On November 25, Taiyuan Wusu International Airport was packed wall to wall.
Crowds had gathered for the creator conference organized by short drama platform Hongguo. Around the baggage claim, a dozen large screens displayed support ads for actress Wang Gege, placements that cost tens of thousands of RMB for a minimum one-week run. Some fans reportedly spent several thousand RMB just to secure an entry pass, even though the event wasn’t open to public ticket sales.
Outside the venue, a red bus wrapped entirely with actor Zhang Chi’s photos circled the grounds from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The bus wasn’t carrying passengers. Fans had rented it purely for exposure, ensuring their idol’s face was seen by everyone.
Wang and Zhang were among dozens of short drama actors invited to attend the event. But the most sought-after guest was Liu Xiaoxu, who became the industry’s newest breakout star after Summer Rose, a short drama released in September, racked up over four billion views. Liu’s immense popularity earned him the final, showstopping slot on the red carpet.
Similar scenes of fandom mania had unfolded earlier in November at the Short Drama Night event in Hengdian.
Three years ago, such moments were unimaginable. At that time, no awards ceremony, gala, or long-form television show would have put short drama actors center stage.
Today, they are basking in the spotlight. For actors with a hit short drama under their belt, daily rates have soared from a few thousand to tens of thousands of RMB. Some are landing commercial endorsement deals worth millions. The industry, previously favoring longer programs, is now extending invitations.
Fans have taken up arms for their idols too. When Summer Rose went viral, a fan named Qian Xia (pseudonym), a loyal supporter of another short drama star, Zhao Kechun, noticed a surge of online posts disparaging her idol. One of her main tasks was to report these negative posts and flood platforms with positive comments. She belonged to a “comment control” group of nearly 200 members.
An industry insider told 36Kr that top short drama stars now hold the same status as mid- to upper-tier actors in mainstream film and television:
“In the past, there was a hard wall between short dramas, long dramas, and movies. But once a short drama breaks through that wall, it gives its actors a ticket to the next level. If they can handle the traffic, they can become A-list.”
Three years ago, actors in short dramas were little more than cogs on an assembly line. Only when better scripts, stronger roles, and cinematic language emerged did these performers finally gain names and, subsequently, fame.
Overlooked casts of short dramas
History, as always, has a way of repeating itself.
In 1910, as cinema began attracting Wall Street money, actors in the US and abroad still faced deep prejudice. Some hotels even hung signs stating that dogs or actors were not allowed in. The stigma was so strong that performers often refused to be credited in films, and studio bosses preferred it that way: anonymity helped keep salaries low.
But audiences adored them nonetheless. Fans began naming their favorite stars after the studios they worked for, calling them “Vitagraph girls” or “Biograph girls.” Florence Lawrence, known as the “Biograph girl,” became one of the earliest movie icons.
Sensing an opportunity, US producer Carl Laemmle staged an audacious stunt. He planted false reports of Lawrence’s death, then orchestrated her dramatic “resurrection” days later. The hoax gripped the nation, and Hollywood’s first true celebrity was born.
The rise of today’s short drama stars isn’t so different.
At the start of 2023, short dramas were mostly still raw and unpolished. They were often cheaply made, but irresistibly addictive. Then Hongguo, spun out of Fanqie Novel, burst onto the scene. Its free-to-watch model, combined with ByteDance-style ad spending, proved yet another success for the playbook that had already worked so well for its parent platform.
According to a source close to Hongguo, its business head Zhang Chao preferred to move only after others had validated an idea, essentially only wanting to do business that was already proven. Short dramas fit that bill. At launch, the Hongguo team secured a daily ad budget of RMB 10 million (USD 1.4 million), prepared to burn cash in the race for users.
The outcome is now legend in the industry. Fanqie Novel reached nearly 100 million daily active users (DAUs) and about 200 million monthly active users (MAUs) in four years. Hongguo achieved similar numbers in just over one.
Meanwhile, in 2023, the Chinese film market was still struggling to recover from the pandemic. TV productions typically required massive investments and long timelines while short dramas, shot in a week with the potential of recouping costs in a month, blindsided traditional players.
That was when Liu Boyang entered.
For the professionally trained actor, who had experience on traditional sets, the contrast was jarring. TV dramas typically began with grand launch ceremonies attended by hundreds. His short drama shoot? A dozen people. No cakes, no fruit platters, no professional gear. Just two lonely DSLR cameras.
A wave of anxiety hit him. “Am I going backward?” he thought.
When the photographer cued for the group photo, Liu lowered his head, terrified that someone might recognize him on social media.
That was only the beginning.
“The plots were outrageous,” he said. In one, his character slapped and choked the female lead, and even ordered organ transplants between characters. When he protested to the director, the response was blunt: “I know it doesn’t make sense, but we have a task to finish.”
Hundreds of such “tasks” flooded sets across the country. It was chaos, but also the precursor to the short drama boom.
Driven by emotional highs and lightning-fast storytelling, the industry hit astonishing numbers in 2023: one production earned over RMB 100 million (USD 14 million) in just eight days, and total market size nearly tripled year-on-year.
Yet the business model was unsustainable. Between 80–90% of revenue went straight into ad spending, leaving scraps for producers and distributors. To survive, they squeezed production timelines as tightly as possible.
That meant everyone, including actors, was pushed to exhaustion.
From 2020–2023, Liu went three years without steady work. Once he entered short dramas, he couldn’t afford to stop. For three straight months that summer, he averaged just two or three hours of sleep a night, rising at 5 a.m. and shooting until midnight or later.
The exhaustion was total. When singer Coco Lee passed away that year, Liu said he felt “empty,” with neither emotion nor desire.
Another actor, Li Jing, had a similar experience. She joked that short drama actors “don’t even have bathroom freedom.” Every trip to the restroom required permission, and if she stayed too long, someone would come knocking. To avoid delays, she often skipped meals or used the brief lunch break to both eat and relieve herself.
Amid the frenzy, viewers could name hit dramas like Unparalleled, which generated more than RMB 100 million in revenue, but few could recall the actors’ names.
On set, people didn’t use honorifics as they would in the traditional entertainment world. They just called each other by role: male lead, female lead, second male lead, and so on. With shoots lasting barely a week and casts rotating nonstop, remembering names was nearly impossible.
Writers held more power than actors. “In the paid era, every emotional hook that got users to spend money was written by a screenwriter,” one writer told 36Kr. “Actors were at the bottom of the chain.”
That began to change in the second half of 2024.
The making of a superstar
In Lawrence’s story, it was fan devotion that first sparked stardom, and the same is now true in the world of short dramas.
At this year’s Short Drama Night in Hengdian, one scene stood out. Four or five middle-aged women, likely in their fifties, waited patiently outside an exit where short drama actors would soon depart. They carried armfuls of flowers and had suitcases packed with fan support materials.
Even after black cars ferried several batches of guests back and forth, the women stayed put. When asked which star they were waiting for, one lifted her phone wordlessly, her screen displaying the answer.
Hours later, their idol appeared. The group broke into cheers and, despite security guards’ protests, nimbly slipped through barriers to surround the actor.
Actress Bai Ye, another short drama performer, has also experienced being chased by fans this year.
“At first, I thought someone from another crew recognized me,” she said. “But when I got closer, I saw two strangers, beautifully dressed.”
They had traveled from Hangzhou to Hengdian just to see her. The two watched quietly from the sidelines all day, calling out to her by the nickname “Xiaoye” only after the cameras stopped rolling.
The person who truly marked a turning point in this evolution was Zhao Kechun.
In February this year, just after a subdued Lunar New Year for China’s movie market, actor Liu Boyang was on set when someone shouted that a new short drama had exploded in popularity. The show, Save Myself, had gone viral. Within a week of release, it amassed over a billion views. Zhao’s fanbase swelled by more than 1.5 million, and his name began trending on Weibo alongside established film and television stars.
Qian Xia (pseudonym), who had been following Zhao since September the previous year, suddenly found herself unable to get into his fan group.
Unlike traditional stars who engage fans mainly on Weibo, short drama idols operate primarily on Douyin. For three months straight, Qian Xia tried daily to join one of Zhao’s fan groups. With the platform’s cap of 1,000 members per group, many were full and In the end, she paid an annual fee of more than RMB 1,000 (USD 140) to enter a premium group.
Zhao’s rise went beyond social media. He was embraced by the mainstream entertainment industry, landing collaborations with fashion brands and TV variety shows.
He joined the third season of Memories Beyond Horizon, became associated with skincare line FunnyElves, and graced the cover of L’Officiel Hommes.
Industry insiders estimate that his appearance fee now approximates a seven-figure RMB sum, equivalent to shooting dozens of short dramas at top-tier rates.
“When I saw Ke Chun becoming famous, I felt hopeful,” Liu said. “It proved that short drama actors could actually be recognized.” He used to act in short dramas just to make ends meet. Now, he aims for the top.
Many short drama actors still dream of returning to traditional film and TV someday. But for now, they are focused on getting better scripts and creating the next big hit.
Zhao wasn’t the first to have his name remembered. Back in July 2023, the short drama The Empress Dowager Is Coming to Work achieved more than RMB 200 million (USD 28 million) in in-app revenue and made its lead, Xu Yizhen, the genre’s first “queen.”
Still, Xu’s ascent was far more gradual than Zhao’s, whose rise marked arguably the first time a short drama actor achieved significant commercial value.
Timing helped. Save Myself premiered just as the short drama market shifted from paid to free streaming. “The show proved that the free model was big enough, and that short drama actors could break into the mainstream,” one insider said.
But regulation also played a crucial role.
Since late 2023, China’s National Radio and Television Administration has issued new policies to curb low-quality, sensational content, pushing the industry toward higher standards. This shift preserved the genre’s emotional intensity while strengthening its storytelling, turning short dramas into vehicles for deeper expression.
As a result, producers began seeking professional actors and well-developed characters. The head of Heard Island, a leading short drama studio, told 36Kr that one of the key shifts this year is moving from hiring “functional characters” to fully realized personalities.
At the same time, platforms like Hongguo have continued expanding their audiences. According to QuestMobile, Hongguo’s monthly active users reached 236 million as of September, surpassing Bilibili and Youku.
When the base is that large, the hits—and the stars—are bound to stand out.
The talent wars
With fame came leverage.
For short drama actors, career growth now often means branching into long-form series, while those seeking online traffic gravitate toward Hongguo’s self-produced shows. As a result, securing actors has become a logistical challenge for most production companies.
A producer told 36Kr that for a drama they began planning in August, actors they sought after have schedules already filled through next year. Even non-headliners need to be booked two to three months in advance. “If you don’t have your own stable of actors,” the producer said, “you can’t even start shooting.”
Professionalism—and personal followings—are now essential.
As production costs rise to maintain a threshold for quality, platforms are looking for every edge they can get. Having a popular star onboard is one of the few ways to hedge against uncertainty.
“Viewers’ emotions are fleeting,” said Jia Fei (pseudonym), CEO of Yican Media. “But if they connect with a character, that feeling lasts, and that’s what gives a show real value.”
Casting calls now routinely specify minimum fan counts, especially for Hongguo’s platform. And brands have validated short-drama actors’ commercial worth.
The result? An industrywide scramble for talent.
When Hema Xingchi’s talent manager, Chun Zi, approached Liu Boyang in July, most top short drama stars had already been signed elsewhere.
Liu had worked with Hema Xingchi several times before, so signing him seemed a sure thing. But midway through negotiations, he revealed that more than a dozen major companies and multichannel network agencies had reached out with offers.
“I froze for a second,” Chun said. “But then I realized, this was the competition now.”
Over the next week, she and Liu exchanged four phone calls. On the last one, they finally sealed the deal. She rushed to finalize the contract overnight, offering one of the best packages in the industry and bumping up the company’s planned promotional campaign by more than two weeks.
Actor Li Jing has felt the heat too. Since early this year, she has been approached by nearly 20 companies and individuals about signing. Even during her interview with 36Kr, she received another message on Xiaohongshu asking if she was open to collaboration.
Once, she nearly agreed to a deal after a one-hour phone call, until she learned the company wanted to sign her sight unseen. “That set off all my alarms,” she said.
Maiya Media’s talent executive Qin Shengsheng said many companies have resorted to promising conditions they can’t deliver, if that helps to lock in actors. “The goal is to get them tied to you first, figure everything else out later,” she said.
“When I approached actors, some told me directly, ‘I don’t lack scripts, I don’t lack resources, and I definitely don’t lack people trying to sign me.’”
The frenzy has been supercharged by Hongguo’s own strategy.
In September, the platform launched a revenue sharing scheme for short drama actors and their agencies. On November 20, it publicly revealed that three actors had earned over RMB 1 million (USD 140,000) each in profit sharing.
By offering lucrative splits, Hongguo is courting talent and creative teams for its in-house productions, aiming not just to profit from distribution, but to own the entire value chain. This mirrors what Fanqie Novel achieved earlier, where about 85% of its content is now said to be original.
Even actors signed to agencies can still take on external projects, but Hongguo’s revenue sharing offers are so attractive that it’s draining talent availability across the industry.
According to the Heard Island studio head, top-tier actors can now earn up to 18% in share of profits on Hongguo, while the next highest tier of actors earn between 5–10%. At those rates, leading short drama stars can easily pocket millions, making them far more likely to prioritize Hongguo’s projects over their home companies’.
“It’s driving everyone crazy,” the producer said. “Production studios have basically become labor providers for the actors.”
Still, no company can avoid building its own talent business now. To have a future in short dramas, they need actors on their side.
New hits, new hopes
As major studios rushed to build their rosters, a new superstar emerged.
In September, Summer Rose shattered records, surpassing three billion views faster than any short drama before it.
To put that in perspective: with 82 episodes, the show’s average per-episode view count reached 36.6 million, rivaling primetime TV hits. According to data from Enlightent, Summer Rose ranked just behind Love’s Ambition and well ahead of Silent Honor among September’s new releases.
With a production budget of around RMB 2 million (USD 280,000), the show crafted a compelling character: Zhou Sheng’an, a man of restraint and quiet passion. Played by Liu Xiaoxu, the role catapulted him to fame. His social media following soared past one million, and fans began mobbing him at airports. Insiders say Hongguo poured an extra RMB 2 million (USD 280,000) into the show’s marketing campaign.
A new blockbuster was born, and with it, a flood of opportunities to make money.
Liu’s agency, Yican Media, suddenly found itself swamped with offers. “We’ve had hundreds of brands reach out, from cosmetics firms to beverage companies to a new automaker,” Yican CEO Jia Fei told 36Kr. “But some offers clashed with his filming schedule, so we had to turn them down.”
He rejected several overly commercial deals too. “They didn’t fit his image,” Jia Fei said. “We’re not here to take every paycheck.”
Unlike Zhao Kechun, who rose from humble beginnings, Liu’s success came from a carefully managed system.
Behind him is a five-person operations team including a director, videographer, editor, and social media and fan managers. “We haven’t broken even yet,” Jia Fei said.
Founded in April, Yican Media is selective in its approach, managing fewer than ten actors. Two of its latest signings are the second male and female leads from Liu’s previous hit, Divorce, My Happily Ever After. That’s a rare practice in the industry.
Jia Fei, however, understands how to build lasting IP. In 2016, he created Little Monk Yichan, a viral character that amassed 150 million fans across platforms.
That experience now shapes his approach to developing Liu’s persona. A year ago, Liu appeared for only five minutes in Affectionate Seduction, yet viewers responded strongly to him. Sensing potential, Jia Fei quickly edited a fan video spotlighting Liu’s scenes and posted it online, drawing the first wave of fans.
Over the following year, the team continued to create short skits around the same character archetype—disciplined, restrained, and quietly affectionate—traits that mirrored Liu himself. “He’s a traditional Shandong man,” Jia Fei said. “That self-restraint and integrity just radiate from him.”
So when Summer Rose premiered, fans’ emotions were primed to erupt, creating a perfect storm of connection that turned Liu into the next big star.
His breakout also marks a new chapter for the industry. The days of waiting for luck and miracles are over. Now, short drama makers are trying to engineer virality, to understand how to make the next Zhao Kechun or Liu Xiaoxu.
At the Weibo TV & Internet Video Summit in early November, the red carpet featured major celebrities like Yang Mi and Wang Hedi, alongside short drama sensations such as Zhao, Yu Yin, and Yican Media’s own Wang Gege. Jia Fei splurged on a top-tier makeup artist and photographer, each charging tens of thousands of RMB per day. “Expensive,” he said, “but Gege deserves it.”
Hema Xingchi went the opposite route, branding Liu Boyang as “short drama’s number one bad boyfriend,” playing on his string of “repentant ex-lover” roles. Though Liu was hesitant at first, he agreed, realizing that the bigger risk was blending into the crowd.
Still, shadows linger over these shining stars.
Turnover is brutal. In just over a year, first-generation icons like Xu Yizhen and Sun Yue have faded from the spotlight. On Hongguo, the popularity rankings shift almost every month.
Industry veterans and viewers alike say part of short drama stars’ appeal lies in their relatability, a contrast to the carefully curated personas of traditional celebrities. Yet as commercialization deepens, that down-to-earth charm is eroding.
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Lan Jie for 36Kr.