struggle was serious business. The official,
who had grave concerns over Heaven Above, eventually approved the
filming of the series, based on the original script.
Throughout the process of filming, the programme’s producers and
cast remained in a state of apprehension. Every leader who ever gin-
gerly signed the permission documents of the series still could not
help fearing that the programme might mess up China.
The crew was so unsure about the fate of the programme that they
felt incredulous when CCTV informed them one day that the pro-
gramme was to be aired that evening. When the hand of the clock
pointed to 8pm, as the opening song of Heaven Above started playing,
Lu Tianming and other staff burst into tears.
“We never had any expectation whether the series would be popu-
lar or not. The only hope we had was that the programme could sur-
vive,” Lu told ChinaReport.
To the surprise of everyone, nevertheless, Heaven Above, without
any initial publicity, immediately received a mass audience and very
positive reviews. The highest viewership reached 39 percent, that is to
say, four out of 10 Chinese were watching the programme that night.
Some joked that Lu had lowered the crime rate that year, as thieves
were at home, glued to the screen.
As historian Jeffrey C. Kinkley indicates in his book Corruption and
Realism in Late Socialist China: The Return of the Political Novel, Lu’s
Heaven Above was a “trendsetter” that laid down many of the genre’s
conventions, including several key limits to its realism imposed by
various unwritten rules. For example, the highest-level official who
can be depicted as corrupt is a vice governor or deputy provincial
Party secretary; there must be “good officials” who help ensure that
corruption is defeated in the end.

Decade of Silence
The anti-graft television series proliferated and even shaped prime-
time viewing near the end of the 20th century. By 2003, crime drama
had become the most prominent drama genre in China, and roughly
30 percent of such dramas had plots featuring official corruption.
In the meantime, anti-corruption novels flooded the book market,
reaching both fans of anti-corruption dramas and new audiences.
Having revealed much of the dark side of China, crime dramas and
anti-graft dramas went too far in the view of SAPPRFT regulators,
and in April 2004 they were all banned from prime-time slots.
In the wake of the harsh ban, dramas that explicitly dealt with cor-
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