In an interview with THR, Erika North, Netflix’s director of international original programming talked about Netflix’s holistic perspective towards content creation and curation. As a Netflix subscriber myself, it’s easy to see that North isn’t just giving a PR friendly answer. Over the past few years, Netflix has placed a lot of emphasis on Asian content. I would argue that one of the best original content on Netflix right now is an Indian crime drama titled Sacred Games. On top of that, Netflix also constantly updates its library of non-original content with plenty of Asian stuff, including Malaysian movies such as Paskal, One Two Jaga, Jagat, Interchange and Bunohan. And it looks like the library is only going to continue to expand.
The two Southeast Asian original series from Malaysia and Thailand will be joined by two other Taiwanese original series Nowhere Man and Triad Princess. What’s great is that all these projects will be available to stream on Netflix accounts all of the world — 190 markets to be specific — with subtitles and/or dubbed versions. This certainly puts a smile on my face for two reasons. For one, while Southeast Asia as a whole has not reached the level of Hollywood as far overall filmmaking goes, every now and then we produce films/TV series that are of global standards. It would be great if these projects manage to find an audience and generate buzz outside of the region. Erika North is just as excited. On top of that, countries like Malaysia have very strict censorship laws as far as theatrical releases are concerned. However, online, these censorship laws do not apply. Netflix’s interest in producing more films in this region would allow filmmakers to spread their wings and express themselves in a fairly unrestricted manner. If a Malaysian filmmaker wishes to make a series centred around corrupt cops and the LGBT community, he/she will be able to on Netflix. However, Zainir Aminullah and his producing partner Ideate Media stresses that for Netflix to produce these content, they need to have an international appeal. But this isn’t an issue, at least not for The Ghost Bride which has brought on American-Taiwanese scribe Kai Yu (Hannibal, The Flash) to work together with writers from Malaysia and Taiwan.
