China’s ultra-short dramas will enjoy long-term success

By Nicole Fan, 1843 intern, The Economist

“Cut!” barks the director, and chaos erupts at a film studio in Los Angeles. Actors rush off to change their costumes, while crew members scramble to arrange new props. It is only the second day of filming and they have already crammed in a week’s worth of cliffhangers. Filming a micro-drama, the latest new-media format to emerge from China, is just as fast-paced as watching one. “It’s soaps on steroids,” a scriptwriter explains.

A cross between TikTok and Netflix, micro-dramas are mini soap operas designed for the smartphone generation. Episodes are filmed in a vertical format and last just over a minute each. The acting tends to be histrionic, the storylines often absurd, with titles like “I Actually Had a Flash Marriage with an Abstinent Male God”. But the bite-sized sagas are perfect for China’s young working professionals: long commutes and gruelling schedules leave little time for binge-watching box-sets on the sofa. Catering to their fragmented viewing habits, these shows rake in millions of views—and millions of dollars. In 2025 they will extend their reach, attracting more viewers outside China.

A single micro-drama can cost over $10 to watch, more than a month of Netflix, as the first few episodes are free of charge, with the rest behind a paywall. Yet viewers have been willing to splash out. The value of China’s micro-drama market leaped ten-fold between 2021 and 2023, and its estimated worth of $5.3bn is expected to reach $14bn by 2027. Even a government crackdown on “vulgar” content has not curbed domestic enthusiasm: larger film companies are stepping in to scale up production, while more traditional streaming platforms are setting up their own micro-drama channels.

The mini web-shows are also breaking new ground as an experimental medium. In 2024 two short-form video platforms, Douyin and Kuaishou, released micro-dramas created using artificial intelligence (ai) for the first time. Nearly every aspect of production—from storyboarding and scripting to the actors themselves—involved ai, which accelerated complex processes and cut costs. The success and potential of ai micro-dramas has sent ripples through China’s wider entertainment industry: even box-office films are beginning to embrace the technology.

And Chinese-backed apps are spreading the love, delivering micro-dramas to new audiences outside China. Leading the charge are ReelShort and DramaBox, which don’t just translate Chinese series but also create original content with foreign actors, writers and directors. Some cultural nuances are still being teased out: shows like “Married for Green Card, Stayed for Love” are blatant, albeit awkward, attempts to appeal to Western viewers. “I feel like a clown,” an American actor sighs, bemoaning how Chinese producers insist on sticking to cheesy tropes and over-the-top acting.

The market is growing. Micro-drama apps have cumulatively amassed nearly 55m downloads and $170m in revenue overseas, according to iiMedia Research, a data provider. These vertical shorts look poised to be more than a fleeting trend. Sometimes less really is more. ■