[Big read] Can Shanghai turn ‘vulgar’ micro-dramas into premium entertainment?

(All photos by Li Kang, unless otherwise stated.)

At 4 am, before dawn, lights are blazing in a villa on the outskirts of Shanghai.

This is not a private residence, but a filming location for micro-dramas. Since it went online last December, the villa has been hosting a new “domineering CEO” (霸总) every few days, with its schedule packed to the brim. To secure a slot, some production teams have had no choice but to shoot through the night.

The villa’s four facades each show a different style: an old Western-style mansion, a European luxury residence, a Mediterranean-style holiday home and a modern terrace house in a contemporary Chinese style. 

With this design where a single plot of land has four different “faces”, it can meet as many filming needs as possible. Within this 250-mu film and television park, sets that balance refinement and efficiency are common. 

Yu Yang, the park’s planner and general manager of the Shanghai International Short Video Center (SISVC), told Lianhe Zaobao that the days when a micro-drama could be made for 50,000 RMB (US$7,190) are over. Today, micro-dramas are beginning to look and feel like long-form series, and their sets must also be more “premium”.

Amid the micro-drama boom of recent years, filming bases for micro-dramas have sprung up across China. From traditional film and television hubs such as Hengdian and Xiangshan — now pivoting from shooting in the landscape/horizontal format for cinema and TV screens to portrait/vertical format for mobile phones — to northern “micro-drama capitals” like Xi’an and Zhengzhou, and further south to emerging “micro-drama landmarks” such as Dongguan, many regions are joining in, eager to seize the initiative on this new track. 

Figures show that many regions have seen clear results. Leveraging its mature industrial cluster, Hengdian hosted more than 3,000 micro-drama crews in the first ten months of last year, while cost-effective Xi’an has attracted many productions, so that it was said “60 out of every 100 ultra-micro-dramas nationwide are made in Xi’an”; and in Zhengzhou, supported by official backing and the agglomeration effects of low costs, around 100 micro-dramas begin shooting each day on average.

By contrast, Shanghai has neither the vast expanses of land in Hengdian nor the low-cost edge found outside first-tier cities. While the Shanghai Film Studio and the Shanghai Film Park have given the city a certain foundation in film and television production, the emergence of Shanghai’s own “vertical format production house” (竖店) is the result of a private enterprise feeling its way through transformation rather than top-down industrial planning.

SISVC is located in Jiading, a northwestern suburb of Shanghai, about 40 kilometres from the city centre, in an area dominated by manufacturing plants. Viewed from above, amid a sea of grey-and-white factory buildings, a cluster of brightly painted structures stands out conspicuously, marking where the park is located.

The park was formerly a production facility established on the site by Shanghai Yaoji Playing Cards in the 1990s. As one of China’s best-known playing card manufacturers, Yaoji reached an annual output of more than a billion decks at its peak, once commanding over 30% of the market.

However, the playing card market has a natural ceiling. When interviewed, Yu Yang said that after the company relocated its card production lines out of Shanghai in 2017, it began laying out new business directions, including gaming and internet marketing.

Internet marketing, in turn, depends on content production. At the time, short videos were just beginning to take off. In 2020, idle factory buildings in the park were converted into the first studio to produce online advertisements, and it was renamed the SISVC. In 2023, when China ushered in what became known as “year zero” of micro-dramas, SISVC followed the trend into the micro-drama sector, converting more production workshops into soundstages and gradually evolving into what is now Shanghai’s vertical format production house.

Over the past three years, China’s micro-drama market has grown by several times. Total industry output value rose from 37.4 billion RMB in 2023 to more than 50 billion RMB in 2024; according to estimates by the China Netcasting Services Association, the domestic ultra-micro-drama market is expected to reach nearly 90 billion RMB in 2025.

SISVC has also continued to expand during this period. In 2023, it completed the construction of high-tech soundstages; in 2024, it added 8,000 square metres of period-costume sets. Last year, it further built 3,000 square metres of Han- and Tang-style interior sets and upgraded another 3,000 square metres of modern interior scenes.

When I visited the park in mid-December 2025, some sets were still under construction, yet traces of its past as a playing card factory remained. The roads connecting the soundstages are still called “Diamond Road” and “Heart Road”; the former staff dormitories have been converted into hotels for production crews, while the old staff canteen has become the crews’ supper spot.

According to figures provided by the park, it has so far built more than 50,000 square metres of sets, including over 200 indoor scenes. Last year alone, it hosted more than 300 production crews in total, with an average of eight to ten crews filming simultaneously each day.

Some factory buildings in the park are still under lease and have yet to be reclaimed. Yu Yang expects that once these leases are recovered, set construction will continue. “Right now, we’ve planted a tree and are waiting for it to blossom and bear fruit.”

Although micro-dramas have been around for just over three years, they have already gone through several iterations. From the initial phase of unchecked expansion and rapid capital inflows, to tighter official regulation in China — including the introduction last February of a tiered review system based on production budget — the industry landscape remains in flux.

As a player directly attuned to market demand, Yu Yang observes that the current micro-drama market is still unstable — “full of vitality, but also a mixed bag”.

In the circumstances, SISVC has adopted a strategy of letting market forces take the lead. For instance, decisions on set construction are not made unilaterally by individuals, but are based on how frequently a set appears in micro-drama scripts: those that appear in more than 70% of scripts must be built, while the rest are filled in as needed. Frequently used sets are kept, and less frequently used ones are dismantled.

Unable to compete with other bases in terms of scale, SISVC invests heavily in detail and refinement instead. Take the CEO mansion: rather than opting for assembly-line decoration, the focus is on overall colour schemes, furniture materials, and use of space to create an effect closer to that of a real luxury home.

Su De, a director with 19 years of experience, was drawn precisely by this approach and chose Shanghai as the filming location for his new urban suspense short drama. As one of the first directors to transition from mid- and long-form series to short dramas, Su has already produced several works that have each surpassed 100 million views.  

Su De said that compared with a few years ago, requirements for the texture and quality of sets in short dramas have risen markedly. “In the past, it was enough to tell the story clearly. Now, not only does the story have to be told well — the visuals also have to look good.”

As Chinese short dramas gain momentum overseas, SISVC has attracted more international production teams. According to data provided by the park, a total of 15 foreign crews filmed there last year, including teams from Australia, Spain, the UK, the US, South Korea, Japan, and Thailand.

Xu Jian, a professor with the School of Media and Communication at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, told Lianhe Zaobao that the Chinese short drama genre has entered its “2.0 phase”, meaning that industry elites and professional capital are beginning to enter systematically, while standards for production, content delivery, and business models are emerging.

He believes that the capacity of China’s domestic market is limited, and that as short dramas continue to develop, they are bound to go global. Judging from current trends, short dramas are very likely to surpass online literature and games, becoming “the most dominant track” for Chinese companies in the cultural sector.

With the industry’s rapid expansion and the intensive inflow of capital, concerns have also emerged about the “bubble” in short dramas. Wu Changchang, an associate professor at the School of Communication at East China Normal University, said when interviewed that short dramas are seen as a new engine of profit growth, attracting a lot of capital. Some degree of bubble is inevitable, and this will, to an extent, accelerate financialisation and speculative tendencies in the industry.

Xu Jian, however, argued that bubbles themselves are not something to fear, but rather an inevitable stage as an industry moves from innovation toward maturity. “In terms of capital, it’s survival of the fittest. The elites that remain will represent the future direction of sustainable development.”

He added that the key lies in maintaining a free and competitive environment, so that high-quality works can attract long-term capital. “Only then will the industry earn not just quick money in the short term, but also ‘big money’ and ‘patient capital’ over the long run.”

In Yu Yang’s view, no matter where the short drama industry goes in the future, this vast “gold mine” will continue to draw wave after wave of prospectors. Her role, she said, is simply to provide the tools of production: “They dig for gold; we sell the shovels.”

The short-drama industry rose swiftly out of nothing, dominated the internet, and began moving onto the global stage. Yet how long this track can go on remains an open question.

Born from a playing card plant, this short-drama factory is dealing new hands — crafting bold “CEOs”, commanding the king of spades, lining up a diamond straight, and landing a perfect straight flush.

It is no exaggeration to say that in just half a day at SISVC, I saw more single-wheel electric scooters than in an entire year in downtown Shanghai. Upon entering the park, walking feels too slow, as if hopping onto one of these scooters is the only way to keep up with the breakneck pace of the short drama industry.

These scooters zipping back and forth around the park are, in a sense, a microcosm of China’s current short-drama ecosystem. While striving to improve content quality, most short dramas still go for a fast turnaround, with filming cycles compressed to around one week. In other words, crews are expected to produce higher-quality content than before within the same time, or even less.

This accelerated pace is felt first and foremost in the intensity of labour for frontline workers. Seventeen-year-old Cao Jun entered the industry through his father, and this is his third year working as a lighting assistant. His daily pay of 400 RMB corresponds to 20-hour work days.

Besides loading, unloading, and hauling lighting equipment in the early morning and late at night, Cao Jun spends most of the day waiting for instructions from the chief lighting technician. Once an instruction comes, he has to move lights swiftly into position. While the physical exertion is not particularly intense, the long hours of waiting leave him feeling exhausted — “about as tiring as carrying bricks”.

Makeup artist who calls herself “Little Lazy”, 18, has an equally compressed schedule. She arrives at the hotel before dawn to do the actors’ makeup, stays on standby throughout the day, and finishes filming late at night; getting just three to four hours of sleep a day is the norm.

That said, the high intensity also brings relatively rapid upward mobility. Having been in the industry for only six months, “Lazy” has already risen from an on-site assistant to the “makeup lead” responsible for the entire production’s hair and makeup, with her daily pay increasing from an initial 150 RMB to between 300 and 500 RMB.

To accommodate the fast pace of production, efficiency was built into SISVC from the planning stage. For example, to address the time-consuming problem of moving between sets, three frequently used sets — hospital, courtroom, and police station — have been constructed within a single building. You enter through the hospital; after passing several wards, you arrive at the courtroom; push open another door and you are in the police station. The sets sit right next to one another, yet do not get in each other’s way.

Short drama producer Wei Lian told Lianhe Zaobao that the production process has shifted away from the traditional focus on content to focusing on quick transitions. “Only by being more efficient can we keep up with market output.”

On the day of the interview, two short dramas produced by Wei Lian were holding their start-of-shoot ceremonies simultaneously at SISVC. The two productions shared a single director and were scheduled to be filmed over six days in total. Less than half an hour after the ceremonies, the crews had already changed sets and moved swiftly into principal photography.

After moving past its early phase of melodramatic plots and “feel-good fiction”, China’s short drama market last year produced two works that were both critically acclaimed and commercially successful: My Sweet Home (《家里家外》), depicting family life in the 1980s, and Summer Rose (《盛夏芬德拉》), an urban romance that notably avoids the “mistress” trope.

With over six billion and four billion views respectively, the two series prompted the industry to rethink the future direction of short dramas, as Chinese short dramas drop “tacky” pleasures and shift toward a more refined, premium mode of production.

Xu Jian of Shanghai Jiao Tong University believes this shift is no coincidence but the result of the market’s own evolution. “Only after going through the stage of being vulgar do you realise what doesn’t work. After watching enough of it, audiences become desensitised and start wanting something better.”

In his view, the development of short dramas closely mirrors that of Chinese web series. A decade ago, the hit web drama Go Princess Go also drew viewers with its novelty and low threshold of appreciation. As audience tastes evolved, the production standards of web series steadily rose, and many now show a distinctly “cinematic quality”.

“When audiences no longer want to watch vulgar content, works that truly know how to tell a story — and tell it well — will gain far greater market value.”

Wu Changchang of East China Normal University, takes a different view. From the standpoint of content itself, he argues, short dramas are not suited to be premium content because they work on immediacy: there is no need to explain backstories or build character arcs, and audiences mainly watch them for quick entertainment in fragments of time.

In his view, so-called “premium content” resembles an attempt, driven by cultural elitism, to subject crude micro-short dramas to “gentrification” that remains largely at the level of form rather than substance.

Wu noted that while two widely recognised high-quality short dramas did emerge last year, they are not representative of the broader field. “This actually shows that most short dramas still go by their original production principles.

“Short dramas were never created as premium content in the first place. Their audience is not seeking technical or formal refinement, but rather speed, simplicity, and immediate gratification.”

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “一手旧牌打出新局面 上海“竖店”抢占短剧风口”.

Related: ‘Brainless’ but satisfying: How Chinese micro-dramas are taking over our screens | [Big read] China’s superwomen are winning on screen: Empowerment or illusion?