"Those making duanju (short dramas, or micro-dramas) earn far more than those criticizing them." This blunt statement from Tim Pan, founder of the channel Mediastorm, succinctly captures the explosive growth and heated controversy surrounding the entire duanju industry. In 2024, this emerging sector, with a market size exceeding 50 billion yuan (RMB), surpassed the national box office revenue for the first time.
At the Zhengzhou Jumei Aeronautics Port Vertical Screen Film Base, lights burned through the night, while American director Nathaniel Christian Boyd was filming Sorry, But I am with your Dad in Hainan. As mobile screens gradually become the new main stage for Chinese-language film and television, the "emotional bullets" fired every 15 seconds are both hitting the demand for fragmented decompression among the masses and pushing the industry towards a critical pass, transitioning from "explosive growth in quantity" to "cultivated refinement in quality."
Hong Kong-produced duanju are also seizing the opportunity to enter the fray, filling market gaps and riding the wave to set sail. Experts suggest Hong Kong can leverage its advantages to assist Chinese duanju in going global.
The story begins so fast
The meteoric rise of duanju is no accident. In 2022, as the traditional film and television industry was mired in a downturn, Chen Ou, Chairman of Jumei, already sensed the emerging trend: "The live streaming sector has become a red ocean; short dramas are the next cash flow opportunity." The post-pandemic surge in demand for fragmented decompression, coupled with the algorithmic pressure from short video platforms to retain viewers within several seconds, rapidly turned short dramas – typically 1-10 minutes per episode, featuring high conflict, and unlocked via payment – into "money-printing machines." Cases where a 200,000 yuan cost yielded over 5 million yuan in revenue sharing within half a month are commonplace. Zhengzhou's market scale reached 3.85 billion yuan in the first eight months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 35.7%.
The influx of hot money has spurred a boom throughout the entire industry chain. At the Jumei Aeronautics Port Vertical Screen Film Base, shooting slots need to be booked a week in advance. Editors' monthly salaries have soared from 6,000 yuan to 12,000 yuan, yet they remain in critically short supply. After a stalled real estate project in Zhongmu County's Kunpeng Town, Henan, was converted into a shooting base, it not only recouped its costs but also boosted surrounding catering businesses, selling thousands of 15-yuan set meal boxes daily to crews.
Data from the China Netcasting Services Association shows that in 2024, duanju directly and indirectly drove 647,000 jobs. New professions like "daily-paid assistants" – specialized personnel who attend to actors and handle miscellaneous tasks – have emerged, earning daily wages of 200-400 yuan yet still facing high demand, outlining the industry's most vivid hustle and bustle.
The sector's profitability has attracted giants and established names alike. In September this year, Xiaomi launched its standalone short drama app "Weiguan Short Drama," promoting an "ad-free" and "free-to-watch" model. Within less than a month, downloads surpassed 900,000. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun not only personally provided voiceovers for self-produced dramas but also facilitated cameo appearances by his executive team. ByteDance's "Hongguo Short Drama" reached 210 million monthly active users in June, surpassing Youku for the first time. Tencent is building a content matrix leveraging WeChat mini-programs and Yuewen's IP library. JD.com, Alibaba, and Pinduoduo are also increasing their investments, either offering million-yuan annual salaries to recruit talent or injecting tens of millions in funds to support creation.
Hong Kong's classic IP + professional talent buffs stacked
Hong Kong has not been absent from this "vertical screen gold rush." Hong Kong's Sil-Metropole Organisation launched a classic IP revitalization plan, adapting works like The Bride with White Hair and The House of 72 Tenants into a series of short dramas, using new forms to reshape "martial arts aesthetics" and "street narrative," filling market gaps. The Hong Kong Police Force's first micro-short drama, Kwok Sir! Rookie Constables 'Squad A' Have Fallen In, recently premiered on Douyin.
Facing fierce competition in the film and television industry, Hong Kong seeks to break through with high-quality duanju. Wang Yan, Executive Director of the Beijing Entrepreneurship Science and Technology Innovation Center, believes that Hong Kong, with its foundation in the film and television industry, cultural distinctiveness, and geographical advantages, has the potential to become a hub for the refinement and internationalization of short dramas. Hong Kong possesses classic IPs like Jin Yong's martial arts and Gu Long's universe, which suit the high-conflict nature of short dramas, while also accumulating a vast pool of scriptwriters, directors, and actors who can inject professional quality into short dramas. As a confluence of Eastern and Western cultures, Hong Kong is familiar with both the creative logic of the mainland market and international communication patterns, potentially serving as a hub for mainland duanju going global and also promoting local themes to Southeast Asia.
"Duanju are not a fleeting trend, but a structural shift in digital content consumption." This assessment by Song Xiangqing, vice president of the China Commerce Economy Association, points the direction for Hong Kong's short drama development. As the mainland market shifts from traffic to value, if Hong Kong can adhere to a quality-focused approach, deeply cultivate local IPs, leverage its talent advantages, and capitalize on its geographical benefits, it has the potential to occupy a unique position in the "era of cultivated refinement" for Chinese short dramas, allowing Hong Kong stories on vertical screens to become new name cards for Chinese culture "going global," achieving the symbiosis of commercial and cultural value. This is also the envisioned industry upgrade prospect anticipated by Professor Li Wei from Nanjing Normal University.
Policy regulation and support drive industry iteration towards refinement
Behind the breakneck speed of duanju lies the hidden worry of "copy-paste" repetition.
"In the past year, over 5,000 CEOs have been drugged in rotation, and over 3,000 female leads precisely entered the wrong hotel room," jested a producer at the Hangzhou Microshort Drama Conference, sharply pinpointing the industry's pain point of lack of innovation. Data shows that 87% of top duanju employ a three-act structure of "reversal + chasing wife (romantic pursuit) + face-slapping (revenge/comeuppance)," with innovative themes accounting for less than 13%. Some works promote undesirable values like "getting rich overnight," and their dialogue volume is only one-fifth that of movies.
Professor Li, who specializes in online literature research, told a Wen Wei Po reporter that this concern need not be overly worried about. She believes the audience structure for duanju differs significantly from seasoned online literature readers. While inheriting some online novel users, it has also expanded to include a large number of people who don't read online novels but love watching dramas. This characteristic determines that its content evolution essentially replays the development model of online literature: popular genres from the early days of online literature will all experience another cycle of popularity in duanju.
Professor Li views this "replay" as an inevitable stage in industrial upgrading: "Since it replicates the online literature model, it will naturally follow its iterative upgrade path towards refinement. The current traits of melodrama, strong emotions, and sharp reversals are stage-specific manifestations in the industry's early phase." She noted that the market has already seen a batch of excellent works that don't rely on melodramatic tropes and possess both positive values and artistic merit.
Regulation and guidance have subsequently landed. This year, the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) continued advancing special governance, improved categorized and tiered review mechanisms, advanced the formulation of the "microshort drama management measures," and implemented the "microshort drama +" action plan. Special governance targeting animated duanju further brings AIGC-generated and comic-based content into the review system, requiring all unregistered works to be forcibly removed by April next year.
Song interprets this: "The core of the policy is to build a dual-drive system of 'regulation + support.' Categorized review sets the bottom line, while support policies like 'short drama + cultural tourism, legal education' provide upgrading ladder."
Professor Li also emphasized the role of scholars in this process: "Academia must both call for attention to this new format and promote content upgrading and value guidance. Although duanju are driven by commercial logic, healthy development cannot do without the checks, balances, and interaction of multiple voices, forming a structured development ecosystem."
(Source: Wen Wei Po; Journalists: Liu Rui, Zhang Yuanyuan; English Editor: Darius)
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