A Japanese film based on manga work finds fans in China. Xu Fan reports.

When Japanese director Joji Matsuoka was asked by someone if he had watched the Chinese TV series Midnight Diner, the audience at the Sunday preview of his latest film in Beijing burst into laughter.

That was because the series is based on a Japanese manga work, and Matsuoka has directed two related films and a TV series.

First emerging as Yaro Abe's popular manga work in 2006, the heart-warming stories about a late-night eatery was adapted into a three-season Japanese TV series from 2009 to 2014, and also spawned two feature-length movies released in 2015 and 2016. All of them are critically acclaimed.

Matsuoka was promoting the second feature, Midnight Diner 2, in Beijing ahead of its China premiere. And, the Chinese series helped the Japanese franchise to dominate news in China.

Once among the most anticipated TV dramas, the Chinese series, however, obtained 2.7 points out of 10 on popular reviewing site Douban in June.

Most Chinese viewers complained the series was accompanied by too many advertisements, poor performances by the actors and actresses and the failure to keep the original work's in-depth story.

For diehard fans, the newly released Japanese sequel Midnight Diner 2 is seemingly an authentic effort to remedy their disappointment with the Chinese TV drama.

But for Matsuoka, the question about Chinese series is a bit challenging.