She Paid 18 Yuan to Stream Her Own Drama Early — and Found Two-Thirds of Her Scenes Cut
On the night the year's breakout costume drama airs its finale, actress Liu Meihan's complaint about her gutted subplot has put the streaming industry's pay-extra early-access system, and its editing knife, back under the lights.
On Sunday night the actress Liu Meihan paid 18 yuan for an early-access package on Tencent Video and discovered, watching it, that two-thirds of her scenes in the drama had been cut. "I spent 18 yuan on the early access last night and found two-thirds of my scenes snipped away," she wrote in a post that drew more than 25,000 likes. "My heart aches for Shangguan Hong. Just release all her leftover scenes in one go; she deserves that much for such a loyal, devoted life." Fans piecing together her timeline found the extra irony: Tencent is streaming two of her dramas at once, and she had briefly wondered how she could have unlocked a finale a day before everyone else — before realizing which show her 18 yuan had actually gone to.
By Monday the post was a trending topic, and Liu was back under it with a clarification: editing has to weigh length, logic and emphasis, and "as an actress I completely understand these decisions." What she minded was that the scenes carrying Shangguan Hong's character arc would never be seen: "I liked those scenes, so it's a pity." Fellow wage-earners related instantly; discovering at a premium price what the editing knife did to your work is not an experience confined to actors.
The fee she paid belongs to the early-access system Chinese platforms call 超点: pay per pack, watch the final episodes days before the schedule. Platforms withdrew the practice in 2021 after a viewer revolt over being charged twice for the same show, and it has since returned in new clothing, including the "finale advance-screening gift pack" through which this finale was sold. The economics are plain: the biggest show of the season charges for its last episodes twice, once in the membership fee and once in impatience.
The biggest show of the season ended Monday night. "Lan Xiang Ru Gu," the costume drama that became the autumn's dark horse by playing office politics in period dress, aired its finale at 21:30 on CCTV-8 and Tencent Video, capping a run that carried its own arguments, including a feminist backlash over the disposal of its female characters. The scene praised most in the finale chatter is a death: the servant Xue Guihua, smiling, says "Lanxiang is coming to take me," staged, as the trending post had it, from the dying woman's point of view.
Liu's one concrete request, that the platform release Shangguan Hong's cut scenes in full, had no answer by Monday evening. The episodes went out at 21:30; the edit, evidently, had happened long before.
