What live-action short dramas are still left to compete against AI-generated dramas?

Welcome to the era of Big Red Fruit.

The popularity of Red Fruit has soared into a new stage. From its daily active users exceeding the total number of users of four major long video platforms combined, to audiences across the whole network staying up all night watching Red Fruit content until dawn, to the removal of the "earn cash by watching dramas" feature, the rumor refutation that its annualized revenue is approaching 400 billion yuan, and even successfully topping the market in Taiwan region, the "Big Red Fruit Era" is embracing the dual leap of traffic and commercialization.

The biggest contributor behind this boom is the ubiquitous AI short dramas.

When you open Red Fruit, the scene is completely different from what the market mentioned a year ago. The live-action short dramas that laid the foundation for the platform have quickly stepped back, and the recommendation list and hit drama list have long been occupied by various AI dramas.

According to third-party data, the monthly short drama ranking from Yunhe Data shows that from January to May this year, live-action vertical short dramas took the vast majority of the top 5 spots. In June, 3 of the top 5 vertical short dramas were live-action dramas, ranking first, second and fifth respectively. By July, the number dropped to 2, and the top 3 positions were all occupied by AI dramas or manhua-style dramas. From August, AI dramas and manhua-style dramas took 3 of the top 5 spots, and in September and the just-passed October, the top 5 positions were all occupied by AI dramas or manhua-style dramas.

Top 5 Red Fruit Short Dramas from August to October

Although the signal of a major ebb of live-action short dramas emerged at the beginning of this year, after more than half a year, this "ebb tide" is receding faster than expected, after all, even several leading short drama studios have lost their enthusiasm.

But are live-action short dramas really at a loss what to do?

From the platform side, news such as rumor refutation about cutting investment in live-action short dramas and increasing support and investment for live-action short dramas keeps coming out. At the same time, IP-level live-action short dramas continue to create momentum. Take *Great-Grandma Arrives at 18, Restoring Family Glory 5* released on October 31 as an example, its popularity value on Red Fruit platform exceeded 120.68 million, becoming the first live-action short drama to break 100 million popularity in half a year after *Young Madam Comes from Northeast 2* exceeded 100 million popularity in June, and it quickly climbed to the first place on Red Fruit's hit drama list.

"Great-Grandma" is still the glory of live-action short dramas, but it obviously presents the pattern of "top-tier IP + top-tier popular actors" that crosses the boundaries of short drama industry.

Then how many such powerful live-action short dramas can the industry produce?

Not long ago, *Little Love Song in the Faint Light* starring two top short drama stars Ke Chun and Li Ke suffered a Waterloo failure, so that the producer and chief screenwriter Rao Xueman confirmed on Weibo that "I probably won't shoot vertical screen dramas anymore". On the other hand, top short drama actors such as Zeng Hui and Guo Yuxin have also shifted their focus to variety shows and long dramas in the domestic entertainment industry.

The realistic problem at present is: what kind of live-action short dramas, or what kind of live-action short drama operation methods, can compete with AI dramas?

01

Compete on "accumulation" and "strong foundation"

Under the boom of AI dramas and manhua-style dramas, which live-action short dramas are still continuously bringing surprises? This question can be explored from two perspectives, one of which is to find audience preferences from past data.

The Must-Watch List of Red Fruit is ranked by the peak popularity of short dramas.

If we take July as a watershed, the top 3 live-action dramas on the Must-Watch List in July are the urban romance drama *Day and Night 2*, the family ethics drama *Tiger Mom Arrives, All Stubborn Family Members Stand in Line Obediently* and the urban romance drama *Gradual Infatuation*.

In August, the top 3 spots went to *Good Rain Knows the Right Season*, *Love Letter in the 25th Time Zone* and *Nest Moving*, all of which are urban romance themes. However, *Good Rain Knows the Right Season* focuses on love that grows with time and mutual redemption, *Love Letter in the 25th Time Zone* tells the story of old acquaintances reuniting, with the flavor of childhood sweethearts getting back together, and *Nest Moving* follows the route of marriage before love and growing affection over time, with different story highlights.

In September, the female-oriented drama focused on counterattack *Dongguan Storm: From Wild Grass to Business Queen*, the urban romance drama *Strong Addiction of Beijing Marriage 2* and the costume drama *Second Marriage with Good News* took the top 3 positions.

In October, *Great-Grandma 5* was launched right on schedule, and its popularity directly reached the first place. The comedy *After Mom Wang Worked as a Nanny in the Gu Family, the Whole Family Only Knows How to Be Funny* and the time-travel costume drama *Favorite Wife of the Chief Assistant* ranked second and third.

Putting IP series dramas aside for now, popular short drama actors are still a very effective trick.

Several new dramas such as *Gradual Infatuation*, *Good Rain Knows the Right Season*, *Love Letter in the 25th Time Zone*, *Nest Moving* and *Favorite Wife of the Chief Assistant* are starred by highly popular actors in vertical short drama industry including Guo Yuxin, Zhang Chi, Wang Haozhen, Zhai Yiying, Ke Chun, Wang Gege, Liu Xiaoxu and Meng Na.

Looking at the themes, urban romance is still the most favored category in live-action short dramas, and making audiences ship the CP is the absolute core.

Compared with AI short dramas, one of the core competitiveness of live-action short dramas is that they can make audiences truly "ship the CP" through high-quality content production and atmosphere building. After all, the "models" of male and female protagonists in AI short dramas are often almost the same between different dramas, and it is difficult to form a lasting and real sense of CP.

Meng Na and Liu Runming in *Favorite Wife of the Chief Assistant*

Of course, there is also a group of live-action short dramas that focus on returning to the original intention, directly writing the refreshing points in their names, and head-on competing with the directness of AI short dramas.

*Tiger Mom Arrives, All Stubborn Family Members Stand in Line Obediently* mainly tells the story of a female protagonist who works as a butcher, finds her long-lost twin sister suffering from cancer, inherits a huge fortune, then pretends to be her sister to punish her husband and mother-in-law, and discipline her three problematic children. *Dongguan Storm: From Wild Grass to Business Queen* tells the growth story of the female protagonist who was forced to drop out of school for resisting the ridicule and humiliation from her classmates, went south alone, and finally counterattacked to become the queen of Dongguan.

Then we look at production companies, the advantages of leading content studios with distinct emotional labels are still prominent.

Looking behind these hit dramas, most of their production companies have accumulated a large number of works.

In addition to several IP-based serialized dramas, for example, the producer of *Dongguan Storm: From Wild Grass to Business Queen* is Six Wings Film and Television, which has a large number of related short dramas with counterattack refreshing style that can be seen directly from their names. The producer of *Nest Moving*, Zaichang Film, belongs to the same system as "Maju Studio", which also produced *Gradual Infatuation*. The production company of *Good Rain Knows the Right Season* and *Love Letter in the 25th Time Zone* is Jinling Media, which also produced dramas such as *Beijing Snow Never Ends* and *Brown Sugar Ginger Juice*. *Favorite Wife of the Chief Assistant* is produced by Yuewen Short Drama. Plus Tinghuadao behind *Great-Grandma 5*, leading vertical short drama production companies still maintain strong and continuous productivity.

Short drama works of Maju Studio

In addition to the above companies, companies such as Dianzhong Technology, and Gewu Zhizhi which has launched high-word-of-mouth hit male-oriented content such as *The Surname Langya* and *A Commoner of High Rank*, have also kept launching new content continuously in recent months, focusing on the themes and styles they are good at.

To sum up, the essence of this batch of live-action short dramas defeating AI dramas is competing on "accumulation" and "strong foundation". No matter the high-quality methodology for fixed themes that the content creation side quickly developed in the past year, or the traffic attribute of actors and IP themselves, have become the key to breaking the deadlock.

02

Live-action content will defend high-quality production

Even when the high-quality development of AI dramas is accelerating

At the same time, live-action short dramas are using and accumulating new methods to fight against AI dramas.

On the one hand, the vertical short drama industry is embracing "long drama to short drama adaptation" and classic IP with faster pace and greater investment.

*Lord Jun is Innocent* (Zhe Yao), *Agent Princess Chu Qiao Zhuan*, *My Lucky Star*, *Ashes of Love*, *Mountain Without a Trace*, *The Double Mystery of Wind Sound* and other dramas have met with audiences one after another this year. Not long ago, *The Road Home* was just released to the public. It is not accurate to say they are adapted from long dramas, because most of them are based on original novels, more inclined to create short drama versions based on the novels, but the long drama versions came out earlier, which inevitably leads to comparisons. Some of them are adapted into short drama versions based on the original works, some are sequels or re-creation based on the original content, and the adaptation methods vary from drama to drama.

Screenshot of *The Road Home*

On the other hand, long drama actors and public artists under traditional cognition are increasingly entering the short drama industry.

At the beginning of the year, *Original Aspiration on the Long Road* starring Wu Gang and Liu Xiaoxu was launched, and many comments were surprised to see Wu Gang on the cover poster. In July, Liu Xiaoxu cooperated with another actor Tang Guoqiang, who embraced vertical short dramas with a period spy war theme after his successful performance in long variety shows. *Forced Heartbeat: Matching Your Nemesis at the Beginning* starring Chen He launched 6 episodes in a row from April to June... When traditional film and television companies have long laid out in short drama content, and AI images and artist authorization discussions emerge from time to time, traditional film and television actors have knocked on the door of vertical short dramas with their own labeled themes and styles.

Screenshot of Red Fruit Short Drama App

Another quiet but interesting change is that the titles of more and more live-action dramas are getting longer.

Looking at the latest live-action dramas launched on Red Fruit, many of the titles are too long to be displayed completely, leaving only a string of ellipsis, and most of these dramas are focused on counterattack and refreshing experience. After a wave of short drama refinement that emphasized delicate and slow-paced creation, as mentioned above, live-action short dramas are returning a little to their original direction.

This actually brings out a phenomenon: if you only look at the drama titles and posters, the difference in recognition between live-action dramas, AI dramas and manhua-style dramas is shrinking. In other words, if you only look at the titles and posters, it is increasingly difficult for users to immediately distinguish whether a drama is a live-action work or AI-generated content.

Therefore, sometimes conforming to the development trend of AI short dramas is also a way to fight against them.

Obviously, whether it is strengthening IP adaptation or bringing in public stars, these are also the measures to promote high-quality short dramas as we discussed before. Live-action short dramas are determined to defend high-quality production, which has become the top priority to fight against AI dramas.

Screenshot of Red Fruit Short