A Chinese TV drama about the lives of four inner-city men has been pulled from online streaming sites after heavy criticism of an offensive breast-groping scene and outdated, sexist storylines that triggered a widespread backlash in China.
The show Gentlemen of Eastern 8th is a 40-episode TV series premiered on two leading video platforms on August 31 and concluded last week. Now the series has been taken offline following a backlash with many saying the series is humiliating to women and is “vulgar” and “unrealistic”.
The show originally aired on Hubei Satellite TV simultaneously, and was rated 2.1 out of 10 by more than 190,000 users on Douban, China’s leading movie review site, the lowest rating for any Chinese TV drama ever.
The drama stars famous Chinese actor Zhang Han, who is also the main producer and screenwriter. Zhang, 37, is best known for his roles in the 2009 romantic drama Meteor Shower 2, and the 2017 box office record-breaking action film Wolf Warrior 2.
The TV drama tells the story of four male friends from their university days who are now into their 30s as they navigate their careers, friendships and romantic lives. It first caused controversy after an episode in which the character played by Zhang groped the breasts of a female character played by actress Wang Xiaochen.
The scene shows while the pair having dinner in a restaurant. Zhang’s character grabs the female character’s breasts as she sits in his lap.
In another scene, which presumably was intended to be hilarious, the same male character grabs the same woman’s bra strap to prevent her from falling over when she slips.
As of Tuesday night the show was no longer available on Mango TV and Tencent Video where it was originally broadcast.
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The TV show’s dialogue has also been heavily criticised for lines like: “My mother has told me that thin women are good-looking and fat women are good in bed.”
“This is sexual harassment in the name of filming … It’s workplace harassment for the actress,” said one Weibo user.
“I have to say that Zhang deserves all the criticism as he tried to cater for obscene men with an evil intent to grab eyeballs by humiliating women,” another wrote.
The drama series has also been slammed for its storylines that many feel are ridiculously exaggerated and divorced from reality, such as Zhang’s character travelling to a classmate’s wedding by helicopter and at which all the bridesmaids are foreigners all having different skin colours.
In the past week, the phrase “Zhang Han’s hands” has remained one of the most searched topics on Weibo in relation to his character’s groping of women and awkward hand placements in the drama. It has also received criticism from official media including the People’s Daily.
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