{"id":77255,"date":"2025-08-17T21:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T21:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/77255\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T21:42:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T21:42:12","slug":"the-bite-size-chinese-shows-gaining-u-s-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/77255\/","title":{"rendered":"The bite-size Chinese shows gaining U.S. fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

HONG KONG \u2014 As U.S. television series produce longer and fewer episodes, a new genre from China<\/a> is gaining American fans by going in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

Known as minidramas, micro dramas or vertical dramas, they are soap operas condensed into a minute or two per episode.<\/p>\n

Each show, reminiscent of a telenovela, is split into dozens of chapters, each about two minutes long and with all the soapy elements: cheesy romance, over-the-top drama and abundant cliff-hangers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe revenge ones, oh, my God, they\u2019re so good,\u201d California-based retail business owner Jacarius Murphy told NBC News in a video interview.<\/p>\n

Murphy is a fan of the minidramas, known as duanju in Chinese, which focus heavily on romance, revenge and fantasy. The stories tend to involve wealthy characters such as a chief executive who\u2019s secretly a vampire or a billionaire living a double life \u2014 characters often played by American actors.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want this fast dopamine hit, and they can snack on it while they\u2019re waiting,\u201d said Anina Net, an American actress based in Los Angeles who has worked on minidramas for the past four years.<\/p>\n

The genre originated in China, where production companies have tapped into the popularity of short-form, vertical-produced, TikTok-style video content. About half of China\u2019s 1.4 billion people consume dramas in this style, according to a report released in March by the state-owned China Netcasting Services Association.<\/p>\n

The industry made $6.9 billion in revenue last year, more than China\u2019s total box office sales.<\/p>\n

The shows are \u201cstill quite limited in genre, mostly romance-focused, with sweet, domineering CEO tropes and modern settings,\u201d said Kaidi Dai, a Shanghai-based minidrama producer.<\/p>\n

Now, having figured out the Chinese market, the same companies are expanding into the U.S., where minidramas are finding success just a few years after the failure of Quibi<\/a>, a short-lived, short-form mobile streaming service. The shows are available on platforms such as ReelShort, DramaBox and GoodShort, which offers free episodes and in-app purchases as well as subscriptions.<\/p>\n

Minidramas cost far less to make than standard TV shows and can make millions of dollars in revenue through a combination of user purchases and advertising. But adapting them to the U.S. market takes some tweaking, said Chinese filmmaker Gao Feng, also known as Frank Tian, who has a minidrama production company based in New York.<\/p>\n

Rather than remaking Chinese shows, his company hired longtime U.S. residents to craft stories that would appeal to American audiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that scripts determine 65-70% of a project\u2019s success,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cApart from werewolves, CEO romances and hidden identities, we should explore new genres.\u201d <\/p>\n

While many short dramas have been based on successful Chinese stories, \u201cif a platform cannot innovate continuously, it will face significant challenges,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Among the most popular shows is \u201cThe Double Life of My Billionaire Husband,\u201d which tells the story of a woman whose husband is better off financially than he appears. All 60 episodes can be viewed in less than 70 minutes on ReelShort, the California-based, Chinese-backed minidrama platform that released it in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cHilariously bad, oddly addictive,\u201d reads one IMDb review of the show, which had more than 485 million views on ReelShort as of Friday.<\/p>\n

The Chinese-backed short-video app has vied with TikTok as the most popular product in the entertainment section of Apple\u2019s U.S. app store.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe short videos on TikTok have laid a solid foundation for the popularity of short dramas,\u201d Yan Min, who helped organize an industry conference in China last year, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Min said ReelShort and other companies were advertising on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok to attract new users, catering to the \u201cevolving viewing habits of younger generations, who have grown up with platforms like TikTok and are accustomed to short, engaging content.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. entertainment companies have taken notice of the trend. Netflix said in May that it was testing a vertical feed<\/a> made up of clips from its shows and movies, while Disney said last month that it was investing in DramaBox<\/a> through its accelerator program.<\/p>\n

Though minidramas seeking U.S. audiences are increasingly using actors with American backgrounds, they often shoot in scenic Chinese locations like the coastal city of Qingdao, with its Western-style villas and architecture, for greater authenticity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe seek actors and screenwriters who grew up in the U.S. and naturally embody an American style. Then we incorporate some Chinese elements,\u201d said Ann An, a Beijing-based freelance producer for several minidramas made for foreign audiences.<\/p>\n

Turnarounds are incredibly fast in the industry as producers strive to keep costs low. An said a show can finish filming in 10 days, with a budget of under $70,000.<\/p>\n

The biggest key to the success of minidramas, though, is the cliff-hangers, which push viewers to keep paying for the next episode.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scriptwriters know exactly where to place these cliff-hangers, and they execute them very well,\u201d said Apple Yang, a minidrama director based in London.<\/p>\n

That helps explain the appeal of minidramas even if their overall quality is sometimes \u201cunderwhelming,\u201d said Ying Zhu, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University\u2019s Academy of Film.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake the dialogue real and less mechanic. Make it funny when possible and biting when needed,\u201d Zhu said. \u201cOne minute can pack in a lot of info if done well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONG KONG \u2014 As U.S. television series produce longer and fewer episodes, a new genre from China is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-77255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}