Made-in-China Short Dramas for Mobile Phones Gain Popularity in the U.S.
After web novels and online games, bite-sized short dramas have become the latest cultural export from China to captivate U.S. audiences.
Editor’s Note:
This article was originally published on Tenchnology, a page that is now closed. We found this piece particularly interesting and have decided to repost to ensure it remains in the public domain.
To complement the article, we also want to draw your attention to this video by BBC which captures the global rise of China’s micro-drama phenomenon, a fast-paced, addictive format that’s now gaining traction far beyond its borders.
The following is the original brief from Tenchnology:
The bite-sized content caters to mobile phone users who can watch a few episodes, each lasting less than two minutes, whenever they have some time. Unlike television series that rely on more complex character development and themes, short dramas prioritize immediate emotional impact and rapid plot progression, often employing cliffhangers to get viewers to watch the next episode.
Besides, short dramas are shot in vertical formats to cater to mobile phone users, in contrast to television series and movies that come in horizontal formats.
U.S. companies have started producing their own short dramas, often tapping Chinese producers and editors as well as international students from China who are more familiar with the genre.
The following article is an abridged English translation of “Chinese Short Dramas Take America by Storm” (《中国短剧席卷美利坚》), originally published on Positive Connection (正面连接), a WeChat Public Account on March 17, 2025, written by Yu Youying (于友嘤). The translation is provided here for informational and sharing purposes only. All credit goes to the original author and publication.
This article should take approximately 10 minutes to read.
Since 2023, following the global success of Chinese web novels and online games, short dramas have become the third cultural export hit from China. According to the 2024 Short Drama Overseas Market Insights report, more than 200 Chinese short drama apps have been launched overseas, racking up nearly 370 million downloads and generating $570 million in revenue (around 4.1 billion RMB) in 2024.
To American audiences, this genre was first introduced as “mobi”—a mashup of “mobile” and “mini,” referring to bite-sized dramas made to be watched on mobile phones. Terms like “short drama” or “mini-drama” were subsequently used to describe the new genre before Hollywood eventually settled on “vertical drama.”
This buzzy newcomer to the U.S. film and TV industry is the same kind of short drama available in China each day with the Classic Chinese trope of the “Alpha CEO” “sweet romance” “rags-to-riches revenge” and “instant karma” among the most popular themes.
U.S. production companies have gotten into the act, competing with Chinese companies.
We spoke with several U.S.-based short drama production teams. On the production side, they are more organized, more professionally run, and offer better labor protections than their Chinese counterparts. On the audience side, the similarities are striking: huge population base, rigid class divisions, and increasingly chaotic values.
Behind the American short drama boom, you will find Chinese international students feeling excluded from the Hollywood mainsteam, and American actors struggling to find work. These two marginalized groups are teaming up—shooting scenes full of coffee spills, dramatic slap downs, instant payback for bad guys, and immediate rewards for the good ones. Together, they are building a strange but powerful bridge between China and the U.S., channeling a mix of unspoken but deeply shared social emotions.
“Familiar Souls in Unfamiliar Faces”
”I need the full series, I’ve already watched every episode that’s been uploaded. I’m 73 years old, I don’t have much time left. Please!!!!”
”I’m 33, and like the lady who said she’s 73—time is slipping away! I’m just like her. All I can think about is: where’s the next episode? I’m getting anxious, my adrenaline is literally on a cliff right now.”
These are just two of the top YouTube comments about the viral short drama The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband. The show has 49 one-minute episodes, and fans sum up the plot as: “I married my sister’s fiancé and ended up becoming this hidden billionaire’s favorite girl.”
Another hit, The Prodigal Returns—a classic “original Chinese flavor” drama about a boy adopted by a CEO who comes back 20 years later for revenge—is also winning fans. Even though it’s only available in Chinese with Chinese subtitles (raw and unsubtitled), the YouTube comments (200+ of them!) are full of praise:
“I didn’t understand a single word, but I’m obsessed.” “The acting speaks louder than the dialogue—I’m suffering but loving it.” “This is real society.” Viewers are begging for English, Spanish, or Arabic subtitles.
Whether the characters are white or Chinese, speaking English or Mandarin, the heart of these short dramas is the same: fast-paced emotional hits, perfectly timed. And to deliver that soul, the core creative team is always Chinese—think producers, editors, and executives. (In the U.S., where the industry is producer-driven, editing is everything for short-form drama pacing.) Non-Chinese crew members usually handle execution jobs like directing, writing, costumes, props, and makeup—while actors are, of course, local.
Jia Yi, the founder of Crazy Maple Studio, the parent company of ReelShort, North America’s first short drama platform, has worked in the U.S. for nearly 20 years. Before jumping into short dramas, Crazy Maple had already developed two hit apps overseas.
In 2022, Jia returned to China and noticed people were actually paying for short dramas. So why not bring that model to the U.S.? Just like a short drama, his journey was fast-paced and full of plot twists. By August that year, ReelShort had launched in North America, targeting female users—especially full-time moms aged 18–45.
Ten months later, in June 2023, ReelShort had its first viral hit: Fated to My Forbidden Alpha, a Cinderella-style tale set between two rival werewolf clans. The second breakout hit was The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband.
By late 2023, ReelShort was pumping out 4–5 new dramas a month. In November, it shot to the top of the U.S. iOS download charts, even beating TikTok. By May 2024, Crazy Maple Studio landed on TIME magazine’s list of the “100 Most Influential Companies” in the world—right next to Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
In just two years, ReelShort grew from a team of 5–6 to over 700. Watching a full drama on the app (about an hour long in total) costs at least $20—more than a month of Netflix’s standard subscription.
It looks like the business model for exporting short dramas actually works. Over 40 new apps—like DramaBox, ShortMax—have entered the game, along with many small production studios. Jia predicts around 200 companies will try their luck in the U.S., but only 10% would survive.
The first wave of short dramas to hit the U.S. had the vibe of old-school Chinese web romances from 10+ years ago. Compared to today’s wildly illogical and outrageous Chinese dramas, these early exports were relatively tame and traditional, with slower pacing and familiar drama beats: light sarcasm, face-slapping, water-throwing, and kneeling scenes.
And when these classic tropes were performed by blonde, blue-eyed actors? Chinese viewers couldn’t help but comment: “I see familiar souls in unfamiliar faces.”
“New York First People’s Hospital” and Other Lost-in-Translation Moments
A lot of North American short dramas are just remakes of Chinese originals. Cheng Ming, a producer at an overseas short drama platform, told me one of the platform’s main tasks is localization—basically, swapping out Chinese elements for American ones.
Some swaps are pretty straightforward. The classic Chinese plotline of an arranged marriage that turns into true love? In the West, it becomes a “contract marriage.” Same idea: two people are forced to live together and, of course, fall in love. Surrogacy is another Western-friendly twist to tie characters together—like the female lead carrying the male lead’s baby.
Then there are quick fixes, like replacing Didi with Uber, or changing Chinese-style high-interest loans into American student loans. But when it comes to things like filial piety or family pressure to have children—there are no real Western equivalents. Cheng Ming said there isn’t even a proper English word for filial piety—just some obscure academic term at best.
“If we really can’t localize something,” Cheng Ming said, “we just leave it in and hope for the best.”
Since time is money in short drama production, sometimes scripts are just directly translated—so the movie ends up with ridiculous locations like “New York First People’s Hospital” left in the final cut.
Meng Ran, a 28-year-old producer, walked me through one of her “less successful” adaptations. In the original Chinese version, the heroine was a powerful boss lady hiding out at a fish stall in a chaotic wet market. She’s chopping up live fish when a luxury car pulls up, and a dozen bodyguards hop out to escort her back to the company. But in the U.S. version? There are no wet markets. So the team changed the setting to a spice market, but the strong contrast between “street life” and “corporate empire” totally disappeared.
Chinese dramas also love 'crowd scenes'—essentially, hiring a bunch of extras to make a scene feel more extravagant. Dozens of bodyguards or maids trailing the lead character help emphasize their power or highlight an underdog making a comeback.
American producers would love to replicate that, but extras in the U.S. are expensive. Without large crowds, it's difficult to achieve that over-the-top vibe. Eventually, they had no choice but to invest in visual effects to digitally add extras.
Most U.S. filming locations also require permits, and renting luxury cars in Los Angelas can cost five to 20 times more than in China. “When people in China write scripts, they act like sets are free,” Meng Ran said. “One minute it’s an airport, next it’s a police station, then a hospital.” But when she sees “airport” in a U.S. script, she knows it’s a red flag—it’ll need major rewrites.
Another challenge? Class differences don’t translate well. In China, it’s common to show a poor kid rising up from nothing. But in the U.S., if the actor is a white guy, he just doesn’t look poor—he looks middle-class, at worst.
Beyond that, class in the U.S. is often tangled with race, religion, and politics—making things way more sensitive. In China, you can show a rich girl bullying an old woman in a patched-up coat and dusty face. But in the U.S., if a wealthy white lady is yelling at a drug-addicted Black woman from the inner city? That’s not a drama plot—that’s a PR disaster.
Scenes that are common in Chinese dramas—like parents hitting kids—are completely off-limits in the U.S. One short drama researcher even warned in a report: “If you’re not careful, you could literally end up in jail.”
Then there’s the issue of “forced love” plots. In Chinese dramas, it’s not unusual for the male lead to trap the female lead against a wall (bi dong) or even force a sexual encounter—she resists, but secretly likes it. In the West, that’s legally and culturally classified as harassment or assault.
So, when short dramas go overseas, those scenes have to be carefully edited to align with U.S. laws and social norms.
Short Drama Boot Camp: Training American Directors and Actors
Bringing something new into the U.S. market means one thing: you have to retrain directors and actors.
Meng Ran usually holds one- to two-hour meetings with American directors, showing them key scenes from Chinese short dramas and explaining the genre’s basic logic and techniques. One of the hardest parts? Convincing actors used to subtle performances why slapping scenes are essential, and why a poker face on the female lead just doesn’t work. If they’re remaking a Chinese short drama, the U.S. director usually gets to watch the original as a reference.
Director quality in the U.S. is hit-or-miss as well, similar to China.
That said, American short dramas often look better than Chinese ones, thanks to solid lighting, wardrobe, and set design. In the U.S. film industry, lighting is taken very seriously.
However, many U.S. directors are still figuring out how to shoot for vertical video. To play it safe, they rely heavily on static camera shots. Once, a Chinese producer requested more camera movement. The result? All the shots panned horizontally—not vertically. “Hello?! It’s a vertical screen!”
So here are a few golden rules for new short drama directors:
- Always shoot straight on. No side angles, no 30- or 45-degree shots—anything off-angle weakens the emotional impact on the actor’s face.
- Keep the lighting bright. Dark, moody lighting might look cinematic, but remember: viewers are watching on their phones, probably in daylight.
- Dramatic “highlight scenes” can break from narrative logic—but they must be emotional, intense, and over-the-top. These are called “ad scenes” and their main job is to get people to click the hyperlink, not serve the overall story.
In short: forget content logic, think product logic. A producer’s two goals? Save time and save money.
A full short drama typically runs between 70 to 100 minutes—essentially a movie—and must be completed within 7 to 10 days. Actors only receive their scripts a day in advance. They film about 10 episodes per day, which amounts to 15 to 20 pages of script. This pace is unheard of for American crews. (Chinese productions are even faster.)
U.S. short dramas cost about $300,000, a fraction of the tens of millions needed to produce a typical full-length American drama series. A long-form drama company might do 2–3 series per year; a short drama studio could pump out 200.
The first thing to change is the workday. In the U.S., film crews are capped at 8 hours per day, with a max of 12 (and overtime pay kicks in after 8). In China, it’s common to shoot 15–18 hours a day.
Most U.S. short drama companies stick to a full 12-hour shoot. Bigger names like ReelShort usually manage to stay within that time frame—and pay for overtime if they go over. But smaller studios often end up stretching their days to 15 or 16 hours.
"We're always walking a fine line legally," said one short drama worker. Another, who asked to remain anonymous, put it more bluntly: "Sometimes we cut costs so much, it crosses into illegal territory."
"Illegal how? Think: filming without permits, no insurance, no contracts, wages below the legal minimum. The union-set minimum wage for art department workers is $30–40 an hour. 'Legit' short drama studios might offer $16 an hour—just barely above New York’s minimum wage. Some pay even less."
In late 2024, American actors began flying to China to shoot scenes on location—it’s cheaper. New filming hubs include coastal cities like Zhuhai and Qingdao, both offering Western-style backdrops.
Travis, an actor, was shooting in Zhuhai when he witnessed his first Chinese “opening ceremony” for a production. The crew prayed for blessings before starting. He found it charming but not everyone agreed. Another American production in Qingdao cut out the traditional incense offering due to concerns about religious sensitivity.
After heated debate between the Chinese and American producers, they compromised—keeping only the red envelopes and speeches and removing everything else.
Because extras in the U.S. are expensive, casting works like this: speaking roles go to Australians, while silent roles go to Russians or Ukrainians.
Travis’s biggest gripe? Endless waiting. His second short drama was shot in freezing-cold Beijing. He worked 15–18 hours a day, and often spent a third of that just waiting—for lighting setups, for set changes, etc. In the U.S., where time is capped at 12 hours, everyone moves faster. Travis said he has since told his agent to negotiate stricter work-hour terms into future short drama contracts.
American actors sometimes feel uncomfortable with the toxic masculinity and weak female characters in these dramas.
When this happens, they often try to work things out professionally—by talking to the director or producer and asking for small changes in the storyline or character.
Catering to a Western Audience
Meet Jen, who runs an Instagram account called verticaldramalove—a pink-toned page dedicated to vertical short drama. She reviews the latest shows, recommends hidden gems, interviews actors, and even hosts polls like “My Favorite Short Drama of 2024.”
When we jumped on a video call, I was greeted by a friendly white woman in her 40s. She lives in a small town in South London, about an hour from the city, and has two teenage daughters. She was chatty and cheerful: “You can totally call me shallow,” she joked. When I told her I didn’t think she was shallow at all, she blew me a kiss through the screen.
She discovered her first Chinese short drama on TikTok in April 2024. It had English subtitles and told the story of a maid seeking revenge. She’s now watched between 300 and 400 short dramas.
Jen typically watches a bit of short drama while eating breakfast. She then starts work, joins some client meetings, and sometimes sneaks in another episode during lunch. In the evening, her husband watches TV or sports while Jen gets back to her dramas.
“Hollywood’s getting boring,” Jen told me. In her opinion, Chinese and Korean dramas are way better than traditional American shows — “so much better.”
Jen also has health issues. Long-form shows take too much energy. Short dramas are perfect—she can watch them while eating, and since they’re vertical, no need to rotate her phone.
Doubt, Acceptance, and Becoming Part of It
The North American short drama world is a tight-knit circle. Most people in the industry are just one or two connections away from each other—and almost all of them are Chinese international students who studied film in the U.S.
They graduated from top film schools like the University of Southern California (USC), New York University, California Institute of the Arts, and the American Film Institute (AFI). American actor Sam told me that every single short drama set he’s worked on had at least one USC grad. (He’s one too, from the acting program.)
For many of these Chinese grads, short dramas quite literally made it possible for them to stay in the U.S. “Short dramas are a blessing,” said Mark, a cinematographer who graduated from AFI. Back in school, he had classmates from Korea, Japan, and Venezuela. Most of them left the U.S. after a year or two. Only the Chinese students stayed. This rising new industry gave them not only a real career—and a sense of dignity.
Meng Ran graduated from USC Film in December 2022. She spent three months job hunting but couldn’t land anything. “Hollywood doesn’t want us,” she said. International students are always on the sidelines in the overcrowded U.S. film industry.
In early 2023, news of an impending Hollywood strike started to spread. Productions were shutting down, making the job market even tougher. When another Chinese film school grad reached out and invited her to work on short dramas, she didn’t hesitate. The friend even warned her up front: “It’s just these cheap little dramas.' She thought, 'I’ll do it for now—until I find something better.”
If Chinese film grads brought the people, the Hollywood strike brought the timing. ReelShort’s launch happened to line up perfectly with the industry-wide shutdown. While everything else came to a standstill, short dramas kept hiring.
At first, the teams were mostly non-union—directors, actors, set designers who were cheaper and more available. But by late 2023, as the short drama industry exploded, they started bringing in union talent—people with credits on major projects. One example: the director of Love Me, Bite Me (a vampire short drama) had previously worked as an executive director on the New York shoot of The Wandering Earth-a Chinese blockbuster Sci-fi movie.
Ryan Vincent is a union actor whose biggest role to date was a minor part in Oscar-nominated Blonde. For short dramas, he uses the stage name Jack Fierce—a tongue-in-cheek persona with “big energy.” He says the name helps him become the role. He’s already played nearly 10 different Alpha CEOs.
Short drama sets are kind of wild. Sam describes them as “theme parks.” Since they shoot 10–12 script pages a day (versus the 2–3 pages on a traditional shoot), there's little time to second-guess anything. “You can just go for it,” he said. Even actors who were initially embarrassed about doing short dramas often end up having a blast: where else do you get a scene with a whole ballroom of American actors standing in a circle, taking turns getting slapped in the face?
“It’s silly,” Ryan Vincent admitted, talking about the slaps and water-throwing. “It’s fun—but yeah, it is silly.” Still, he’s convinced short dramas are now a legitimate industry: they make up 60% to 70% of the job opportunities for actors like him in Hollywood.
Some actors worry about short dramas being a “black mark” on their resume. But ultimately, they take the roles. The film industry is known for being low-paying but glamorous. Out of the 160,000 members in the U.S. actors’ union (SAG-AFTRA), only 2–4% make a living from acting alone. Over 100,000 actors have side gigs—waiting tables, bartending, anything to get by.
And so, mindset becomes everything. “Do you want to be an actor who waits around, or an actor who works?” said Travis. “I mean, who’s getting that Netflix role—me or Glen Powell? Exactly. I don’t stand a chance. So my roles keep shrinking.”
Actors are learning to shift their perspective: don’t judge the script—just do the job. If there’s something uncomfortable, talk it through with the director and producer. Handle it professionally, not emotionally.
Meng Ran says she’s proud of this work. Being able to speak Mandarin on set in the U.S. is a privilege not many Chinese people abroad get to experience. “It’s rare to be in an industry where your native culture is dominant, and you’re well-paid for it.”
“Chinese capital carved out a new track in the U.S.,” said Cheng Ming, another USC grad. “It’s feeding both Chinese and American workers.”
Documentary director Wang Yifei said the short drama wave reminds him of Japan’s pink films in the 1960s: lowbrow, often crass, but crucial in helping the industry retain talent during hard times.
He’s noticed many short drama directors slip in their own artistic touches—especially in the last 10 episodes, which fewer people watch. That’s where they get creative with bold camera angles, odd lighting, and even one-shot takes. Sometimes, investors let it slide. Other times, they push for reshoots.
“First you doubt short dramas, then you understand them, and eventually—you become them,” said Mark. Early on, he lit a scene in dark, moody tones—just like he’d learned in school. The producers made him redo it immediately. Two years in, he feels like he’s starting to get it. It feels like selling out. But maybe not entirely. Maybe it’s not just self-justification.
He’s seen the messiness of the early days and watched the industry slowly standardize. He’s read horrible scripts and helped build better ones. He still doesn’t like watching short dramas, but when his crew compliments his professionalism, he feels… something new.
“Middle America”
Here’s a curious fact: not a single short drama creator I interviewed—Chinese or American—knew anyone personally who watches short dramas.
Meng Ran has produced multiple viral hits, but no one around her watches them. In fact, many people she knows haven’t even heard of them. Sometimes, she wonders, “Are people watching the stuff I make?” Then, once, she heard through an actor friend that her kid’s kindergarten teacher was a fan of one of her shows.
Most creators have made peace with this. Short dramas are built for the internet and short-form platforms. Unlike traditional films, where audience reactions matter, internet products live and die by data. If the numbers look good, that’s all the feedback you need.
Cheng Ming has asked around, trying to find viewers—he even had his friends ask their friends. Most hadn’t even seen a single targeted short drama ad on TikTok. He couldn’t wrap his head around it. The market cap and revenue numbers prove this is a massive industry. In 2024 alone, North American short dramas brought in $290 million in revenue. So, where are all these people?
He believes it’s all about social bubbles. There’s a huge, invisible group of people out there that they simply never interact with.
On Xiaohongshu (RedNote, a Chinese lifestyle social app), one creator often sees Chinese-Americans making $200K a year complaining they “can’t survive.” Later, she learned that the median U.S. household income is $75,000.
According to TikTok’s 2024 Overseas Short Drama Marketing White Paper, 61% of short drama viewers on TikTok come from households making under $75K. For non-short-drama TikTok users, that number is even higher—72%.
Sam, who lives in L.A., speculates that short dramas might appeal most to people in “Middle America.”
“Middle America” is commonly used to describe the Midwestern U.S.—states like Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and southern Illinois. Culturally, it’s the opposite of the progressive, urbanized coasts. The region is known for conservative “family values” often associated with the Republican Party.
Sam says the difference reminds him of elections. Middle America is Red-state territory. Most entertainment workers live on the coasts—in Blue cities like L.A. and New York City. As podcast host Zhong Shu once said, the three most Democrat-dominated fields in the U.S. are higher education, media, and Hollywood.
What is certain is how fast the industry’s evolving. Since early 2025, the pace of competition and evolution in short dramas has exploded. The U.S. quickly mirrors whatever trend is popping in China.
In late 2024, the hit series Flash Marriage with a Rich Old Man kicked off a wave of senior citizen romance dramas in China. Just a month or two later, America had its version: a single grandma marrying a CEO. One video editor told me, “Right before the Chinese New Year, I was still editing love stories for women in their 40s. After the holiday? I was already cutting romance plots for women in their 60s.”
Jen, the superfan from London, says when she brings up short dramas at business meetings, no one else has heard of them—yet. But she predicts: “By the end of 2025, everyone will know.”
Meng Ran agrees. The ultimate goal? “We want all Americans to watch short dramas,” she said. “Just like in China.”
(Note: Cheng Ming, Meng Ran, and Mark are pseudonyms.)