Hengdian (China) (AFP) – Dressed in a yellow imperial dress, Gao Saifei, 19, pretends to slap a concubine in front of the cameras: in the alleys of "Chinese Hollywood", this tourist pays to film her own mini-series - costume and crew included.

Published on: 02/11/2026 - 12:48

With friends, she went to the Hengdian film studios, the largest in China, to reenact a scene from "Palace Empresses", a popular costume soap opera, rich in court intrigue.

“It was really exhilarating!” she tells AFP, enthusiastically, as her scene ends to the applause of tourists who have come to observe the filming.

This studio, which houses a replica of the Forbidden City in Beijing, attracts visitors who, like Gao Saifei, come to experience the pleasure of filming in these “micro-dramas”, a genre designed for young people and social networks.

Their episodes, sometimes reduced to 30 seconds, are often shot in vertical format, more appropriate for smartphones.

They have conquered China, where we watch them on applications like Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) or Hongguo.

In Hengdian, the filming of micro-dramas for tourists follows a well-oiled mechanism: each set has its team — camera operators, lighting assistants, director. Some productions hire extras.

The director shows visitors the lines, gestures and expressions of each character, which they just have to reproduce.

Playing the male role of the emperor, “it allowed me to be a little arrogant and theatrical,” says Gao Saifei, who is not too disoriented by the exercise since she is a drama student.

“It really helped me let go and come out of my shell,” she confides.

“Handsome CEO”

In another studio in Hengdian, tourists sit in front of vanity mirrors while makeup artists powder them, apply blush to their cheekbones and create elaborate hairstyles.

The complete package (costume, hairstyle, makeup and micro-drama video) costs 388 yuan (52 euros).

These affordable offers even attract foreigners, like the Londoner Kinjal Patel, who came expressly.

Her package, for the equivalent of 134 euros, includes Chinese-English interpreters, so she can understand the director's instructions, given in Mandarin.

Aged 35, a fan of micro-dramas and historical series, she plays an innocent big sister facing a manipulative younger sister who accuses her of having broken their mother's cup.

I wanted to “see the architecture, the culture, the history, and just walk around, because you feel like you’re going back in time” here, she explains, adorned in a red dress from the Ming dynasty.

If micro-dramas are so appealing, it is because their content "often comes from dreams and imagination", analyzes Wu Yizhuo, the director responsible for filming Kinjal Patel.

“For example, a security agent courted by a beautiful CEO, or a cleaning lady who upsets a beautiful, authoritarian CEO,” he told AFP, citing some well-established tricks of the genre.

“Even if we know full well that what we are watching is fictional, our emotions are carried away by the plot, which allows us to release a little stress,” he adds.

Artificial intelligence

However, micro-drama production companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to replace actors and scriptwriters - and thus reduce costs.

AI-generated content represented 95% of the 128,000 micro-dramas released in the country in the first quarter of 2026, according to public broadcaster CCTV.

In Hengdian, workers in the sector have seen their roles shrink this year, the channel reports.

While some extras could earn up to 600 yuan (80 euros) per day in recent years, their pay was halved in 2026, according to CCTV.

For Gao Saifei, AI makes it possible to bring to life "bigger and more epic scenes for a much smaller budget", but it is a double-edged sword: drama students like her "could well find themselves unemployed", she worries.

While AI-generated characters may seem “pretty fluid” in their expressions, humans have “real emotions,” something that AI “can’t really replicate.”

© 2026 AFP

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