‘Nirvana in Fire’ is a big hit on the small screen

[Photo provided to China Daily]

But she dismissed reports about an English-subtitled version of 55 episodes. "So far we have no such plans," says Li, also the distribution head of Nirvana in Fire, in a telephone interview with China Daily.

Despite there being no official English version, enthusiasm from viewers has led them to create versions with subtitles in other languages.

For now, a version with English subtitles can be had from Viki.com, a Singapore-based video-streaming site, and it is recruiting volunteers to do subtitles in other languages, including Spanish, French, Romanian and Hungarian.

Li says that the series' overseas promotion was launched in September 2014, a year earlier than its Chinese mainland debut.

Separately, the series' producers have participated in nearly all the most influential international television exhibitions in the past 14 months, including the Cannes-held MIPTV, or Marche International des Programmes de Television, one of the world's largest TV and digital content markets.

"We've maintained contacts with foreign traders, and they're pretty interested in the Chinese audience reaction and feedback," she says.

While most homegrown TV serials have English titles translated from their Chinese names, Nirvana in Fire is not the English translation of the Chinese title, but is a name purposely chosen to attract overseas viewers.