TVB is facing criticism once again for blatantly copying certain elements of a Japanese drama into one of their most recent television dramas Fashion War <潮流教主>, which premiered on February 29, 2016. The first week of broadcast, which ended on March 6, garnered an average rating of 23 points, reaching approximately 1.5 million viewers per episode. Fashion War, which stars Moses Chan (陳豪), Him Law (羅仲謙), Sisley Choi (蔡思貝), and Ali Lee (李佳芯), follows the fashion exploits of a magazine editor and his protégé. Netizens said the premise of the drama is quite similar to the 2014 Japanese television drama First Class, which aired in Hong Kong through the J2 channel earlier last year. First Class follows “Chinami” (portrayed by Erika Sawajiri), an assistant editor of a fashion magazine who gets entrenched in a world of workplace politics as she struggles to reach to the top. The role is almost identical to Sisley Choi’s “Yannes”, who shares the same background and struggles in Fashion War. Both First Class and Fashion War have a storyline that involves the lead character failing to find a model for her photoshoot, thus having no choice but to model the shoot herself. In fact, netizens said Fashion War borrowed so many ideas from First Class that some scenes were almost copied frame by frame. The scene where Yannes first steps into the MODES office is almost exactly like the scene where Chinami first steps into the First Class office. In addition, netizens noticed that Moses Chan, who plays the character of chief editor in Fashion War, has an appearance that is very similar to German fashion designer, Karl Lagerfeld. In regards to this, Moses said, “Thank you for the praise. This drama is about fashion. I’ve never tried a style like this before.” Creds: Eastweek
There are lots of people out there who does not follow japanese drama. So I think is fair that we can watch Fashion War with great eagerness and praise. Not many understand Japanese language in Asia So I think this is not a big issue.
watched the firts 10 eps the show very avg and its copied do the Japanese one have all that eye candy
I personally don't think it's a big deal so as long as TVB pays copyrights to the appropriate parties. Everyone does this all the time, borrowing ideas from other places
isn't it a known fact since a long time that tvb has run out of ideas? the real good dramas were from years ago with for example gallen lo (at the treshold of an era) and louis koo (step into the past)... what memorable dramas has ever been produced after that? cheap copies everywhere and just poor poor comedies which i won't be able to laugh at even when someone put a gun to my head, but that might just be me.
Have not been following any TVB series for a long time... TVB is lucky to even come out with one good series in a year.
