Huanxi Premium bags Bodyguard for China
Details
Rebecca Hawkes
| 06 May 2019

China’s nascent high end video platform Huanxi Premium has acquired exclusive streaming rights to British drama series Bodyguard, following a deal with ITV Studios.

World Productions’ six episode series, created and written by Jed Mercurio, will stream in China later this year on the digital entertainment platform of film and TV studio Huanxi Media Group, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Bodyguard revolves around David Budd (played by Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden), a troubled war veteran who, when assigned to protect the Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), finds himself torn between his duty and his values.

The show became the most-watched BBC drama of the past decade when it aired last year, drawing over 17 million viewers in the UK . It has since been streamed in the US and other markets by Netflix.

Huanxi Media Group was co-founded in 2015 by Dong Ping (co-producer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Chinese directors Xu Zheng (Lost in Hong Kong) and Ning Hao (Crazy Alien). Since then it has established a number of exclusive partnerships with influential filmmakers in China.

Huanxi Premium, which launched in September 2018, now reportedly has around 3 million users, following the success of Ning Hao’s Crazy Alien which enjoyed its digital premiere on the platform just four weeks after the film’s theatrical opening.