Rendezvous with power

Actress Robin Wright arrives at the special screening of House of Cards at the Directors Guild Of America on Feb 13 in Los Angeles in California.

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According to Douban.com, China's counterpart of IMDb.com, season two of House of Cards has won 9.6 points out of 10, one of the highest-ranked US television series ever, even higher than the final season of multiple awards-winning Breaking Bad.

Nevertheless, Ma Ke, a senior manager in charge of license rights from Sohu.com, says she hesitated introducing the show into China initially. The website, a major online platform streaming US television series, is China's only official broadcaster of House of Cards.

"We are sure it is a top quality series, but the serious story focuses on high-end social elites. We once thought it might not meet the public's demand for entertainment," Ma recalls the days when she introduced season one to Sohu.com in March 2013.

"We never expect its name to become ubiquitous on China's social media immediately after it was broadcast, and that made us decide to buy its intelligence property rights for the next season."

Ma says Sohu's weekly top 10 list of most clicked television series usually include seven or eight domestic series while the rest are South Korean-made, but season two of House of Cards climbed to the fifth place only three days after it was released, which Ma considers a surprise.

Still, it is not a show for the general public. According to statistics of Sohu.com, House of Cards has the most clicks from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong province - these are among China's most developed regions, and its major audience includes civil servants, enterprise managers and technical professionals.