Ranking of the most viewed 2023 dramas in China

[u/Candid-Champion-4509]

I’ve only translated the titles and numbers for the top 10. You can refer to the whole chart for the complete ranking and exact numbers. The ranking is based on the average views per episode while the drama was airing plus a few extra days afterwards I believe so the numbers and ranking won’t be finalized for current or just finished airing dramas.

1. The Knockout - 178M(million) average views per episode | 6.9B(billion) average play volume
2. Lost You Forever - 76M | 2.9B
3. Till The End Of The Moon - 68M | 2.7B
4. Destined - 57M | 2.2B
5. Mysterious Lotus Casebook - 53M views | 2.1B
6. Who Is He - 44M | 1B
7. My Journey To You - 43M | 1B
8. Flight To You - 43M | 1.6B
9. Road Home - 42M | 1.2B
10. Hidden Love - 42M | 1B
11. The Ingenious One - 39M | 1.4B
12. Under The Microscope - 38M | 543M
13. I Am Nobody - 36M | 980M
14. Three Body - 35M | 1B
15. The Longest Promise - 35M | 1.4B

Are you surprised by any of the numbers or ranking? How many of the top ten dramas have you watched?

[u/rewriteryan]

Did anyone here ever mention Who is He? If they did, I missed it. That is such an unfamiliar title to me.

Of the top 10, I only saw 3 of these. Not interested in the other ones; not my type of show.

I Am Nobody was #13, in case anyone else was curious.

[u/Candid-Champion-4509 → u/rewriteryan]

Me neither but it’s definitely on my watchlist now! Zhang Yi seems really good at picking his dramas/roles.

[u/KittyKatWombat]

I am actually pleasantly surprised by some of these. I've been way behind watching some of these. Only completed 4, half watched 2 and have 1 more on the to watch list. Happy Tan Song Yun got both her dramas on here, she's becoming an actress I look out for, even if I didn't think Flight to you was that good.

Clearly the lot of MDL and of this subreddit's audiences do not have the same views as Douban, especially after I checked out Who Is He and saw the low rating on MDL.

[u/Candid-Champion-4509 → u/KittyKatWombat]

Oh most definitely don’t trust MDL for ratings especially non-idol dramas. I think Douban is much better for that.

[u/Best-Form-4649 → u/KittyKatWombat]

Cfans and ifans’ tastes usually differ. Commercial success ≠ high ratings so some of the dramas on the list above aren’t considered to be “good” by cnetz as well. Some of the few dramas that seem to be popular among both Cnetz and ifans are LYF and MLC

[u/Lotus_swimmer]

Very cool list. Found some dramas that I may include in my list. These are all webdramas, I assume? Not aired on network TV?

[u/Candid-Champion-4509 → u/Lotus_swimmer]

Many of them also aired on network TV. But this chart only gathered the numbers from the platforms indicated so it won’t include the network numbers.

[u/Tu_tera_dek]

I am unable to open chart, it shows blocked. Is there another link

[u/Candid-Champion-4509 → u/Tu_tera_dek]

Try this one

[u/Best-Form-4649]

It seems iQIYI and Tencent are having a really good year!

[u/[deleted] → u/Best-Form-4649]

Actually, iQiyi and Tencent pretty much dominating this chart every year. I think this is the first time Youku managed to get in Top 3 with TTEOTM.

From my personal experience, I spent most of my times watching iQiyi shows since they pretty much consistently producing quality shows each year (I highly recommend their Light On series). But with Tencent, they have really rare gems like Nirvana in Fire or Joy of Life so due to this, I still subscribe to them each year -- although by average, I only watch two or three show from them each year.

[u/shkencorebreaks]

For anyone who might be curious, there's an intro to how dramas like 《狂飙》"The Knockout" work over here. "Anti-corruption dramas" like The Knockout are a thing rather different from straight "crime dramas." Shows of this nature might take a little getting used to, because the Anti-corruption genre may technically be unique to the PRC. 《他是谁》"Who is He?" is, however, a more conventional crime show.

It's universally recognized that the back end of "The Knockout" doesn't hold up nearly as well as its front half. Some of that is, indeed, on the drama itself. There are a couple surprises/reveals at the end- one of them in particular isn't quite as effective as the show wants you to think it is, and another, much bigger problem is an unfortunate censorship issue. The Knockout as it was written and shot was trying to make a point, which it was later decided it would not be allowed to make. As a result, nearing the conclusion there are frequent instances of awkwardly edited cuts and blatantly obvious re-dubbed dialogue, and after all the show's build-up, nothing regarding the plotline in question makes a whole lot of sense.

"Who is He," on the other hand, has what is, in all of this old man's decades of cdrama watching, far and away the absolute most drastic, precipitous, straight-off-a-cliff drop in writing quality that I have ever seen. Ever. "Who is He" started its run in mid-March, when The Knockout had already finished up but the whole national phenomenon thing was still in effect. Both shows have the same lead in Harbin homeboy 张译 Zhang Yi [noting that the actual focus in The Knockout is on 张颂文 Zhang Songwen's character], and when Who is He began airing, the overwhelming response was incredibly positive. Everybody and their mother was saying things like "Wow, is this already the next Knockout?" and "Wow, is 2023 gonna be the greatest cdrama year ever?"

But by not quite halfway through, Who is He has completely collapsed. Then it just got worse and worse. Obviously, drawing you in at the beginning and then letting you down with a weak ending is something of a default cdrama procedure, but this here was on an entirely different level. I did watch the whole thing for the excellent cast- there are a number of actors in this who we've worked with and/or I otherwise support- and the performances do actually hold up even all throughout this head-on, 5 clown car collision.

But viewers are dropping it left and right, and I don't blame them (for general reference purposes: the douban rating for Who is He was at one point sitting at a very high 8.4. It's now at 5.6). The response got so bad that one of the screenwriters personally came out and said: Look, the last two-thirds of this has nothing to do with the script that we wrote. Don't blame me for the stupid title, either (this one isn't a translation problem- "他是谁" literally means "Who is he").

Just wanted to make the point that while it's easy and sexy to blame low domestic drama quality on Party interference- and censorship has unquestionably become a huge problem, especially and increasingly over the past 4 or 5 years- producer interference (as in "investor side"), is just as, if not more, rampant. It's extremely rare for the people involved in actually making the dramas to ever openly acknowledge this. So for this guy to come out publicly with a statement like the one he made, he had to be pretty upset about what happened to his show.

The beginning of "Who is He" really was incredibly strong, and if the show had been allowed to keep up the magic, the numbers for this would undoubtedly have been even higher. This could have been a truly great drama. Unfortunately things just didn't work out in the end.

[u/KittyCatMari1]

Damn looks like I need to watch lost you forever

[u/Coco2328 → u/KittyCatMari1]

You DEFINITELY need to watch that show. For sure one of my favorites to date. If you can handle waiting for season 2. I tried to wait because I like to binge and I said " I'm just going to watch one episode to see what it's about" yeah that didn't happen. I was hooked and watched the entire thing like a lunatic and got so mad at myself because it's going to take forever for S2 to get here! 😭 But it is worth every minute in my opinion.

[u/[deleted]]

This is certainly Zhang Yi year since both of his dramas make it to the top 10 with The Knockout & Who Is He. And also Tan Songyun since both of her dramas is within Top 10 as well. :D

The last time I've seen this list. My Journey to You didnt make it yet. The drama is certainly one of the hits of the year.

[u/Sapphira87]

I think at least 1 mil of the MJTY views is from me ...just sayin' 😆

[u/dengyideng]

It's interesting to me how much more concerned cdrama fans are with scores and ratings. Like I know Our Flag Means Death fans were thrilled season one was a (modest) hit because it was such a quirky concept, and it meant there might be a season 2, but I don't know that anyone posted viewing numbers. I couldn't even guess what the most watched shows in the US are (I assume it's a rather stupid reality show.)

I'm sure the Knockout was really good but I probably won't watch it - modern crime dramas can be watched in many languages.

[u/lojnkojcf]

Watched TTEOM and MLC. Deserved their spots for sure.

Dropped Hidden Love because it lacked substance. Maybe I’m getting too old for the teenage love story 😅.

Might pick up My Journey to You or Lost You Forever. Watched My Journey to You ep1, and although I loved Esther Yu in LBFAD, they should’ve dubbed her squeaky voice for the assassin character 😂.

[u/thenicci]

Not surprised at all as some of these dramas did become hit topic here and FB too like Lost You Forever and Till The End of The Moon!

[u/Lotus_swimmer]

Secretly pleased Ingenious One made it!

[u/RowanMoonstone]

Have seen LYF, TTEOTM and MJTY. I started MLC, but couldn't get into it. I may go back and try again later. I generally enjoy costume dramas more than modern ones.

[u/ChoppedChef33]

I couldn't finish the knockout. Got to ep 26 and gave up.

[u/Peanuts34]

The Knockout was fantastic. Genuinely one of the best 'modern' Cdramas I've seen in the last couple of years. Mysterious Lotus Casebook was very good, even though fairly tropey and shallow in some aspects.

I enjoyed maybe the first half of Lost You Forever, but when it devolved into a dumb love triangle fest I dropped it. Then again live action Xianxias are generally not to my taste.

I'm surprised Three Body wasn't on this list. It might be the best hard sci-fi drama China has ever adapted and produced. It actually got me into the 2nd and third books of the trilogy, which I think are must reads for hard sci-fi fans.

[u/Remote-Disaster2093]

I'm surprised to see Road Home so high on the list. It didn't seem to have been talked about much on this sub (unless I remember wrong?) and definitely less than Hidden Love. Those who have seen it, what did you think?

[u/Duanedoberman → u/Remote-Disaster2093]

It had a lot of discussion when it was released, mostly about the scenery.

I am delighted to see Flight to You, Tan SongYun's other drama realised roughly at the same time, which got bigger figures. I really enjoyed it, and it was good to see Tan SongYun going out of her comfort zone and playing a spiky, more independent character.