Sequoia Entertainment is taking advantage of Taiwan’s gay-friendly culture to launch urban comedy series “The Nipple Talk.” The show is in pre-production and is expected to be delivered by early 2023.
Taiwan, which is self-ruled and democratic, has a more liberal culture than other parts of Greater China. In 2019, Taiwan legalized same sex marriage and is now more actively producing queer content than Hong Kong or mainland China. The island is now one of the main sources of BL (or ‘boys love’) series, bromance drama shows that have a strong following among female-skewing audiences in the region.
Sequoia bills “The Nipple Talk” as a tribute to classic U.S. series “Sex and The City” but with more open LGBTQ elements and full nudity – a rarity in Asia outside the porn industry. The producer says that it will incorporate themes such as podcasting and influencers, that matter to young adult audiences. And that it will the series will tackle head on controversial sex and relationship issues that much of Asian society prefers not to talk about.
The show makes use of the showrunner system imported from the U.S. and will deploy three directors: Ray Jiang, Diana Chao and Lee I-Hui.
The package will comprise 10 episodes of 30-minutes each in its Taiwan-set first season. If it is successful, a second season will relocate to Thailand and a third be set in Japan.
The company disclosed little of the story or its episodic structure but unveiled the show’s key cast and characters.
Kaiser Chuang, a well-established actor who has won awards at the Taipei Film Festival and the Golden Bell Awards with “Maverick” and “The Road Home,” plays a gay character who likes to challenge gender stereotypes and is frequently seen in female clothing. Szuyu Lin is cast as an editor of an avantgarde website popular among the young generation. Bryan Chang is cast as the manager of a YouTube star. Lucia Lu is cast as an entertainment industry reporter and out of the closet lesbian.
Cast of Sequoia Entertainment’s “The Nipple Talk”.
Lincoln Lai
Sequoia Entertainment, which previously delivered the “Women in Taipei” series soon to be available on Disney Plus, has no connection to Sequoia Capital, a mainland Chinese finance firm with multiple investments in the tech and entertainment sectors. Rather it is part of the Taiwan-based Grandi Holding headed by entrepreneur Lincoln Lai.