AI-generated historical costume idol dramas effortlessly attract a massive fan base
Many people who were quite resistant to AI acting at the start of the year are now obsessed with AI historical romance dramas.
It's not that AI historical romance dramas have made big leaps in innovation, but that there is a time lag between AI historical romance dramas and full-length historical romance dramas. What has been criticized, discarded, and deemed outdated in full-length historical romance dramas is now shining here — the sunny outgoing female lead, the dignified matriarch, power-play sweet romance, and immortal xianxia tragic love. Especially xianxia, which is barely watched in live-action full-length dramas, can become a hit and make virtual "stars" popular in AI historical romance dramas.
Previously, people always thought that AI would do something remarkable when it came, unlocking cutting-edge themes that were once hard to tackle. But in reality? AI cute pet clips, AI abstract content, AI melodramatic fruit family dramas. Everything is worth remaking with AI, including historical romance dramas.
Just like the feuds and entanglements of the fruit family are more concentrated and melodramatic than prime-time soap operas, AI historical romance dramas are more "historical romance" than full-length historical romance dramas. In fact, looking at the ups and downs of long and short dramas, real audiences have never set any innovation KPI for Chinese entertainment. Those harsh online comments that say everything is too cliché and bad values, anyone who believes them is a fool.
For the general public who watch dramas for entertainment, innovation is certainly good, but it is also nice to make familiar content comfortable to watch. Real audiences come to watch stories, to get emotional supplements and spiritual substitution, so they turn to AI historical romance dramas.
The Most "Down-to-Earth" Viral Hit
AI manhua dramas have recently ushered in a new wealth myth, with the story of "post-95 couple making 500 episodes of AI manhua dramas by hand and becoming a smash hit" topping Weibo's hot search list,
This hit drama that won media attention for them is titled *Exiled to the Border: The Convict Wife Clears Wasteland and Raises a War God*, which is one of the most popular and most successfully serialized AI manhua dramas in the first half of this year. Its 8 seasons have accumulated over 4.1 billion views on Douyin, won the runner-up spot for AI manhua dramas in the first half of the year on Hongguo, with a peak heat of 94.42 million.
The drama tells the story of the female lead Su He, who travels from the post-apocalyptic world to ancient times. At the beginning of the story, she gets implicated by her family and is about to be assigned to a border general as his wife. She takes the initiative to choose her own partner, and later relies on her wood superpower to reclaim wasteland, farm, and lead the whole family to a better life.
AI can create any gorgeous costume and makeup design as well as aesthetic pictures as you want, but this drama obviously has no intention to do so. A small village in a famine year should look like a small village in a famine year, and this "rustic" feature is exactly where its differentiated highlights come from.
Farming-themed wish-fulfillment stories have a long history in online literature and have created countless hits. Chinese entertainment has adapted them more than once, but never got the essence. Yet *Exiled to the Border* not only takes the farming plot seriously, but also brings out sufficient sense of wish-fulfillment:
Farming stories usually involve a large family of relatives bickering and making a mess, but *Exiled to the Border* removes all these plots; the emotional line is also compressed. It is said to be a love story after arranged marriage, but the male lead doesn't have much screen time; the common awakening, growth and value promotion elements in female-oriented dramas are also abandoned, the female lead is already in a perfect state of mind the moment she appears.
Therefore, *Exiled to the Border* focuses on farming in its limited length and rarely goes off track. Audiences are also in a state of "gene awakening": when chasing other dramas, they look forward to sweet interactions and the couple's wedding night, but when chasing this drama, what they look forward to most is the harvest settlement.
More importantly, this drama is not a hard-toiling realistic farming story, but a farming story with a golden finger (cheat power). Just like Han Li using the small green bottle to get cheats in *A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality*, the female lead has the wood superpower, every move of hers gets twice the result with half the effort and has no risk of failure.
In addition, "relative happiness" is a popular alternative wish-fulfillment mechanism in recent years, which is subtle and effective, and *Exiled to the Border* knows this rule very well: the female lead is quite satisfied as she travels from the post-apocalyptic world without displacement or fighting, so blind arranged marriage is no big deal for her. The whole village only has coarse grains and no oil to eat, so if someone can hunt a rabbit or add a few meat dishes to a wedding banquet, the whole family will feel very proud.
Modern people generally have no worries about food and clothing but have a high happiness threshold. Between the grand historical romance dramas where the protagonist strives for the whole world and saves all living beings, and the story where people help each other in difficult environments and create small happiness with cheat powers, which one is more practical and can bring the audience more sense of superiority and spiritual comfort? The answer is obvious. The dusty, tough living environment in the drama seems unpleasant at first glance, but it is actually an indispensable part.
While appearing down-to-earth and trendy, the core of *Exiled to the Border* is completely retro.
Its story can be regarded as a variant of the era-themed tough daughter-in-law drama, which fully conforms to the dignified matriarch mode analyzed by Entertainment Hard Candy (Compared with the "strong female lead", the "dignified matriarch" is the more realistic setting for Chinese dramas). The female lead stays sober and independent, and devotes herself to her career in an orderly manner. What is her career? It is to lead her husband's family out of poverty. This is not very different from the traditional matriarch's duties of managing marriage and social connections.
The female lead does not limit herself to house fights and female competition, but this is more due to narrative upgrading, which can create similar emotional value without using conflict and face-slapping plots. The husband is responsible from the very beginning, the mother-in-law is reasonable from the very beginning, and the younger brother and sister-in-law are obedient from the very beginning. The female lead only needs to use her superpower to prove her ability to make money, and respect and right to speak will come naturally.
Similarly, female competition does not require the female lead to take the initiative. The supporting female rival chooses the wrong man, lacks wisdom, and never stops comparing with the female lead, so her life gets worse and more painful.
Entertainment Hard Candy said at the beginning that anyone who really believes in the value promotion stuff is a fool, people should not fight against human nature. The matriarch mode has a long history precisely because it conforms to both traditional values and the current spiritual needs.
On the other hand, the trend of rebirth and revenge has swept the drama market in the past few years, with almost all characters being villains, and everyone eager to get divorced, cut off bad family ties and live independently. Yet *Exiled to the Border* does not focus on romantic love but on loyalty and mutual affection, advocating living a down-to-earth life, being considerate and sharing burdens with each other when problems arise, which is very retro and is also a long-lost warm presence.
Extreme Romance
If *Exiled to the Border* were made into a full-length drama, it would most likely be classified as a strong female lead business drama. Then what about AI historical romance dramas that purely focus on romantic love? Have they made any new breakthroughs in romance? Entertainment Hard Candy dares to say that the answer is no.
After all, no matter long, medium or short, live-action or AI, the creative source of historical romance dramas is basically online literature, so there is not much difference in content preferences. Some popular or once popular elements in full-length historical romance dramas are growing freely in AI historical romance dramas.
For example, the quirky, loving sunny female lead. Sweet romance dramas used to produce a lot of such female leads, and post-95 sweet actresses like Zhao Lusi, Yu Shuxin and Tian Xiwei all became famous with such roles. Until after 2023, the romantic love narrative of Chinese dramas collapsed completely, and the trend of making female leads focus on career after their husband dies rose. The most fashionable and correct character setting became a highly intelligent evil female lead with a bunch of useless male sidekicks.
But in today's AI historical romance dramas, the sunny female lead seems to be making a comeback. They show their excellent CP compatibility in different theme backgrounds, giving birth to hit works and popular male characters.
*Tea Puppet: The Miao Clan Young Master Is Aggressive and Possessive*, which is the first AI historical romance drama for many people and whose male lead's first version of model is unforgettable, is a typical combination of sunny female lead and sickly loyal dog male lead. The story is a typical "enter the book to conquer the villain" plot: the male lead A Jiu is a dangerous character who knows nothing about the world, the female lead Chu He gradually finds her conscience while lying to him, and their feelings finally become mutual.
The recent well-received low-key hit drama *Green Plum by the Inkstone* is a story of sunny female lead and father-like teenage male lead. The male lead is Yan Jiming, the protagonist of Yan Zhenqing's *Eulogy to My Nephew*, who is described as "the treasure of the royal family and the elegant jade of the courtyard" in the original text. The female lead is from modern times, lively and smart. They stage the sweet daily life of a young couple on the basis of the sad background of real history.
Short dramas are best at "having the best of both worlds". In another hit series *After Becoming a Cannon Fodder: Aren't You a Villain? Why Do You Want to Hug Me*, the female lead Su Ruan is still a sunny girl and a funny complainer. The male lead Yan Chen is both mature and a little silly, with the sexual tension of going crazy, the sense of security of an older man, and the cute contrast of begging for a hug with red eyes.
In addition to the sunny female lead, the xianxia theme is also having a renaissance in AI historical romance dramas.
After the successive bombardment of countless xianxia dramas, full-length xianxia dramas have fallen into overall downturn in the past two years. Their quality has improved, but almost no one watches them. But for AI historical romance dramas, probably because fantasy themes can better reflect the cost-effectiveness advantage of AI special effects, xianxia themes are still very popular and continuously produce hits. There are strong female lead upgrade wish-fulfillment stories that live-action dramas have not touched, cute baby group favorite stories under xianxia background, and traditional xianxia romance dramas with authentic flavor.
For example, *After Transmigrated to Be the Vicious Supporting Girl, I Was Targeted by the Master*, as the name suggests, is a story of entering the book plus master-disciple love. But previous master-disciple love stories usually start with forbidden love and create tragic plots, the master has to waver between love, ethics and all living beings, and the female lead has to pay the price for falling in love with her master.
This drama's female lead only wants to complete the system task and leave, while the master acts like a bossy president, she runs, he chases, and she can't escape. The scene where the male lead holds the female lead in one arm and resists the thunder with the other is very popular.
Another well-received work *When My Immortal Master Was in Trouble, I Was Stuck By the Powerful Lord of the Ghost Domain* tells a story about oblivion and reincarnation under the gimmick of female dominance and male submissiveness. The female lead embarks on the path of cultivating immortality to save the male lead, but is designed by the sect to drink the water of oblivion. The male lead waits for the female lead for many years and falls into the ghost path, and finally is willing to become the stepping stone for the female lead to become a god.
People watch xianxia romance dramas just to see the fate, intermittent fate and extreme feelings that can transcend time and life and death under the supernatural setting, the so-called earth-shattering love. This drama can well arouse the audience's original love for xianxia romance.
Gorgeous, Focused and Diverse
AI historical romance dramas are certainly not perfect. There are often bugs in the pictures, when a character speaks a long line, the shot size and even the character's appearance may keep changing, with strong collage feeling. Most works do not have rhythm changes, and always maintain a fast-paced, straightforward narrative.
But obviously, for enthusiasts, none of these problems matter.
So the question arises, what exactly matters? What makes AI historical romance dramas more "historical romance" and more in line with the requirements of historical romance drama audiences than full-length historical romance dramas?