Three Singaporean-led series, including one by film-maker Eric Khoo, are set to be streamed to a global audience.
South Korean media conglomerate CJ ENM's Hong Kong offshoot will co-develop and co-create with local production partners on the three Singapore series.
In addition, CJ ENM HK is bringing in a team of producers from South Korea as creative consultants for each series.
"2021 is a year for us here at CJ ENM HK to expand our local language productions for the global streaming audience," said Mr Michael Jung, managing director of CJ ENM Hong Kong, in a statement last Friday (June 4).
The three series are supported by Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority.
Singaporean film-maker Eric Khoo's Zhao Wei Films is producing a five-parter, Hungry Souls, about the love between a young chef and a hungry ghost, set against the backdrop of triad activities in 1970s Singapore as well as the Hungry Ghost Festival.
Khoo, whose films such as My Magic (2008) and Be With Me (2005) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, also created an Asian horror anthology TV series for HBO Asia, Folklore, in 2018.
The second made-for-streaming series is Venus On Mars, a six-part sci-fi romantic comedy about an undergraduate who is accidentally transported into a parallel world where there are only men.
Produced by Singapore's Mocha Chai Laboratories and written by acclaimed Taiwanese writer Huang Yu-chia, the series will shoot in Taiwan with post-production in Singapore.
The third show, Deep End, produced by the Singapore-based Akanga Film Asia, is a five-part psychological thriller about cyber sex crimes in Asia.
It follows a troubled police officer investigating an online revenge porn murder and the cast and crew will be from Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia.
Directors Yeo Siew Hua of A Land Imagined (2018) and K. Rajagopal of A Yellow Bird (2016) will share writing credits with playwright Kaylene Tan.
These three series will finish casting and start shooting in the second half of the year. CJ ENM HK will distribute them globally.
As part of CJ ENM HK's push for Mandarin streaming content, it is also releasing a Taiwanese series about a mother's search for love online. The 11-episode adaptation of the novel Mom, Don't Do That! will start streaming in the fourth quarter of the year.
