“The Legend of Zhen Huan” Releases English Theme Song for HBO Broadcast
The American broadcast of Mainland Chinese television series The Legend of Zhen Huan <後宮甄嬛傳> is slated to air on HBO shortly. The new English theme song “A New Day”, which is composed by musician Benjamin Wallfisch, has been unveiled.
The Legend of Zhen Huan stars Betty Sun (孫儷) as the titular character, who goes through a drastic change of character in order to survive in the imperial harem. Chen Jianbin (陳建斌) stars as Emperor Yongzheng and Ada Choi (蔡少芬) stars as Zhen Huan’s rival, Empress Xiaojingxian.
The American release of The Legend of Zhen Huan was first announced in January 2013, when director Zheng Xiaolong (鄭曉龍) revealed that an American company had purchased the mainstream broadcasting rights to air the Qing dynasty series in the United States.
The original series, which was 76 episodes long, aired in mainland China in 2011 to record-breaking success. It achieved widespread popularity in many other Asian countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan. The American version, which is slated to air on HBO, will be cut down to a six-episode mini series, in which each episode lasts 90 minutes.
Although the series was reduced to only six episodes, additional scenes were filmed for the American release. Earlier, a theme video for the American release was unveiled online, in which new footage of Betty Sun portraying a much older Zhen Huan was shown. The series will also have a new soundtrack.
“The Legend of Zhen Huan” English Theme Song: “A New Day”
[vsw id=”1QYZmZrdNC4″ source=”youtube” width=”500″ height=”375″ autoplay=”no”]
Source: ifeng.com
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
Will the series be airing in December 2014 or December 2015? I checked HBO’s website and didn’t see anything about the series there.
Hope they not using the dubbed voices
Uhh what the heck…6 mini episodes?! You can’t possibly condense a 76 epi saga into measly 6 epis and expect it to be good! And the song shouldve been kept as is. People try too hard to break into the american market. There’s way more beauty and authenticity when it’s done in its native language
I found this tv series too long and boring (got up to episode 30 and stopped watching after that). Costumes were nice though.
This theme is too boring. Bad start. Listen to Game of Thrones and True Blood’s themes. They really get people excited about the show.
How the hell can 76 episodes be cut into just 6 episodes? A lot of important scenes will be left out and viewers in the US will most probably be confused because of this. Seems pointless broadcasting it if they are releasing a heavily edited version of it. It will give US viewers a bad impression of Chinese dramas.
Urgh..the english theme song is horrible!!
is this series really that good? i watched 13 episodes and was bored to tears. should i give it another go?
I would liken it to TVB’s War and Beauty but The Legend of Zhen Huan is 10 times better – better acting, better costumes, better storylines. Although there’s 76 episodes, I did not feel like it dragged on and on.
You are right….there should be at least a couple more episodes before the end to wrap it up (i.e. to show how her twins were growing up, etc).
For netizens here, the first 10 – 20 episodes maybe boring but it forms the foundation for a complicated love story, her close friendships with her confidants and how naive ZH was . If the American market has only 6 episodes (even tho each is supposed to be 90minutes), there’s no way it will cover all the twists & turns. And it’s exactly these side plots which caused Zhen Huan’s character to change in order to survive the manipulative Empress (Ada Choi) and eventually gained the confidence and respect of a handful of other ‘niang niang’ to help her.
From the above trailer, they showed “Guo Chin Huang’, 17th brother of YongZheng who eventually confessed his love for ZH and she had the twins. He was the true love of her life and with just 6 episodes, I can’t imagine what shortcuts they’ll make to show how it happened.
For those who already watched 20 episodes, carry on and you’ll be glad you did.
Listened to many ppl said its really good, I decided to watch it, and got bored after 15-20epi, can’t remember, but oh dear, it’s long, and drawn out, I wouldn’t call bored, but it’s not as exciting as people make it to be. And the plot line don’t seem new or original :/
I guess ppl who like it, like it a lot, while ppl who don’t, find it extremely boring
There’s no way I can watch this on HBO since my TV doesn’t have cable.
Soon, there’s no need for cable for HBO Go. Yaaaas!
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/10/15/hbo_online_only_network_says_you_can_get_it_online_without_paying_for_cable.html
Well another series butchered by the Americans.
HBO’s not attaching great importance to this chinese series.
I am just wondering how they are cutting it down so much and making the series any good. I think it will just confused people.
This theme song is God awful. It sounds like bad opera, plus it’s boring to boot.
The theme song is horrible… They should’ve just do musical without lyric. The lyric sounds so bad. Will this be English dub? I don’t mind it only 6 eps. China series seems to draggy anyways.
I watched the whole thing and thought it was really lighthearted thefirst 30 episode and then it got really draggy for me. But then i continued watching it and love it til the end. I dont know how they are going to butcher all of this into 6 episode? How are people going to understand the whole story line and the history of China. This is a disservice to Chinese tv and to China history as a whole. And why cant they just leave the theme song as is? Its beautiful. Cant play an english song for a chinese drama. Ridiculous!!!
Bad theme. It was so slow and boring. Whats wrong with the ost? Introduce the westerners to our music!
*correction**bad theme song.