3 Body Problem infuriates Chinese viewers: “Netflix only understands political correctness”

Netflix's new sci-fi blockbuster isn't popular in China.

Image Credit: Netflix

One of Netflix's big bets for 2024 is the adaptation of 3 Body Problem, the science fiction series on which the creators of Game of Thrones worked hard. The new television series is based on the famous novel by Chinese writer Liu Cixin. How will Chinese viewers have taken the adaptation? Unfortunately, not well. Considering that Netflix doesn't officially have a service in China, this was a difficult question to resolve, but the truth is that many viewers have relied on VPNs to access The Three-Body Problem in China as well. And the opinion of the majority of Chinese viewers is not convinced of the work done by Netflix.

For example, a Weibo user points out that “Netflix, you didn't understand anything about The Three-Body Problem or Ye Wenjie, you only understand political correctness!” This refers to the beginning of the series – watch out for spoilers in the rest of the paragraph – when a physics teacher is beaten to death by his own students after being denounced by his wife. All this while his daughter Ye Wenjie watches the barbarity in horror.

For many viewers, the series was created only to paint China in a bad light. This idea was strengthened by the fact that, just a few months ago, the Chinese version of the series adaptation of the novel was released, which was much more successful in the country. In fact, there are several complaints from this point of view too, since the Chinese version of is much longer – it has 30 episodes – and offers a vision much closer to Cixin's novel. So much so that the phrase "the Chinese version wins" was widely used on Weiboo on Friday, alluding to the inferiority of the Netflix series.

Another recurring complaint is the fact that the Netflix series changes the story, setting it from China to the UK, with one user of the social network Douban pointing out that "Westerners can't accept the idea of the Chinese inventing new technology". avant-garde". Of course, it also has defenders, including one on Weiboo who concludes “Why do some always need to turn a cultural product into an enemy? Our version can be good, theirs can also be excellent. Why do we always have to fight like this?”.