A Comparison of East Asian Women's Survival Status in Cinematography: Take Tōkyō Joshi Zukan and Beijing Women's Illustration as Examples

Abstract

Film and television literature reflects social reality and the direction of cultural thinking. In recent years, film and television works about the current situation of women in East Asia have attracted a great response in the market. Two typical examples are "Tōkyō Joshi Zukan" and the Chinese adaptation of "Beijing Women's Illustration", which portray in detail the workplace life, family background and personal growth experiences of contemporary women in these two East Asian countries, Japan and China, respectively. Tōkyō Joshi Zukan is a Japanese web series that started in 2016, was directed by Tabata, starred by Asami Mizukawa, and premiered on Amazon on December 16, 2016. Based on a four-panel manga of the same name, the series follows the twenty years of the life of Aya Saito, a girl from Akita Prefecture who has longed for the big city since childhood and comes to Tokyo after graduating from a local university. Beijing Women's Illustration is a drama co-produced by Xiong Kids Media and Youku, directed by Li Zhi, written by Zhang Jia and starred by Qi Wei, Chen Jin and Wu Yue, which premiered on Youku on April 10, 2018. Adapted from the novel of the same name, the drama is about the real-life relationships and lives of solo women represented by Chen Koyi, a northern drifting girl who experienced ten years in Beijing. This paper selects these two TV series for comparative study to explore the current situation of contemporary women's lives in East Asia.