Chinese short plays are no longer just Chinese short plays.
As of the end of September 2026, the cumulative total of China’s overseas micro-short dramas was approximately 290,000, an increase of 287.73% from the end of 2025. They have been translated into more than a dozen languages and appeared on screens in more than two hundred countries and regions.
Thais are making remakes, Hollywood is making arrangements, Chinese short drama actors have become popular superstars overseas, and in little-known corners, Chinese short dramas are conquering the world.
No matter what color you are, no matter what language you are in, you will be addicted to its 30-second moments of pleasure, its 2-minute episodes of stories, and its 1-hour period of life.
The world is changing, and so are the ways of telling stories, and short plays stand right in the gap of that change.
And the starting point of all this cannot be circumvented from a platform——
Red fruit short drama.
“First stick to the rules, then the road will get wider and wider” “It’s a bit expensive, but it won’t burn your heart after eating it”…
This autumn, the whole Internet is talking about the “no heartburn” meme.
This meme comes from the last batch of AI market dramas in the Hongguo short drama. They generally use the same script. The main character, the stall owner, uses good oil and good ingredients. He is forced to raise the price due to the increase in raw material prices, and is scolded by regular customers for being evil. When the stall owner next door saw this, he used inferior ingredients to start a price war and steal customers away.
But the protagonist stall owner would rather have his income drop than commit evil acts without conscience. After several rounds of reversals, the black-hearted shop overturned, and the lost customers lined up to come back. At the end, he said: “It’s a bit expensive, but you won’t get heartburn after eating it.”
In the eyes of many people, it is just another popular meme on the Chinese Internet. It is not surprising that it will be eliminated in two months.
As everyone knows, behind the popularity of “Don’t Burn Heart” is actually the strong rise of Hongguo short dramas.
When people think of red fruits, they always think of earthy short dramas such as “The Overbearing President”, “Mother-in-law and Daughter-in-law Tearing Each Other”, and “The Dragon King with Crooked Mouth”. They are crudely made, nutritious, and cannot be put on the table at all.
But a set of latest data has subverted people’s imagination. According to the monitoring of QuestMobile, a mobile Internet business data platform, as of September 2026, the daily activity of Hongguo short drama has exceeded 200 million, exceeding the total daily activity of the four “Aiyu Tengmang” companies. What’s even more frightening is that the average daily usage time of Hongguo is as high as 165.98 minutes, compared with 112 minutes for Douyin and 82 minutes for WeChat.
The phenomenal popularity of Hongguo caused Tencent to rush out and launch the Green Bubble short drama in September 2026, featuring a free short drama.
Even so, it is still difficult to stop the crazy spread of red fruits.
This kind of madness is not only limited to the fanaticism of users, but also reflects the expansion of territory on a global scale – red fruit is no longer just a domestic red fruit.
時間殺手
A large number of netizens complained that they stayed up all night watching Red Fruit every day. It was clear that they had to go to work at 8 a.m. the next day, but they just couldn’t hold back their desire to watch it. They promised to watch one more episode before going to bed, but accidentally it was dawn.
I don’t even play games anymore, I don’t check Douyin, I don’t chat on WeChat anymore, I just watch Hongguo all day long, I watch it while eating, I watch it when I’m fishing at work, I lie down and watch it before going to bed, I watch it again when I wake up…
During the morning rush hour on the subway, seven out of ten people were swiping red fruits. Some were so fascinated by the sight that they sat directly across the station. On the high-speed train, if you take a casual look, you will see that there are few people around who are closing their eyes and concentrating. Most of them are immersed in the Hongguo short drama.
Especially during the recent National Day, crowds when traveling are no longer the main theme. Instead, staying at home and watching red fruits has become a daily routine for many people. Some people watched more than 700 episodes of short dramas on the first day of National Day. Even if one episode is one and a half minutes, it is equivalent to watching 17 or 8 hours.
Someone watched the short play on red fruits as soon as he opened his eyes. There was a 7-day National Day holiday, so he watched it for 7 days. He didn’t sleep at night or wake up in the morning. He even skipped fruits and snacks.
Some netizens discovered that not only they were watching, but their parents and younger siblings were also watching. During the meal, there were four sides of the dining table, and everyone was holding a mobile phone watching the Red Fruit short drama. You watched the counterattack, I watched the AI comic drama, and she watched the sweet love drama.
For this reason, not only are netizens reminding themselves to quit Hongguo, Hongguo officials also rush to launch an anti-addiction system, launching “rest reminders” and “sleep reminders” at once. Once the viewing time exceeds or you open Hongguo late at night, you will be told to put down your phone and take a rest.
Hongguo even plans to remove the gold coin function. This feature is designed to attract users to watch for a long time. The more they watch, the more gold coins they can get and eventually cash out. Many people unknowingly spend hours soaking in red fruits just to make an extra dime.
Looking at other video apps, all of them are frantically grabbing users’ time and energy, hoping that people will stay on their platforms for a while, but Hongguo seems to be telling users: Stop looking at me, which makes me very stressed.
The answer to who contributed these hours was actually beyond everyone’s expectation.
In the imagination of many people, the audience of Hongguo is middle-aged and elderly people and migrant workers in county towns, but in fact, it has already jumped out of specific circles and covered everyone.
Even celebrities who are regarded by many as unworldly people cannot escape.
In August 2026, the well-known director Jia Zhangke posted a Weibo message, starting with six characters: I have been watching Red Fruit recently. Not only that, he also solicited good short plays from all over the Internet, as if he was addicted to them.
It’s not just Jia Zhangke.
Mo Yan also confessed that he loves to watch short dramas. Whether it’s a son-in-law breaking off an engagement or a fantasy martial arts drama, he still can’t put it down even though the plots are bloody and the routines are similar.
A professor from the Chinese Department of East China Normal University also accidentally opened the short drama and got out of hand. He started to become a member and stayed up late to watch the drama.
In the past, people always said that in the era of mobile Internet, everyone lived in their own information cocoon. But as soon as Hongguo appeared, everyone was pulled into the same screen, read the same script, stayed up the same night, and said the same sentence, “You can eat without heartburn.”
Like air, it blends naturally into many people’s daily lives.
The earthy short drama gave it a makeover
Why are red fruits so popular?
Many people’s first reaction is – it’s free.
This is only half true.
In the Chinese market, free is no longer a novelty. Games are free, reading is free, short videos are free… Since most products are free, it is difficult to create differentiation by relying solely on a free strategy, thereby expanding the circle and harvesting a huge number of users.
The more important thing is the short play itself.
The most popular short drama this summer is called “Into the Song Dynasty with Arms”. The story tells the story of five modern special operations team members, equipped with a full set of equipment, traveling back in time to the Xuanhe period of the Northern Song Dynasty, using modern people’s ideas and skills to stand firm in troubled times.
It sounds like the beginning of a standard cool novel, but it happens to be more sophisticated than many historical dramas. For example, it does not just cover the imperial examination, but thinks from the perspective of ordinary people, how to buy books, study, take exams, and enter the court step by step.
Including military training, city defense, entering the dynasty, and anti-enemy tactics, it also truly restores history and characters, making the audience feel like they are immersed in it. Recently, it has come out of the entertainment industry again because of God’s restoration of Li Qingzhao’s image.
Countless viewers lamented after watching it that they actually got to know the real Northern Song Dynasty in an AI comic drama.
There is also “Return to the Ruins”, which has been played over 100 million times on the Internet. This AI science fiction short drama has a world view, script, scene generation, editing and soundtrack all handled by one person, but it has a quality comparable to that of a theatrical blockbuster.
After watching it, a large number of netizens completely changed their views on the AI comic, saying that it was fully qualified to enter the cinema. Even People’s Daily Online commented: Use ingenuity to remove the “AI smell”.
The same goes for live-action shorts.
Today’s live-action short dramas are no longer the crooked-mouthed dragon king and vicious mother-in-law and daughter-in-law types of 6 years ago. Their quality is also becoming more and more sophisticated. Both in terms of makeup and scenery, they are better than many long dramas. They are large-scale productions that can be seen by the naked eye. As a result, viewers of long-form dramas have “defected” and switched to watching short dramas with an episode of 2 minutes.
Live-action short drama “Good Rain Knows the Season”
In the past, when filming live-action short plays, five or six people worked in a yard, and a play could be completed in two or three days. The script was plagiarized, the storyboards were reproduced 1:1, the actors were found on the spot for 400 yuan/day, and the costumes and props had to be returned without reason within 7 days after the order was placed.
The entire industry is filled with an atmosphere of impetuousness. Everyone does not seek quality, only speed.
However, as the number of production companies in the short drama industry increases, the supply of low-quality short dramas produced every day exceeds demand, which makes more and more people start to take the high-quality route. The director must be professional, the actors must have a background in Beijing Film and Television, the extras must be experienced, and the costumes must be meticulous.
Starting from May 2026, Jet Li has launched two short dramas, “Source of Power” and “Return of the Sword”; in September of the same year, director Guo Jingyu bravely ventured into the short drama industry with 29 of his artists; “Madam She Specializes in Dissatisfaction 4” played by Li Ruotong had more than 7 million reservations before its premiere.
The short drama “Yuanli Jianghu” played by Jet Li
Wu Gang, Tang Guoqiang, Gillian Chung, Michelle Ye… Whether they are well-known actors or professional teams, they are all pouring into the short drama industry one after another.
The short play “A Long Journey to the Beginning” played by Wu Gang
Of course, the emergence of high-quality short dramas still cannot explain the phenomenal popularity of Hongguo. After all, there are many platforms, so why would the audience only want to watch Hongguo?
This has to mention its behind-the-scenes driving force – ByteDance.
As we all know, ByteDance has created a huge entertainment landscape. Short videos include Douyin, online novels include Tomato, and AI short dramas include Hongguo. Each of the three performs their own duties and is responsible for different content.
So how are they connected in series?
First of all, the most difficult thing about making a short drama is never the shooting, but writing a story that people are willing to watch. Screenwriters on other platforms have to stay up late and think about it, but Hongguo doesn’t have to worry about this because Tomato Novels is a ready-made script library.
As long as a certain novel becomes popular on Tomato, its IP will immediately be bought by Hongguo and become a short drama waiting to be released.
The “2025 Internet Literature IP Conversion Report” statistics show that among the 664 annual hit short plays on the entire network in 2025, 413 were adapted from the IP of Tomato novels, accounting for 62%. In the short play platform TOP50 list, Tomato original IP accounted for 64%.
It can be said that Hongguo does not need to bet on which drama will be popular. It only needs to wait for new IPs on the Tomato rankings, and they also have loyal audiences.
With IP, how to shoot?
Seedance.
This is an AI video generation tool owned by ByteDance. When Seedance 2.0 came out in February 2026, Film and Television Hurricane filmed a video to experience its effect, predicting that it would have a huge impact on film and television practitioners.
Nowadays, a large number of teams and individuals use Seedance to generate AI comics. The cost is 800 to 1,000 yuan per minute, and the film can be released in about a week. Both quality and output have caused a dimensionality reduction blow to the traditional film and television industry.
In addition, editing, as a tool owned by ByteDance, is also an indispensable part of the short drama industry. People use it to edit videos, generate subtitles and soundtracks.
The last step is more critical, how to push the short play in front of the audience.
Now it’s time for Douyin to come on the scene. As the largest short video platform in China, a large number of users browse movie and TV drama commentary on Douyin every day. Slices of Hongguo short plays can be mixed into it, attracting people to jump to Hongguo to watch the full episode. Data shows that more than half of Hongguo’s new users come from Douyin.
After that, Hongguo used three sets of free, high-quality short dramas and gold coins to keep users glued to the screen.
No wonder the red fruit is the biggest winner.
Hongguo’s going to sea
Not only Chinese people are watching short dramas, but foreigners are also addicted to them.
On social platforms, a large number of Chinese tourists were surprised to find that when traveling abroad, locals also watch Chinese short dramas on their mobile phones. They watch them with gusto and get carried away. They watch them when taking the subway, taking the bus, and cache them before flying. Some taxi drivers even watch short dramas while driving.
Local people describe: Chinese short dramas are more addictive than Tiktok.
As a result, short plays going overseas has become one of the hot topics in 2026.
Data shows that as of the end of September 2026, the cumulative total of China’s overseas micro-short dramas was approximately 290,000, an increase of 287.73% from the end of 2025.
In order to go overseas, China’s short drama team will translate each drama into 14 languages including English, Indonesian, and Thai, and then deliver it to more than 200 countries and regions including the United States, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia.
What’s even more interesting is that for the same script, they will combine it with local customs and put another layer on it. For example, for women to counterattack, in the United States, they must achieve strong emotions, fast pace, personal choice and respect; in Japan, they must be forbearing in the workplace and stand up at critical moments; in Southeast Asia, they must fall into ethical relationships and social class.
Foreigners not only watched, but also took photos.
Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group chose to cooperate with Chinese companies to remake a large number of popular short plays in China. The actors were replaced by Thais, the scenes were moved to the streets of Bangkok, all lines were in Thai, and the scripts were retained. The Chinese filmed the domineering president falling in love with me, the foreigners filmed the Wall Street tycoon falling in love with Cinderella, and the oil tycoon falling in love with the cleaning lady.
Thai short drama poster
They even set up a talent incubation program to teach young Thais to use AI to write scripts, build teams, and shoot local short dramas. It seems that short dramas will be regarded as an important industry.
Old Hollywood companies can no longer sit still. Fox teamed up with a short drama production company to plan more than 200 short dramas in one go. Traditional film and television giants such as Universal are also making plans. Behind the trend is the increase in monthly active users of micro-short dramas in the United States from 26 million in 2024 to 66 million in 2025.
The show became popular, and so did people.
At the beginning of 2026, Chinese short drama actress Zhang Yingfei became the “national goddess” in the Philippines with her movie “The True Daughter, She is a Top Student”.
When she landed in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, a large number of Filipino fans came to pick her up at the airport. The local TV station invited her to be a guest on the morning show. The fan meeting held in the shopping mall was overcrowded. A large number of Filipinos called her by the name in the drama in Mandarin. The mayor of Manila even came out to speak out and called her a “real idol.”
Zhang Yingfei is popular in the Philippines
It was unimaginable in the past that a Chinese skit actor has such a huge appeal in Southeast Asia.
Real actors have become popular, and AI actors have also transformed into actors.
In June 2026, the AI short drama “The Girl Who Was Fired” will be launched. The story is not new. Fang Taozi, a small-town girl, came to the big city with her dream of being a model. She was rejected for the interview, ostracized by her peers, marginalized after refusing the unspoken rules, and finally made her way on her own.
I never thought that this drama would become a hit. The number of views in the first season exceeded 220 million. AI actor Fang Taozi took advantage of the trend and appeared on the hot search list. Netizens described that “AI actors are more popular than domestic entertainment artists who are about to explode.”
What’s even more unexpected is that the team behind the scenes opened a Douyin account for Fang Taozi, introducing herself as an Aries girl who was pinched on April 1, 2026. She is 20 years old, 173cm tall, MBTI is ESFP, and she does morning jogging, eating, hand dance, and dressing… She is like a real star.
Zhou Yiheng, the male protagonist of the same drama, also opened an account. The two of them also have a CP account called “Tao Bu Shi Heng”. A large number of netizens crowded below to chat about CP and follow their daily lives.
In July 2026, Fang Taozi even received a commercial advertisement, and the customer was a cosmetic contact lens product. It is said that her price for a video advertisement of more than 60 seconds once reached 258,000 yuan, which is more expensive than many real-life Internet celebrities with millions of fans.
In 2026, the whole people have entered an era of pure life.
People no longer want to protect themselves for the sake of face, nor do they want to work hard to maintain a decent appearance. After returning home from get off work, they can have a period of mindless happiness, even if the day has not been in vain.
For the rest of my life, just live life.
In this context, Hongguo short drama is becoming more and more popular. It does not require users to spare two hours of time, does not require the audience to remember complex character relationships, and does not even require users to pay a penny for it.
People are so tired after get off work that they just want to relax, so it provides 30-second refreshments and half-an-hour bizarre stories.
Yang Dechang once said in the movie “One to One”: After the invention of movies, human life has been extended at least three times.
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