I was waiting in a hotel lobby for a business meeting, when I heard a familiar tune from the TV set that was playing in the bar: the theme song from the Korean drama that I enjoyed so much in Singapore last year. I walked over to see that Shanghai Oriental Television was not showing the Korean original Cruel Temptation ( aka Temptation of a Wife), but rather a local adaptation, called The Desire of Going Home (回家的诱惑).

From what I can tell, it is a shot-for-shot reproduction. The names and location (seems to Shanghai) are different, but everything else is the same (just looks cheaper). The actors must have studied the original, you can tell that they are imitating their counterparts. So without the need for subtitles I could tell who each character was, and what was going on (also what was about to happen). I hope the producers are paying some kind of royalties for this, I cannot think that this can otherwise be legal, even in China, at least as far as the music is concerned.

Unfortunately, the show is already in its last third, so that this does not give me a chance to catch up with the first half that I still have not seen (of course, while researching for this post, trying to find a good image, I came across scores of streaming sites that have all episodes of both versions; going into Baidu with the name of a movie or show, it is hard to find anything else).

In related news, I am going home tomorrow: We'll be in Europe until the end of the month.