Going to Hengdian to check in and shoot short dramas has gone viral.
"The overbearing CEO falls for me? It's fine to watch that in short dramas, but in real life, who wouldn't want to throw themselves into acting a couple of episodes?"
With one ticket, visitors can experience the filming of more than 10 short dramas. From overbearing president storylines to blood paternity test plots, no one at Hengdian could say they didn't have a blast filming. This National Day holiday, the "landing visa" experience at Hengdian has gone viral across all major social media platforms. Tourists arriving at Hengdian only need to spend 200 to 300 yuan and around one hour to enter the real studio sets, follow the professional film crew team, and shoot a short drama that belongs exclusively to themselves.
It is reported that during the National Day period, more than 10 short drama crews started filming in the southern and northern zones of Hengdian World Studios, covering themes including fairy and demon romance, flawless love stories, imperial palace tales, and comedic plots. The experience is free of charge with zero threshold to join the show, and more than 400 "dream makers" act alongside tourists. Visitors also have the chance to meet star "acting partners" including artists from the Universe 101 boy band label, Hu Kaixuan, Wu Qihua and others.
The short drama filming experience project in Hengdian exploded in popularity starting from August this year, and the topic of "going to Hengdian to shoot short dramas" on social platforms has exceeded tens of millions of discussions. The transformation from film studio to cultural tourism carries far-reaching implications. Yang Zhiwei, Chairman of Zhejiang Hengdian World Studios Co., Ltd., stated in a published article: "Currently, generative artificial intelligence is accelerating the reconstruction of film and television production methods, and the public's expectation for high-quality cultural tourism experiences continues to rise. The dual 'force push' from inside and outside the industry requires Hengdian World Studios to take the initiative to reshape itself."
After the Spring Festival in 2026, AI short dramas began to see explosive growth. After the Spring Festival, actors and crews returned to Hengdian only to find that the jobs they had previously agreed on had been suddenly "taken away" by AI. Not limited to short dramas, AI is now shaking up the entire film and television industry. On September 27, Bona Pictures announced that *Sanxingdui: Past of the Future*, the first AI ultra-realistic theatrical film, is officially scheduled to hit theaters across China on October 23, 2026. This is also the first full-length AI theatrical release.
From short dramas to feature films, AI is gradually stepping into more core production links of the film and television industry. For Hengdian, the impact of this change may have only just begun. As the world's largest film and television shooting base, Hengdian is trying to find new growth space through the integration of cultural tourism and film industry. Whether this path can be successfully implemented still requires time to verify, but at least for now, it has got a pretty good start.
"Even the most reserved people will dance nonstop for three days after coming here"
"Even the most reserved people will dance nonstop for three days after coming here. My two-day Hengdian trip burned up all the limited 'extrovert energy' I had stored up..." Search for "Hengdian short drama filming check-in" on platforms like Xiaohongshu and Douyin, and you can find all kinds of experience guides. To sum it up in one sentence: this is an absolute paradise for drama lovers.
Lisa has long planned to go to Hengdian to satisfy her acting desire. In September, she came across a video on Douyin where someone experienced the famous "blood paternity test" scene from *Empresses in the Palace*, and immediately made an appointment with her best friend to go to Hengdian during the National Day holiday to perform the scene in person. "You don't even need to memorize lines, you can just go up and act for a couple of episodes directly," this senior fan of *Empresses in the Palace* said confidently.
According to the strategy she made in advance, many short drama experience projects in Hengdian are free, but popular studio sets require queuing, which takes at least one hour in peak seasons. After entering the park, tourists can first get an "actor card", then choose their identity, receive a character task card, and officially enter the plot. If you don't get the "actor card", you can basically only walk around the park, and the experience will be much worse. This is a new gameplay added this year, which cannot be found in last year's guides.
After entering the plot, tourists are no longer just bystanders, but directly become "actors". They can get "payment for acting" by completing tasks, which can be exchanged for small gifts such as fridge magnets and small fans. There are also many "dream makers" in the park that visitors can interact with, and they can also get acting payment by completing designated plots. During the National Day holiday, some short drama actors also came to the park to serve as "dream makers", and tourists even have the opportunity to perform alongside professional actors.
This gameplay of "tourists are actors" was officially established in Hengdian in August this year. Public information shows that the starting price of individual experience projects is 218 yuan, excluding makeup and costume, while the price including makeup and costume is 388 yuan per person. Group experience is divided into two tiers: 3,800 yuan and 12,000 yuan.
Different from the past when tourists wandered around the film studio on their own, this time Hengdian directly brings a complete set of "film crew treatment" into the tourism experience: dozens of scripts to choose from, more than a thousand sets of costumes to select, and professional film and television teams participating in every link, from directors explaining scenes, photographers operating cameras, to makeup artists doing styling and script supervisors following the shooting. The shooting locations are directly set in film and television bases such as the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival and the Ming & Qing Palace Gardens, and official NPCs in the park can also act as free "acting partners".
It not only attracts young people, but even tour guides in Hengdian specially bring foreign tourists to "satisfy their acting desire". Some tourists even come to Hengdian with their families, and customize a "Empress Dowager's birthday banquet" for their 70-year-old grandmother. The whole family puts on costumes and performs together, accompanying the elderly to complete an exclusive "imperial palace grand drama".
In team building scenarios, the short drama experience has further moved towards high-end customization. The film crew will redesign the plot, lines and character distribution according to the enterprise's team building goals, themes and characteristics of team members, and support links such as opening ceremony, real-scene multi-scene shooting, and film crew boxed meals. After the shooting, there are also wrap-up banquets, "Hengdian Oscar" awards ceremonies, red carpet ceremonies and other activities. The traditional outward bound team building has been repackaged into an immersive "film crew experience" that everyone must participate in.
Relevant persons in charge of Hengdian World Studios revealed that with the arrival of the peak team building season in the second half of the year, group orders are expected to further increase. Some newly established corporate teams, in order to break the ice and enhance cohesion, specially designed plot copies that travel through different dynasties and team up to find treasures. The largest single-day reception reached 1,000 people, with 15 directors starting work at 4 parks in Hengdian at the same time. For such group projects, the longest shooting cycle can reach two days, and the overall cost ranges from tens of thousands of yuan to hundreds of thousands of yuan.
Actors face a situation of extreme disparity between the lucky and the unlucky
"Rather than calling it transformation, it is more like self-rescue," short drama practitioner Xu Jie told me. Before the Spring Festival, he had negotiated two short dramas with a production company, and even the roles had been confirmed, both leading male roles. He was originally preparing to join the crew after the Spring Festival, but unexpectedly, after the Spring Festival, the two projects did not move forward. Later, he inquired and found out that the projects were not delayed, but directly cancelled. The company decided to transfer the budget originally planned for live-action short dramas to AI short dramas.
"It's not that they don't have money to shoot, it's that they think there's no need to use real people to shoot," he said. Since the beginning of this year, the presence of AI short dramas has risen rapidly. Content that used to require actors, photographers, lighting technicians, sets, costumes, props and makeup to complete can now be produced by a much leaner production team. The biggest advantage of live-action short dramas used to be fast speed and low cost, but now AI has pushed the "fast" and "low cost" advantages to a new level.
The first group to be squeezed is naturally not the top actors who already have huge traffic and commercial value, but the large number of mid-tier and grassroots actors. Data released by Hengdian World Studios shows that there are only 33 vertical-screen short drama crews and 26 horizontal-screen long drama crews currently in filming.
In the first quarter of 2026, the number of short drama startups in Hengdian dropped significantly year-on-year. In the past, extra actors, special actors and short drama actors could earn hundreds or even thousands of yuan a day by constantly joining crews to maintain their income. Now with the number of crews decreasing, these scattered job opportunities have also disappeared.
Just as real actors are feeling the chill, another type of "actor" is thriving.
This summer, an AI actor named "Fang Taozi" suddenly became popular. The AI short drama she starred in, *The Laid-off Girl*, hardly has a traditional star cast, nor even real actors. After it was launched in June, as the plot grew in popularity, the leading character Fang Taozi transformed from a virtual character into a real "star". As of August, relevant data shows that the play has accumulated more than 250 million views on Douyin. More interestingly, Fang Taozi did not "log off" after the series ended.
The production team opened an independent social account for her, and continued to operate this virtual character in the way of a real star. She makes breakfast, plays tennis, shares outfits, releases behind-the-scenes footage of work, and even develops a CP relationship with the male lead Zhou Yiheng in the drama. This gameplay is not unfamiliar. In the past, after real actors finished filming short dramas, they would also rely on behind-the-scenes clips, live broadcasts, Vlogs and commercial cooperation to extend the popularity of their roles. The difference is that Fang Taozi does not need to rush to events, has no schedule conflicts, and does not even need to live a real life in the physical world.
She can keep "working" all the time. By mid-August, the number of fans on Fang Taozi's personal account had exceeded 400,000, and the highest advertising quotation reached 258,000 yuan for a 60-second video. At the end of August, she even appeared on the cover of the electronic publication under *COSMO*. The whole set of photos did not require photographers, physical studios or real models, and was entirely generated by AI.
However, real actors in Hengdian now also have new job opportunities due to the transformation of the scenic area: working as NPCs. In the "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" park, which was once only for film crews, Hengdian actors play roles such as Hua Hua, Bao Zheng, Su Shi, and "act against" tourists for seven or eight hours a day. This practice became popular on short video platforms, attracting a large number of tourists to experience it. Xu Jie told me that after the National Day holiday, he will go to Henan, Xuzhou, Xi'an and other places to look for job opportunities, together with a group of friends he met when he was a "Hengdian drifter". He said that although the income is unstable, at least he is not idle anymore.
The first full-length AI theatrical film has arrived
As the world's largest film and television shooting base, Hengdian's pursuit of cultural tourism transformation has got a good start, but what Hengdian is facing is not an ordinary industry cycle.
From short dramas to films, AI film and television is further moving from partial experiments to the complete production process of full-length films. It is reported that *Sanxingdui: Past of the Future*, the first AI ultra-realistic theatrical film, has been officially scheduled and will be released across the country on October 23, 2026. As the first full-length AI theatrical film, this 100-minute film is set against the background of Sanxingdui culture, and has now obtained the public screening license issued by the National Film Administration.
Previously, Bona Pictures had conducted short drama experiments around the same IP. The 13-episode short drama *Sanxingdui: Future Revelation* launched in 2024 has accumulated more than 200 million views across all platforms according to data provided by the project party. The team that participated in the production of the short drama then continued to invest in the film project, bringing the technical capabilities and collaboration experience accumulated in the early stage into the production of the full-length film.
In addition, in April this year, iQiyi released the "Three Major Plans", among which the "Liaoyuan Plan" plans to launch more than 40 films throughout 2026, and AIGC films will account for 50% of the subsequently approved projects. At the same time, iQiyi also launched a creative center for AIGC creators, providing independent creators, film and television teams and university teams with support such as computing power, IP and project investment.
Overseas, Netflix's creative partners have used generative AI in about 300 works this year, most of which are applied in post-production. 17 minutes of footage in *The American Experiment* was completed with the help of AI, the production speed of this part of the content is twice that of the traditional scheme, and the cost is reduced by half.
The realistic change brought by AI entering the film and television industry is that AI will gradually take over some links that originally belong to the film and television production chain: a scene no longer needs to build such a large set, a group of extras do not necessarily need to be present in person, some post-production special effects no longer take several months, and even a shot that could not be shot before due to excessive cost can now be recreated.
Once the production method changes, the cost structure, personnel structure and resource allocation of the industry will change accordingly.
This is also the problem that Hengdian most needs to face. In the past few decades, Hengdian's biggest advantage has come precisely from "heaviness". It has clusters of real sets, a large number of film crews, a mature industrial chain of extras, costumes, props and makeup, as well as supporting facilities of hotels, catering, transportation and commerce formed around the film crews. The arrival of a film crew in Hengdian means that a complete set of offline production systems starts to operate.
Now, Hengdian intends to migrate these resources to the cultural tourism sector to seek new development. On September 21, the "Heng Times" film and television-themed cultural tourism and commercial complex with a total investment of 3 billion yuan started construction in Hengdian. The project has a total floor area of about 340,000 square meters, integrating commercial shopping centers, themed blocks, star hotels and Grade A office buildings. The official positioning is to build the first national film and television-themed cultural tourism and commercial complex.
Judging from the data, this path has at least got a good start. From January to August 2026, Hengdian received a total of 11.805 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 16.02%. That is to say, even if the film and television industry is experiencing production method changes brought by AI, the cultural tourism flow of Hengdian has not declined simultaneously.
However, the growth of traffic does not mean that the second growth curve has been established. For Hengdian, the really difficult part may be coming later: how to turn a short "acting experience" into continuous consumption; how to turn film and television IP into cultural tourism products that can be operated repeatedly; how to make tourists not only come once, but also be willing to come again; more importantly, when AI continues to reduce the cost of film and television production and change the content production method, what exactly should Hengdian's original film and television industrial chain retain, upgrade, and give up. The answers to these questions remain to be verified by time.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Dong 40 Tiao Capital" (ID: DsstCapital), written by Wei Xianghui, edited by Zhang Nan, and authorized for release by 36Kr.