Filled with seemingly never-ending plot twists, Taiwanese detective fiction series Copycat Killer (模仿犯) catapulted onto streaming giant Netflix’s top 10 list for non-English television programs after its release on March 31, and rose to second on the list in the first two weeks of this month, just behind South Korea’s The Glory.
As of Saturday, the show remained on the list, but had fallen to fifth in the rankings.
Aside from being the first Taiwanese Netflix production to make the streaming platform’s top 10 non-English rankings, Copycat Killer had as of April 3 amassed 17.74 million hours of worldwide viewership.
Photo courtesy of Netflix
It was one of the few Taiwanese productions available in Europe and the Middle East, and also the first Taiwanese show on Netflix available in seven languages.
Set in the late 1990s, the crime drama follows stoic prosecutor Kuo Hsiao-chi (郭曉其), whose stubbornness has alienated him from his peers.
Kuo finds himself intertwined in the mystery and games of the enigmatic “Noh,” a fictional serial killer who targets women and soon begins to taunt the keepers of the law, and initiates a game of cat and mouse.
The drama and gruesome events that unfold between the protagonist and his antagonistic counterpart eventually become nationwide news, subjecting the entire country to the whims of the serial killer.
Copycat Killer, a namesake screen adaptation of Japanese writer Miyuki Miyabe’s 2001 crime-mystery novel, has established countless milestones for Taiwan’s small screen.
The well-received revelations of the show’s twists, its unsettling serial killer and its stubborn detective protagonist also placed it on the top 10 viewership lists of the streaming service in countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
On the popularity of the drama, producer Phil Tang (湯昇榮) said that he and his company, Greener Grass Production, were gratified by the achievement.
“After all, we brought it from Taiwan and Asia to different parts of the world,” he said, “tackling the challenges of language, demographics, worldviews, cultural differences and genre.”
To adapt Miyabe’s novel and translate it, Tang said Netflix hired US teleplaywright Neal Baer — known for his work on US shows ER and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — as a story consultant to ensure the quality of Copycat Killer’s script.
Tang said the rights to the story were acquired by one of the show’s producers years ago.
After Greener Grass’ success with its 2020 crime drama The Victims’ Game (誰是被害者), the company decided it was ready to undertake the adaptation, giving screenwriters two years to work on the teleplay as well as a full year of post-production before releasing the show, Tang said.
Tang attributed the international success of the show to the syndication strategy devised by Greener Grass and Netflix prior to its release.
The show is the first Taiwanese production to be released simultaneously in its original Chinese-language form, as well as in English, Japanese, Thai, Indonesian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese to cater to viewers in countries who prefer dubbed versions to subtitles, Tang said.
The series has also been subtitled in more than 30 languages.
Although Copycat Killer and The Victim’s Game proved successful due in part to the exposure provided by Netflix, Tang said Taiwanese productions should not be completely dependent on streaming services.
Taiwan should “broaden our imagination when it comes to penetrating the global market,” Tang said.
The entertainment industry is an important strategy in Taiwan’s efforts to globalize, he said.
“Just look at [South Korean boyband] BTS and the influence Korean shows have abroad, which serve as testaments to the impact of Korea’s soft power,” Tang said.
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