Douyin's "Golden Pig" can't bring short dramas to the forefront

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"Where can I watch Stephen Chow's short films?"

Since the short drama became popular last year, this market has not lacked attention. Just in June, the broadcast of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" made the short drama even hotter. This film is produced by Douyin x Stephen Chow and supervised by Yi Xiaoxing. The theme is aimed at online fraud. It is presented in the form of horizontal screen, each episode is about 6 minutes, and a total of 24 episodes.

Driven by the Star Effect, "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" became very popular when it was first broadcast, with over a million views in one hour and nearly 20 million views in 24 hours. Even viewers who never watch short dramas noticed it. Currently, the drama has aired 9 episodes, but the reputation has been polarized.

First, it was questioned about its lack of "star content". Some practitioners pointed out that the play was full of homophonic puns and social hot spots, but the plot lacked deep meaning, and it seemed that Stephen Chow was just a name. Later, some short drama practitioners pointed out that apart from the length of a single episode being similar to that of a short drama, the play revealed a movie temperament everywhere, which did not conform to the creative logic of a short drama. Even the broadcast rhythm was one episode updated every other day, unlike other short dramas that were released all at once to satisfy the audience's sense of satisfaction.

Supporters believe that using movie thinking to make short dramas is a dimensionality reduction attack, which can allow the short drama industry, which was originally labeled as "low and bloody", to develop in the direction of high-quality. Another group of people believe that the drama fails to take into account the viewing habits of short drama audiences and will not become a hit.

It is worth noting that "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" and its affiliated 9527 Theater, jointly created by Douyin and Stephen Chow, are the boutique short drama theater IPs pushed forward by Douyin's "Morning Star Project" in 2024, and are positioned as telling the sad and happy stories of small people in a relaxed and funny way. This also makes many practitioners compare it with the theatricalization of long video platforms such as "Misty Theater", and believe that short dramas are about to enter a new stage of theatrical operation.

As the first work of the theater, does "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" have high star quality? Is it good to watch? Can Douyin's boutique short drama theater IP be successful?

(The following contains minor spoilers)

1. "Golden Pig and Jade Leaves", how is its "star content"?

"More than 100 tributes to Stephen Chow? I really didn't notice."

An audience member expressed his feelings after watching "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf". He felt that although the drama was labeled as "Stephen Chow's first short drama", the content was completely unlike Stephen Chow's style.

After the first episode was aired, "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" became a hot topic due to its low star rating. The male lead of the show quickly responded, "Master Xing has read the script of every episode and watched the shooting and editing materials."

But the audience did not buy this explanation. As the plot continued to unfold, some viewers commented that they did not see any trace of Stephen Chow, but instead saw a strong flavor of Yi Xiaoxing.

As seniors and juniors in the comedy industry, the two have certain similarities in style and both like to use small people as the protagonists of their stories. But the difference is that Stephen Chow's style of comedy is typical of "the core of comedy is tragedy", and the nonsensical appearance hides the hardships and struggles of the small people.

Compared with Stephen Chow, Yi Xiaoxing's skills are still a little behind, and the theme is a little superficial. For example, the movie "The King of Bathing" directed and written by him, although it is very interesting with a bath worker as the protagonist, was pointed out that the creation of laughter and tears was deliberate, and Douban scored 5.9.

Some careful netizens discovered that there are more than 100 tributes to Stephen Chow in "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf", but most of them are in the lines and props. For example, the toys on the shelf in the male protagonist's room are Qizai from "CJ7".

In the eyes of some fans, this is just superficial. A Stephen Chow fan who has never watched the short play said that he thinks the biggest feature of Stephen Chow's movies is the profound theme core. In films such as "Shaolin Soccer" and "A Chinese Odyssey", the funny is just superficial. But "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is too fast food, and he did not taste the flavor of the play.

Apart from the number of stars, how is the quality of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" as a short drama?

Xiao He, a veteran short play screenwriter, believes that "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" does not conform to the conventional ideas of short play creation and it is difficult to convince the existing short play audiences.

What is the difference between the two?

Taking the first episode as an example, "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" first explains the story: the elder sister encountered a pig-killing scam, but she was unwilling to believe that she was deceived by her online lover, so the heroine began to look for a "scumbag liar" in order to break her sister's love brain. Then, the camera suddenly turned to the workplace, and the heroine was calculated by the boss who had an abnormal relationship with a colleague.

If it is written according to the routine of a short play, the story will be completely different. Xiao He gave an example, generally you have to start with the emotions, such as writing about the sister who was defrauded and felt miserable, choosing to jump off the building and falling in front of her sister, and then lead the sister to investigate, and it turns into a revenge story. Of course, this does not mean that the routine of a short play is better, it just shows the difference between the screenwriters of long and short plays.

After explaining how the sister was defrauded, "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" goes on to describe how the heroine encountered injustice in the company. "A short play won't have these unnecessary side stories." Xiao He said that the creative idea of ​​the play is more like a long play.

"Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" also contains many popular Internet memes, name metaphors and other current hot topics. She thinks that although this is very popular with young people, it is not the way of thinking for short dramas. "The audience does not understand these obscure expressions, and they don't have the heart to think about them carefully. Short dramas need to be direct."

In terms of update frequency, it is also different from short dramas. In order to satisfy the audience's pursuit of excitement, short dramas are generally updated all at once so that the audience can spend money to unlock them, but "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is updated every other day.

All these have led to polarized reviews for the drama.

Today, some viewers believe that "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" has broken the upper limit of short dramas in terms of subject matter selection, degree of satire, and density of gags, and have given it high praise, "A movie director shoots a short drama, a dimensionality reduction attack." However, some viewers feel that the drama is forcing metaphors, and the hot topics are awkward and rough. Stephen Chow's first short drama did not meet expectations.

2. Can film thinking “rectify” short plays?

It is not new for film directors to "come down to earth" to shoot TV series and short dramas, and the phenomenon of not adapting to the local environment has occurred repeatedly. For example, Wang Jing's short drama about wealthy families, "The Billionaire Silly Prince", failed because of the sentimentality + old tricks and the same storyline as similar short dramas. After the 19th episode of the 100-episode "The Billionaire Silly Prince", the number of likes on the Douyin platform was mostly in the single digit.

So why did Stephen Chow's "Golden Pig, Jade Leaf" attract so much attention?

More than one short drama producer said that, on the one hand, Stephen Chow's movies are classic memories of the post-80s and post-90s generations, and he has national appeal; on the other hand, the current short drama market is mixed, and everyone expects Stephen Chow to bring new variables.

Since the short drama market became popular in 2023, it is still in a state of wild growth. In terms of performance, there are both vertical and horizontal screens; in terms of duration, there are 1-2 minutes per episode, and there are single episodes of 5 minutes; even in terms of names, there are various names such as vertical screen short drama, horizontal screen short drama, and mini program drama. At the same time, the industry has been criticized for opaque data, various black box operations upstream and downstream, and the coexistence of hot money and bubbles.

However, the biggest problem lies in the content. "Rustic, low, simple and crude" are the labels that many people put on the short dramas. Every once in a while, many short dramas will be taken off the shelves because their content is suspected of violating regulations.

Recently, the drama "Boss, Your Daughter Was Bullied by the Mother-in-law's Family" produced by Jiuzhou Culture was removed from the shelves due to vulgar plot, lines, pictures, plot, etc. Jiuzhou also publicly responded that it had blacklisted the production company of the drama, dismissed the person in charge of review and reorganized the review team.

All of this makes people doubt whether the short drama industry can continue to thrive in the long run. More than one short drama producer said that what they made was just "assembly line products" and not "works" at all, and they just wanted to make quick money. However, due to the high cost of streaming (which can be understood as the "advertising" of short dramas), a group of people have already left the short drama market.

In order to better regulate the market, on June 1, micro short dramas were subject to classification and tiered review. Stephen Chow's first short drama happened to be launched during this period. What practitioners are concerned about is where the direction of the high-quality short drama is? Can short dramas + Stephen Chow set an example?

"The biggest problem with "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is that the short drama is not direct enough, and the plot is not as detailed as the long drama. In addition, the three names of Stephen Chow are mentioned, and the audience's expectations are very high." Xiaomi, a film and television practitioner, believes that the so-called upgrade is simply to cut the long drama into short dramas. The main creator also revealed that "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is actually a 120-minute movie cut into 24 episodes, using familiar comedy faces such as Tu Dou, Jiang Shimeng, and Xu Zhisheng.

Overall, the drama is a movie in terms of story and actors. But in terms of shooting time, it is more like a short drama, which took 13 days to shoot. Yi Xiaoxing once said that the production cost of the drama was in the millions, close to the level of top short dramas.

Many practitioners said that it is not necessary to follow the routine of short dramas in order to gain audience recognition. Xiaomi believes that "the key is to adapt." For example, the recently popular love short drama "Fruits of Midsummer" does not follow the routine of short dramas, but the short video model. Its typical feature is that each episode is interspersed with a lot of lyrical music and monologues from the male and female protagonists. Because of its fresh style and innovative story, it is like a compressed version of a youth drama and is loved by young people.

However, even if "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is controversial, from a business perspective, this drama is a sure win. "The streaming cost of a short drama accounts for 80% to 90% of the total cost. Because Stephen Chow is a hot topic himself, this drama saves a lot of streaming costs." said an industry insider.

3. Douyin wants more than just a "golden pig"

Another important participant in this drama is Douyin, which wants to promote the drama and build a high-quality short drama theater IP.

In 2021, Douyin began to pay attention to short dramas, such as launching a new series plan to provide creators with cash and traffic support. In early 2024, Douyin launched the "Chenxing Plan" and released two cooperation models, one is investment production, and the other is joint production (that is, the creator is responsible for development and production, and Douyin provides traffic and operation support). "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is the first work under the boutique short drama theater IP launched by the plan.

According to the observation of practitioner He He, the short dramas currently broadcast by Douyin can be roughly divided into two categories. One is the high-quality ones, cooperating with film and television drama companies and MCN to build a brand; the other is commercial short dramas, and Douyin serves more as a broadcasting channel provider to make money from investment. For the latter, Douyin's position is already very stable, and now it focuses on developing the former.

In fact, Douyin has always had plans for high-quality medium-length content, such as cooperating with leading variety show production companies to vigorously develop variety shows. It has tried to transform the variety show production model by combining the algorithm recommendation mechanism, and came up with the Baichuan model in 2022-2023. It brought in six leading variety show producers to do horse racing, and after producing the first episode, it put it on the Douyin platform to run data. In the end, the "Baichuan Music Time and Space" with the best data was left to complete the remaining 11 episodes of recording, but the show did not make much of a splash.

Ke Ke, a senior variety show producer, believes that the reason why the "Baichuan Model" did not work well is firstly because of the production logic problem. Douyin uses big data to make variety shows, but the production logic of long content should not follow the traffic orientation. Secondly, variety shows are companionship rather than exclusivity, and Douyin's interaction, likes, and comments mechanisms require exclusivity.

Finally, Douyin attaches more importance to the linkage between variety shows and its internal ecology. Even if the show does not go viral, it can still be commercialized. For example, some of Douyin’s variety shows can exist because the customers accumulated through live broadcasts can directly become sponsors of the show. As an IP, variety shows themselves have their own fans and are easy to attract investment.

In short, the Douyin platform is using its own thinking to make variety shows, which is to some extent contrary to content production and leads to the inability to produce hits, but practitioners believe that this idea is very suitable for short dramas.

Film and television producer Fang Daqi, who has worked with Douyin, told Dingjiao that the biggest advantage of working with Douyin is that there is data support. Unlike long content, for short dramas, they rely heavily on the data provided by Douyin.

The head of a leading film and television company also publicly stated that when they were making short dramas with Douyin, the Douyin backend would tell the creators in seconds, "How many are abandoning you" compared to similar content. When the data is gradually aggregated, two curves will be formed. If the abandonment rate is high, the drama will directly fail, and if the abandonment rate is low, it may become a hit. Compared with the previous long dramas that took 1-2 years from the end of the creation cycle to user feedback, Douyin will feedback all relevant data to the creators within 24 hours, and they will also constantly review and adjust based on the data.

Xiao He said that this set of data is the ROI value, that is, the traffic data. When they create, they will look at the highest value point to see what content is most attractive to the audience, and then imitate it in the story.

The reason why Douyin has put so much effort into creating a boutique short drama theater is that it can attract a batch of long video resources at the content level. At present, Douyin has cooperated with leading drama and film companies such as Lemon Studios, Huace Film and Television, Changxin Media, Bad Monkey, Beijing Jingcai, and Dengfeng International.

In terms of monetization, short dramas have great potential for making money, including customized advertising for brand clients, cooperation with cultural and tourism departments, and product placement. Both creators and brand merchants are moving towards short dramas.

Behind "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf", Douyin is trying to use the power of the platform to grow benchmark short dramas of different types and create various vertical theater IPs. It can be understood as the misty theater in the form of short dramas and the X theater of Tencent Video. The advantage is that it can not only promote the brand, allowing the audience to actively choose instead of being attracted by the algorithm, but also attract brand investment.

Earlier media reports said that the investment of Douyin and Stephen Chow in the 9527 Theater is expected to be at least 30 million yuan, and the investment for the second season of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" had been sold in February this year. This year, the theater also plans to develop short dramas based on Stephen Chow's movie IP.

However, competition in this market is also fierce. Mini programs, apps, and long and short videos are all platforms for broadcasting short dramas. Whoever can be the first to be labeled as the number one short drama brand will be able to enjoy the most benefits.

"In this short drama game, the short-term winner is the creator, the medium-term winner is the small amount of production capital, and the long-term winner is the platform." A producer said that the success of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is very important to Douyin.

Author: Wang Lu

Source: WeChat public account: "Dingjiaoone (ID: dingjiaoone)"