DIRECTOR EXCLUSIVE
3 Body Problem director Derek Tsang reveals how he adapted China’s modern science fiction classic The Three-Body Problem
NEW SERIES 3 BODY Problem marks the return of David Benioff and DB Weiss (aka D&D) to genre television after some down time following eight seasons of showrunning Game Of Thrones. It’s also the first collaboration for the pair with executive producer Alexander Woo (The Terror).
More importantly for fans of contemporary sci-fi literature, this adaptation of Liu Cixin’s Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel The Three-Body Problem is an opportunity for mainstream audiences to discover the book that put Chinese science fiction on international radars when it was translated into English in 2014.
“I don’t think people realise how important this novel is for the Chinese, for China readers and Chinese sci-fi,” Derek Tsang, the Hong Kong-based director of 3 Body Problem, tells Red Alert. “This book was written in 2008, so it’s been around for a long time. It’s really well known in our part of the world because it’s one of the first contemporary science fiction books that really broke out, reached a mass audience and let people look at Chinese science fiction.”
Benioff, Weiss and Woo have adapted the text into a multigenerational, non-linear story that uses the dramatic life of Cultural Revolution survivor and brilliant astrophysicist Ye Wenjie (played by both Rosalind Chao and Zine Tseng) as the means by which to tell a sprawling story of political upheaval, “broken science” in contemporary London and even extraterrestrial communication. Featuring an international cast including Benedict Wong, Jovan Adepo, Eiza González and John Bradley, 3 Body Problem honours the spirit and core beats of the book, but also opens it up for a broader audience.
As a long-time fan of Liu Cixin’s original sci-fi trilogy, Tsang says he was excited to learn that Benioff and Weiss were adapting it into a series. But he never dreamed that he would eventually be a part of it. However, an Academy Award nomination for his film Better Days earned him a call about possibly directing for the show.
“My immediate reaction was, ‘Hell, yeah! Let them know, I’m really interested in meeting them,’” Tsang remembers.
After a Zoom meeting with the creatives, Tsang was quickly hired to establish the look of the series in the first two episodes, which do the heavy lifting of establishing multiple eras, a contemporary murder mystery and a lot of characters.
“From my end, because it’s such a genre-bending show, there’s a lot of different elements that are involved,
