Jolene Fu’s path towards Chinese drama fans happened after moving from her native Malaysia to Norway in her late 20s. Fu, who grew up as a “third-generation Chinese child”, was looking for a way to reconnect with his homeland. Her friends recommended Chinese drama or C-drama for short.
“What really attracted me was the cultural dimension,” he told DW. “Being a Chinese immigrant, watching C-dramas became a way to reconnect with my roots.”
Tanveer Khan had just finished his secondary school exams in 2018 and was surfing Facebook. He found a short video of a serial C-drama titled “The Story of Yanxi Palace.” Hey, I was mesmerized.
“I don’t know if I can explain it properly, but you know when you watch a scene and something clicks inside you?” Khan, who is now in his final year of graduate studies in Dhaka, Bangladesh, told DW. “It’s like your brain tells you, yes, this is what I wanted to see.”
From that moment on, Khan said, he was hooked. He is now the administrator of a Facebook group for C-drama fans from around the world with over 700,000 members and regularly translates subtitles from English into his native Bengali.
“I know these are quality dramas. That’s why I want to share it with my Bengali friends!” Khan said.
a growing phenomenon
The global rise of Chinese entertainment began in the early 2000s when the poetic martial arts and sweeping visuals of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” put Chinese storytelling on the map. That momentum carried over to television, where dramas evolved from historical epics to modern romance and fantasy hits.
In the 2010s, Netflix and Viki introduced these dramas to global audiences and since 2020, have moved to video-on-demand (VOD) apps. Many are now being streamed on YouTube and Facebook with local language subtitles, making them accessible to even more people around the world.
According to Myat Pan Phuyu of Media Partners Asia, an independent research firm tracking Asia-Pacific’s video entertainment industries, Chinese dramas are “a structural pillar of Asia’s premium VOD landscape, providing sustained audience engagement and cross-border reach.”
Demand is strong in markets such as Taiwan and Thailand and growing rapidly in Southeast Asia. Although lagging behind Korean dramas or K-dramas in popularity, C-dramas now reach millions of viewers across the region.
“Since 2022, C-drama has most rapidly grown its share of premium VOD hours in Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia, with moderate gains in Malaysia and the Philippines,” he said.
Journalist Naman Ramachandran looks at the entertainment industry in Asia for the US trade publication DiversityHe has seen Chinese dramas emerge as an industry powerhouse, But recently, he said, there has been a change,
“Long plays exist and they are performing well,” Ramachandran said. “But many traditional players are now moving to shorter formats because that’s where the focus is.”
Big drama in micro doses
These new, shorter programs are called microdramas. They are ultra-short, scripted series delivered in a vertical format optimized for mobile viewing, often only a few minutes per episode. Microdramas have exploded in popularity on streaming apps, offering short, fast-paced stories on romance, family conflict, workplace conflict, revenge plots and aspirational lifestyles.
Ramachandran said, “The storytelling and the plot, everything has advanced.” “There’s no room to stop and breathe because everything has to happen in those two minutes. It keeps you hooked!”
A recent report from Media Partners Asia estimates that globally, microdrama outside China will reach revenues of $9 billion (€7.6 billion) by 2030, up from the $1.4 billion reported in 2024.
One of the main players in the production of microdramas is COL Group, the Beijing-based digital content company behind ReelShort and Flareflow, two of the most popular apps for microdramas.
Timothy Oh, general manager of Southeast Asia at COL Group, said the company began focusing on short, vertical content for phones in 2021, when most dramas were being produced for movie theaters or television.
Oh said, “It’s easy to watch for people who aren’t ready to commit to a full drama series.” “I wouldn’t say it’s an evolution of Chinese dramas as a whole, but it’s an evolution of how content is being consumed.”
The company is betting big on microdrama and will open the industry’s first dedicated microdrama studio, a 10,000 square meter facility near Macau. It also has 30 international production teams in major cities, allowing the company to localize content for different audiences. ReelShort and Flareflow are both seeing significant growth in both the US and Germany.
“I think it shows that Chinese content is well-circulated and translated,” Oh said, “They’re usually just simple stories from a universal perspective.”
soft, dramatic power
Professor Shaoyu Yuan of Rutgers University in New Jersey has been tracking the development of C-drama. For them, China’s growth in drama production is not just about entertainment or revenue, it is part of a broader strategy of soft power. The state shapes this ecosystem through limits, censorship, and incentives, then amplifies stories that fit its preferred message.
“It is a hybrid model, market-led in construction but state-shaped in the environment, which is why the development looks sudden, even though it has been in the making for a long time,” Yuan said.
C-drama fan Fu says that for international audiences, China’s penchant for soft power is reflected in how accessible C-dramas have become. Many of these platforms now host complete series on YouTube, often with multiple subtitle options released quickly and continuously.
“I don’t think this kind of access happens by accident,” Fu said. “I think it’s a clear sign that they want to reach a global audience and lower the barrier to entry.”
However, for Fu and many viewers around the world, these shows offer something they can’t get anywhere else: a glimpse of contemporary China.
Fu said, “Although these stories are fictional and not a direct reflection of reality, they provide a small but valuable window into a society that is often oversimplified or misunderstood.”
For Yuan, when audiences enjoy Chinese dramas, they spend hours immersed in Chinese culture, its stories, romance, social norms and even the language, rather than the politics. And this repeated exposure contributes to a softer, more humane image of China.
“Plays don’t magically erase political concerns, but they do change the emotional baseline,” Yuan said.
Edited by: Srinivas Majumdaru