Discussion keeps the world turning.
You're tuned in to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly today with Fei Fei and Yuxin.
Coming up, no celebrities, no big budget, no marketing push for that matter.
And still, a tiny short drama called Enemy has taken over Chinese social media within a matter of days.
How did they do that?
And with AI and big studios changing everything else, what will audiences actually want to watch these days?
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And now In China's vast short drama industry, Enemy stands out as a low-budget production with no celebrity cast, no major marketing push and no high-end production resources.
Yet, it still managed to take over Chinese social media within a matter of days.
So what made this small, handmade short drama cut through such a crowded and industrialized content landscape?
And in an era where AI and large-scale productions are rapidly reshaping short dramas, what's going on exactly?
What kind of storytelling are audiences really looking for?
We have...
Numerous times talked about AI short dramas and their success in the Chinese market and their success overseas.
But this is almost like the anti- short drama to that.
Yeah, because when it comes to this short drama enemy, it uses AI technologies, for sure, but unlike many mainstream AI short dramas out there, it's still a real person performance.
And you can see that even though well, I'm trying not to spoil the story there there are some sort of robots-like characters in the story.
It is also still, you know, performed by human beings, unlike by only produced by AI technology.
It sounds so old.
Performed by humans?
And it's not really long.
When it comes to short dramas, it's very common to see like 60 episodes, 90 episodes.
But this one only has like nine episodes.
It's a pretty short one.
You can finish that within one hour.
But somehow it's been very popular.
I think on some reports, it says the series has already surpassed 800 million views on Douyin alone.
There are other platforms out there as well.
So apparently people are talking about it.
And the majority of reviews for this drama is all positive.
People are loving it.
Yeah, and clips from it have spread across to other platforms like Bilibili and Red Note and Weibo.
There are emotional reaction videos and reposted scenes that are continuously pushing the discussion.
That's why people are...
Continuing to talk about this day after day after day after day.
Exactly.
One particular storyline, because I think it has multiple storylines, because it's based on a futuristic system that I think teleport the main characters into two different storylines.
Different worlds.
Yeah.
And one era is called Republican era or the anti-Japanese aggression war era.
And it was especially popular and moved really countless viewers to tears.
And-
On one video platform, I saw that many comments that people cried through it multiple times.
And some viewers even saying that I'm here to pay again for this video, because probably they watched a clip on other short video platforms for free, but they want to go to another platform for the full length of the whole series and paid for it.
And they would like to support.
And without any, I think, a lot of advertisement.
They just they watched and they loved and they are willing to support it.
Yeah, I've actually watched the whole thing.
So I'm not going to spoil anything on the show.
But definitely what makes this short drama stand out is the storyline.
You just couldn't expect what's going to come next.
Well, stereotypically or typically, the Chinese short dramas would have similar plot lines from drama to drama right.
Or a repetitive formula.
That's fair to say, right?
Like exaggerated romances or revenge plots or very, very hot.
Slaps.
It's got to have slaps.
As a very senior viewer of all the short dramas out there.
Yes, from the moment you're starting your first episode, on most of the short dramas you know the storyline.
You know the ending.
You know who are the protagonists.
Cookie cutter.
Yeah, but somehow it's just you can't stop.
But no slap, no fun.
Yeah, but from this one, the anime one, I didn't really I didn't know what's going on until I opened it.
So I couldn't stop watching it for precisely a different reason from the other short dramas because I want to know what's happening next.
So the unpredictability of the story, which means the writing, Yeah, it's really, really good.
And also for the first several episodes.
I'm not going to say how many of them.
They don't have any lines.
I don't think that's a spoiler, is it?
The protagonists don't have any lines.
They don't speak.
They don't speak.
They don't speak for the first few episodes?
Yeah.
Only very limited lines from a narrator telling, for example, the rules of the games.
Hmm.
What games?
They're sort of like... Don't do that, Steve.
So you just know they're in sort of a game, in a sort of a competition, and they fight a lot.
And the whole story is pushed forward by motions and music.
And that's very brilliant as well.
Because I saw that the turning point, or the very attractive part that wings a lot of tears and attention is the part that we just mentioned before.
Right,
And the whole production had neither a huge budget nor grand spectacle.
Because the series uses very little dialogue, as Fei Fei just mentioned, relying instead on eye contact and also body language to convey emotion.
And in one scene, before the female lead's expression shifts within...
Just a few seconds from calmness to sorrow to determination without any lines, but just eye contact.
Very human.
Yeah.
Human type behavior.
Yeah.
And that's also one of the reasons why AI dramas because, you know Steve, these days, especially after coming into 2026, there are more AI produced dramas, meaning the dramas are solely produced by AI technologies.
The protagonists performing are AI generated.
Possibly the scripts, the music, the lines are also helped by AI.
Some kind of AI model out there?
And this is something they cannot do.
So you've watched both, obviously.
Extensively.
Extensively.
You've watched the AI productions enough to have an opinion.
I did.
Do you...
I think what I'm trying to ask is you know that suspension of disbelief where you get immersed into the world and you believe the story that you're watching?
Is the suspension of disbelief broken?
Do you think when you're watching an AI drama where your brain clicks and goes, oh, this is AI?
Do you feel?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
From from episode one.
Like the reason that I think many people are drawn to AI dramas short dramas these days is for one.
The story is just unrealistic.
It couldn't happen in the real world.
So it sort of makes sense that you are seeing AI actors and actresses performing, because the story isn't real anyway.
And also.
But when it comes to there, you know there are scenes in these short dramas that you can see.
They're trying to present the emotional changes of the characters.
So they have like different techniques.
For example, they zoom in on a certain part of the facial expression, but not the whole face.
But when it comes to that's what's make it different from real person short dramas is that, for example, when it comes to Enemy, the actors and the actresses are actually performing their whole body language, facial expression, their movements in their body, and is sort of making it more relatable.
Who are the creators of this series?
Because I'm guessing well, I don't know, maybe they thought this would be successful, but I'm guessing they couldn't have envisioned this level of virality for their series.
The creators behind the series are mainly two young online content creators known as Jianbing Guozai and Xia Tianmeimei.
Unlike traditional film industry professionals, they built their reputations through, I think, mainly short film videos and independently produced projects.
We actually talked about them before.
Last time, they were also really, really popular for another video.
It's called Escape from the British Museum.
I think it is another short video series that's telling a story of a ancient Chinese porcelain pot in a museum.
In the British Museum?
Yeah, escaped from it.
And a lot of people also feel really touched by the story.
And it got really popular.
And I think it was also known for the very sophisticated design on the costume, the plots and everything.
And I think that's also one of the reasons why they are really popular for this one as well.
Yeah, and also precisely like this one and also the Escape from the British Museum short drama that was produced a couple of years ago.
That was, I think, also the success of this particular drama was also fueling to the expansion and also boom of short dramas in China on some level as well.
And this time again, for this particular new one called Enemy, they're also using the same level of costume styling when it comes to the lightning, when it comes to editing.
And also, you can tell they put a lot of effort into script writing.
And so that's why I think their fan base are drawn to them, because they're able to create these emotional stories with strong cultural themes.
For example, when it comes to... That resonate with people.
Yeah, and also it's not only just about the romance or revenge.
You can put the story into a bigger historical background and you start to understand a piece of history in the past.
So that's also a drawing people to learn more about this particular protection team and also about the storyline as well.
And also, that's why it got people discussing online.
It's an interesting time in China's short drama industry because everything seems to be or feels like it's AI driven.
At least it's headed in that direction.
Like I said, we talk about it all the time.
Production companies.
They're using AI tools to generate I mean, you name it scripts visuals editing, digital actors, of course, to reduce the cost.
And it's very attractive, obviously, from a production company's point of view.
Using AI tools.
When you have these tools at your disposal and you can cut down significantly on the cost of a production, it's kind of a no-brainer, because every time you make something.
You don't know how successful it's going to be.
And more often than not, it's going to fail.
It's a very competitive market.
There was a report from CCTV News that talked about the fact that AI has been reducing production costs for some short dramas to around 1000 yuan.
That's about $140 roughly, and that's a per minute price.
But production capacity can reach as many as 20 dramas per day.
And I think that's the flip side of this coin.
Is that yes, from a production company's point of view yeah, sure.
Why wouldn't we use AI tools as much as we can?
We can pump these things out so fast and so cheap that when one hits boom, we're going to make a ton of money.
What they're not realizing... is that the market has become so saturated.
I think this is what's happening.
The market has become so saturated with AI content that people are getting a little sick of it.
Do you agree or disagree with that?
Well, on some level, I think.
First of all, it's definitely giving a big shock to the short drama industry in the first place.
I think since the beginning of this year till now, I've seen reports that the number of real person short dramas have plunged by more than 70 year on year, simply because they don't need real person performance anymore.
They can use AI actors, they can use AI script writers And when it comes to AI-generated content, it accounted for 90 of about more than 120000 short dramas were released in the first quarter of this year.
95%?
95% AI-generated content.
But that doesn't mean purely AI-performed.
Sure.
But you can see that the industry is heavily relying on AI technology.
But I think, from a very extensive consumer point of view, I'm thinking that AI is making this industry, also pushing this industry to develop more high-quality short dramas like the Enemy one we are talking about.
Because I've seen production teams sharing on reports saying yes, we are seeing less short drama projects, but that means we can spend more time on polishing our current production.
We can slow down finally.
We don't need to finish one drama of 70 episodes within three days.
In some way I feel that they are.
I mean these two types of short dramas.
They are not like opposing each other because, you know, in one way it's more like of course, we need these high quality, well-designed plots for audiences.
And in another way.
It doesn't mean that people, of course, there are a lot of AI generated, fully AI generated content.
Like I think recently it's really popular, the fruit turned person's AI dramas.
It's just fruit.
Explain, please.
It's next level technology.
I don't know.
I haven't seen this.
What is this?
Like an apple and a banana have an affair and have a baby.
It's a watermelon.
A banana apple.
Oh, wait, a watermelon.
It's just really ridiculous plots, but they're really popular.
People love them.
And other AI-generated, maybe ASMRs, you can use a knife to cut a glass apple, something like that.
Yeah.
But I think, yes, yes.
The knife and the glass apple, that thing.
But I feel like that's over now.
I feel like the internet was obsessed with that kind of stuff, that kind of content, for a period of time.
But now, I feel like the internet's sick of that.
I don't know about the Chinese market, but internationally, I feel like that bubble has burst.
I...
But my perspective is that of course, some people are sick of these kind of content because they are just so similar to each other.
But the thing is that these content are the things that people can watch, people can consume without thinking anything.
It's like junk food.
Yes, sometimes you need that.
Sometimes you have a meaty meal, but you need that kind of vegetable to fill in that little space.
So when we are having a lot of junk food, of course, it's good to have some. fancy wine as well.
I know what you mean.
On the plate, we need both.
We need junk food, we need burgers, we also need vegetables.
One of the popular points about Enemy was that the creators insisted on filming in real locations rather than relying heavily on AI-generated backgrounds or virtual sets, which is so easy to do.
You can put actors anywhere in the world.
You can put them at the top of a mountain if you want to.
Not hard.
But they insisted on using real locations.
Also, the costumes...
The production design, they took a handmade approach.
One of the creators personally modified many of the outfits by hand.
And I'm thinking after our chat now that maybe the reason Enemy became so great is because of the timings.
What do you think?
If Enemy had come out pre-AI generated short drama boom, would it have been this popular?
That makes sense, though.
I'm thinking, starting to think about, you know, in the beginning of this year, when AI drama first entered the market.
It's basically a fancy PPT.
It's fancy slides with an narrator telling the story in the background.
But now it's been developing so fast and people somehow, like Steve said, get used to it and they want more.
But how emotional can AI actress act?
I mean, they are just learning.
They can never beat the human facial expressions.
And that's the perfect timing for this kind of production team that they want handmade certain things, even though technology is available.
But also they still use some kind of AI technology to do some things for the show.
And I feel like that's the balance that we haven't discovered yet.
You know, people maybe are a little sick and tired of 100 AI generated content these days, or maybe getting to be.
They still want at least an element somehow, some way of human creation there, albeit through fantastic writing or costume detail or set location, things of that nature.
And while you're perfecting those things, you can add little elements of AI into your production.
Maybe that's the balance we're looking for.
Exactly.
Because, when it comes to numbers, the number of AI generated short dramas was now 50 times higher than real person productions.
The real person productions outperformed they, delivering total viewership that was 25 times than AI counterparts.
So, when it comes to consuming these kind of contents out there, we still want strong storytelling, we still want emotional depth, And that is not what AI, at least currently, cannot do.
Well, you obviously haven't seen the love affair story of the banana and the apple.
You know what, Steve?
They also have love affairs between a knife and a fork and a plate.
Oh, a love triangle in the kitchen.
Wow.
What happened?
Why am I so interested in this?
I'll show you.
People just weirdly get into it.
Yeah.
And his English.
I'll show you after the show.
Oh, goodness me.
All right.
