When Stephen Chow makes a short play, does it matter how much "Chow" is in "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf"?

Recently, Stephen Chow's short drama "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" was launched, but judging from the topic discussions on the entire network, the audience pays more attention to the "Zhou" content of this short drama, and the reviews are even more polarized.

"The plot is ridiculous and the acting is terrible." This is what actress Ning Jing said about the short series, but even so, she still watched more than a hundred episodes and even became a paying user of the short series.

Celebrities are so obsessed with it, what is the magic of short plays?

One of the main reasons is that short dramas can make users "addicted". Under the C2M model, short dramas follow the route of "production based on sales", that is, the scripts are written according to the preferences of the audience. Under this model, the content presented is both eye-catching and profitable.

According to data from relevant institutions, the short drama market size in 2023 will be nearly 40 billion yuan, close to 70% of the film market, and is expected to exceed 50 billion yuan in 2024.

As the number of short plays increases, the content of the short plays becomes more homogeneous. A media outlet once collected the names of 6,000 short plays and found that in every 100 short plays, there are about 6 and a half CEOs who "will smile at you in a doting way."

This is because under the C2M model, there are only a few routines that work. For example, in China, the focus is on domineering bosses, revenge, rebirth, and sweet pets, while overseas, werewolves, vampires and other themes are more popular.

Last year, a short play inspired by the creators' comments section, "Escape from the British Museum", became a hit in the industry. This play not only proved once again that short videos can produce works that the public wants to watch, but also triggered a great discussion in the industry on the refinement of short play content.

As a result, the trend of short dramas began to return from traffic to content.

What pushed this trend upward was the launch of Stephen Chow's first short drama, "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf." According to Douyin data, the drama has been viewed 55.108 million times in four days, with an average of more than 10 million views per day.

However, judging from the topic discussion on the entire network, the audience pays more attention to the "Zhou" content of this short play than the plot content of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf". Is "Zhou Xingchi's" short play a content business or an advertising business? And can the "money-making" ability of this play beat that of a group of "dominant CEOs"? Can Zhou Xingchi's short play become the key to the high-quality short play?

1. How many dramas with "weekly" content can beat all the CEO dramas?

Almost every new work will have a two-tiered reputation, especially in the fields of film, television and music. For example, whenever a popular singer releases a new song, terms such as "unpleasant to listen to" and "exhausted" will always appear on the Weibo hot search list. For example, the topic of "unpleasant to listen to" in Weibo's hot search has been read 9.38 billion times.

For Stephen Chow, the phrase "running out of ideas" has been with him for more than a decade. When Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons was released, Stephen Chow said in a conversation with Chai Jing: "I have always been afraid of 'running out of ideas', and I have even expressed this feeling through the character's dialogue in the movie."

There is a dialogue in "All's Well, Ends Well":

"An action done twice will repeat itself."

"Really? I don't think so."

"Don't you think it's dangerous?"

Later, when "The New King of Comedy" was released, Stephen Chow said helplessly: "It seems that at my age, every new movie I come out with will be said to be out of ideas. I have fried Yangzhou fried rice, but I have never fried cold rice."

Recently, the "9527" theater jointly developed and operated by Douyin and Stephen Chow launched its first short drama - "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf", and netizens have started a new round of "quality inspection".

At present, netizens' comments are polarized. Some netizens said: "Follow current events, shoot more if possible", "The show is too short and I didn't watch enough"; some netizens said: "There are too many jokes, the knowledge reserve is not enough, in order to understand it, I went to the comment section to read the explanation.", "It doesn't have the flavor of Stephen Chow, but it has the flavor of Yi Xiaoxing"...

Source: TikTok

In addition, many netizens also shared in the comment section the tribute scenes in "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf". For example, the Qizai doll in the male protagonist's room, the photo of Stephen Chow on the door, etc. Director Ma Shi also said: In fact, there are more than 100 traces of Stephen Chow hidden in the whole short play.

Apart from paying tribute, how much "Zhou" does "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" contain?

It is understood that the producer and director of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" are Yi Xiaoxing and Ma Shi respectively. Among them, Yi Xiaoxing's representative work is "Never Expected", and Ma Shi's representative work is "Lei Feng Xia". Stephen Chow's identity is the producer of this short play.

Therefore, many netizens have questioned whether the producer's identity is just a "nominal" one. The creative team of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" gave a direct response to this. Among them, producer Yi Xiaoxing said: I can understand the feelings of old fans who want to see Stephen Chow perform, but everyone wants to do different things at different stages. What "Stephen Chow" wants to do at this stage is to control the quality and style behind the scenes of the short play.

Previously, the male lead of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" also said frankly: Stephen Chow has read every word of the script and shooting materials.

Stephen Chow’s achievements and influence in the film industry are unmatched, but the audience of movies and short plays is different after all. If his movie "routines" are copied to short plays, can they beat the current popular CEO dramas?

Judging from the current broadcast results, "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is on par with the newly launched domineering CEO short drama.

According to Maoyan's daily ranking of short dramas on June 6, the most popular short drama in real time is Kuaishou's "Reborn as an Agent in the AI ​​World". The short drama has been online for 6 days and has updated 5 episodes. Among them, the cumulative number of views of the first three episodes is 60.499 million, and the average number of views per day exceeds 10 million.

Source: Maoyan

As of June 6, "Golden Pig and Jade Leaves" has updated 2 episodes, and the cumulative number of views on Douyin in 4 days since its launch has reached 51.991 million, with an average daily view volume of over 10 million.

It is worth mentioning that last year's hit "Escape from the British Museum" garnered 510 million views in just three episodes. If "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" wants to exceed this figure, it will depend on the audience's acceptance in the future.

2. How much “gold” does “Golden Pig and Jade Leaf” contain?

The participation of Stephen Chow not only attracted the attention of many netizens and industry professionals, but also attracted great attention from many brands.

According to the "Short Drama Study Room", the investment for the second season of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" was sold on February 28 for 8 million yuan.

At present, the monetization models of the short drama industry mainly include platform revenue sharing, brand customization, user recharge and paid subscription, among which, except for brand customization, other models are highly dependent on audience payment. At present, "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is free to watch, so the profit method of the drama is closer to the brand customization model of earning advertising fees by using traffic.

Although there have been no advertisements in the first two episodes that have been aired, Gravity Media, which is responsible for the advertising and marketing of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf", once "revealed" in its 2023 financial report that one of the brand partners of the show is the beauty brand AKF.

Source: Gravity Media Financial Report

In recent years, AKF has always had a high marketing share on Douyin. Top influencers such as Piyou and Huang Shengyi have co-created with the brand, and AKF has also invested in many KOLs and KOCs to reach consumers in all directions, successfully achieving sales of more than 2 billion yuan for three consecutive years. In 2022, AKF also won the first place in the Douyin eye makeup popular brand list.

In fact, after the customized drama between Hansu and Douyin influencer Jiang Shiqi became popular, a number of beauty and skin care brands increased their attention and investment in the short drama track.

In 2023, Hansu created five brand-customized short dramas, including "Heartbeat for More Than a Moment" and "A Beam of Sunshine and a Beam of Love", with an investment cost of less than 50 million yuan. Not only did it gain a total of 5 billion views, it also successfully leveraged Douyin's total transaction volume of 3.34 billion yuan, providing a successful example of short drama marketing for a number of brands.

Therefore, it is "reasonable" that beauty brand-related advertisements appear in "Golden Pig and Jade Leaves".

It is worth mentioning that Stephen Chow’s joining the short drama track has always concerned a number of investors who are “betting” on the short drama industry.

This time, Gravity Media intervened as the advertising and marketing agent of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf", and explored the diversified commercialization paths of short dramas with brands, platforms and the main creative team. You should know that at the end of last year, with the interactive short drama "It's Over! I'm Surrounded by Beauties!", Gravity Media's stock price achieved multiple daily limits. Therefore, some of its investors are very optimistic about the short drama track.

According to Xueqiu data, since the launch of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" on May 30, the share price of Gravity Media has risen for four consecutive days, with the highest increase reaching 9.98%. However, due to the recent freezing of some of Gravity Media's accounts by banks, its share price began to show a downward trend from June 5 to June 6, with the highest decline reaching 9.97%.

3. Famous director IP accelerates the development of short dramas

Since the broadcast of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf", many people in the industry have expressed that with the participation of Stephen Chow, "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is expected to become a super short drama.

In fact, Stephen Chow is not the only film and television star who has entered the short drama track. The well-known director Wang Jing has also joined the creation of the short drama "Billionaire Silly Prince" as the chief director. Chen Ou, the founder of Jumei Youpin, has also been reported by the media to be setting up a short drama platform.

However, judging from the broadcast time, "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" became the first "famous director's short drama" to be tested by the market.

The characteristics of short plays are their fast pace and direct plot highlights, which allow the audience to obtain simple and direct emotional satisfaction without too much thinking, and thus they have become a "dinner companion" for many people.

From the perspective of the audience, the addition of famous directors will further stratify the existing audience of short dramas. At present, the main audience groups of online short dramas can be roughly divided into two parts: one is the large female group, who often have high expectations for the plot, character creation and emotional resonance; the other is the cleaning and security groups who have more free time and are more inclined to look for short dramas that are entertaining and easy to understand.

For the female group, the participation of famous directors will bring more exquisite costumes, richer plots and a stronger cast. For example, the camera language of many short plays is relatively simple, such as some face-to-face transitions and low-quality special effects shots that greatly affect the viewing experience. Famous directors often have more delicate emotional capture capabilities and unique narrative techniques, so they can more accurately grasp the psychological needs of female audiences, thereby increasing the stickiness of such audiences.

For groups such as cleaners and security guards, the main purpose of watching skits is to relax and have fun. If the works of famous directors are too complicated in narrative or plot, they may lose interest, and then such people will continue to return to the arms of the "dominant boss" who gives you the cool points directly. In fact, after the broadcast of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf", there were comments such as "I didn't catch it the first time, so I watched it several times" and "Looking for explanations in the comments section".

What do you think of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" produced by Stephen Chow? Welcome to leave a message in the comment section to discuss.