Mediacorp is Having Its First M18 Drama & It’ll Star Joanne Peh as a Brothel Boss

Anyone who’ve lived thought the TV era (i.e. days when Xie Shaoguang and Chen Hanwei ruled the entertainment scene) would know that everything that’s shown on TV is super safe.

And it’s not because advertisers won’t like it, but because TV shows are meant to be for everyone, which includes kids who don’t know the difference between bananas and abalones.

Suffice to say, every primetime drama would have the same storyline with the same ending, unlike shows from Netflix whereby the bad guys would sometimes win and the world would end if needed.

But for the first time ever, Mediacorp is doing a drama that’s M18—in other words, anyone below 18 isn’t allowed to watch.

How does it work, you asked. Are TVs so high-tech that they can scan your face and determine how old you are?

No, silly. They did it the Netflix way: put it in Toggle (Mediacorp’s online streaming platform).

Chey.

But hey, it’s still Mediacorp’s first M18 drama, yah?

And it even features familiar Mediacorp stars like Joanna Peh, Constance Lau and Lina Ng.

Last Madame

Premiering in Toggle in September this year (pretty sure it won’t be shown in free-to-air channels after that), Last Madame is the first M18 drama by Mediacorp.

Set in the 1930s, the plot takes place in a Singapore brothel, with the story focusing on female empowerment. Of course, it would be “bolder in its depiction of sex and violence”, though you’d have to admit that there’s still a line they can’t cross since shows in Netflix are either R21 or PG.

M18 is like…not here not there.

For your info, even family-friendly franchise like Star Trek has moved its new series into the R21 universe since it was converted to an online series.

But hey: that’s still a start, right?

Last Madame is an English drama that has twelve episodes, with each taking half an hour. Joanne Peh plays a brothel boss and boy does she look the part:

According to the director of the drama, the M18 rating allows them to “to show the life in a brothel authentically, and more importantly, show how women lived and were treated in the 1930s. And here’s where we differ from Game of Thrones, which I feel had lots of gratuitous sex for its own sake.”

It’s just weird to have Singaporeans in the 1930s to speak English, but I digress.

Interestingly enough, it’ll have a parallel storyline set in the present, so I guess it won’t be too jaded for people who can’t stand scenes set in the past (I’m one of them).

I don’t know about you, but I’m already looking forward to this.