What you need to know about Chinese reality TV show Idol Producer

If you're a fan of Chinese reality TV show or any entertainment programmes, you'd probably have heard of Idol Producer.

The reality TV competition that features trainees and aspiring artists who compete to be in the final line-up of a unit boy group and have their shot at officially debuting.

Here's what you need to know about the show.

Most of the judges are K-pop idols

Led by EXO's Lay (or Zhang Yixing, as he's known in China), the panel of judges include GOT7's Jackson, Pristin's Kyulkyung and Cosmic Girls' Cheng Xiao. Li Ronghao and MC Jin are also part of the panel.

It's basically like Produce 101

[embed]https://twitter.com/LouissexXukun/status/964488269022072832[/embed]

If you watched South Korea's reality TV competition Produce 101, you'll understand how this show works. It follows a similar voting system, where audiences can vote for their favourite, who is then ranked among all the participants. At the end of the show, the ones who make it to the final nine will form a unit group.

There are "independent trainees"

[embed]https://twitter.com/xukunfilms/status/965685276919062528[/embed]

While most of the trainees are part of talent agencies, including big name Yue Hua Entertainment, some of them joined as individuals. Case in point? Cai Xu Kun, who has appeared in Chinese-Korean survival programme, Super Idol seasons one and two.

Fan Bingbing's brother joined the show

[embed]https://twitter.com/ddpxxy/status/964500114264932353[/embed]

Yes, you read that right. Bing Bing's brother, Cheng Cheng, is part of Yue Hua Entertainment. When he failed to perform at his best during the auditions, he cried and told the interviewers that he was anxious to prove his worth because he didn't like hearing comments that he relies on his sister.

The rankings are unpredictable

[embed]https://twitter.com/wilfulabandon/status/964903963702083584[/embed]

Obviously, the boys' rankings depend on how much of an impact their performance had on the audience or "national producers". Li Quanzhe ranked in top 30 for the first two rankings, but dropped to 74th place in the fourth episode, before making it to the top 10 in the recent episode.

One of the participants is from Thailand

[embed]https://twitter.com/aryaykn/status/965178683664171009[/embed]

Huang Shu Hao, a trainee under Hua Ying Yi Xing, is from Thailand. He showed off his fluency in Mandarin during the show, revealing that he had picked up the language when he was in Thailand. His real name is Mark.

This article was first published in CLEO Singapore