China’s longest TV drama enters its 16th year

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The characters of Chinese sitcom "In-Laws, Out-Laws" have grown with time -- after all, they have been on the show for 16 years, making it the longest drama series in China.

A new season of the sitcom aired earlier this month on Guangdong Television. The 30-minute episode is a kaleidoscope to the happiness and sorrows of a family in urban Guangzhou in southern China’s Guangdong Province. The story delves into the complexities and cultural conflicts as the family's four sons marry women from outside Guangdong.

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The series' director Lu Xiaoguang said the longevity of the show, which has completed more than 3,100 episodes, does not rely on celebrities or massive production costs, but rather the nuances that portray the daily lives of people.

“After the Reform and Opening-up Policy was introduced back in the 1980s, a large number of people migrated to Guangdong for jobs, and many have become part of the families there," Lu said. "The drama is based on the real situations that most families have to face with and deal with."

The sitcom's cast members frequently visit local families to experience their real lives, and exchange ideas with the audience via Internet to make fine-tunes to the scripts accordingly.

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Originally filmed in Cantonese, the series has been dubbed into various dialects in China, and is broadcast by other stations across the Chinese mainland, as well as Hong Kong and Macao SARs.

In November, the TV drama was also adapted into a cartoon series. The brand has become more influential globally as its intellectual property right has been sold to countries like Singapore, Malaysia, and as far as to the USA.

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Professor Tan Tian with the School of Journalism and Communications at Jinan University in Guangdong, suggests the show could further explore its economic value and launch a series of derivative products, such as online gaming and themed shopping stores.

Lu, the director of the series, said he has no plans to end the program, which still enjoys high ratings, and has helped Guangdong Television station attract more than 2 billion yuan (290 million US dollars) of advertisements so far.