On 2 June, the much anticipated microdrama ‘Take Me Home’ (金猪玉叶) was officially launched on Douyin’s platform ‘9527 Theatre’, where users can watch it for free. This microdrama was produced by film and TV legend Stephen Chow. The number of views quickly surpassed 1 million in just one hour and climbed to more than 5 million, five hours after the start of the show. The drama also stirred up a dramatic discussion on Weibo, with the hashtag #Stephen Chow’s Microdrama Breaks One Million Views After Being Online One Hour# (周星驰短剧上线一小时播放量破百万) garnering 35.07 million views.
Stephen Chow is a Hong Kong filmmaker, former actor and comedian, best known for the blockbusters ‘Shaolin Soccer’ and ‘Kung Fu Hustle’. It is worth noting that ‘Take Me Home’ is not a vertical screen drama but a horizontal screen format, which is closer to traditional films and TV dramas. Therefore many netizens appreciate that the microdrama has a ‘cinematic quality’. There are no advertisements for this microdrama yet, so it’s more of an attempt to promote the microdrama format.
The first season of ‘Take Me Home’ consists of 24 episodes, each lasting about five minutes. The series’ background is centred around an online fraud case. Stephen Chow is the producer of the series, guiding the creation of the show in terms of characters, plot setting and post-production editing. In the first episode, the plot cleverly incorporates real-life elements such as the nuclear sewage discharge in Japan and the shooting incident in the US, which resonated with the Chinese audience.
In January this year, Douyin announced that it had entered into an exclusive partnership with Stephen Chow, and that the two sides would jointly develop the boutique theatre IP ‘9527 Theatre’, which was originally scheduled to go live on Douyin in May but was not launched until June. This is related to the National Radio and Television Administration issuing ‘Latest working tips on microdrama filing’ – from 1 June onwards, if the microdrama is not filed then it would not be disseminated on the Internet. At present, the upper left corner of ‘Take Me Home’ carries a microdrama filing number and the issuing authority is the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Radio and Television.
In this year’s 618 shopping festival, more brands regard microdramas as a type of advanced advertisement based on the short video ecology, which can carry a variety of marketing plays. ‘Crazy Little Brother Yang’ launched the ‘Three Sheep Microdrama’, and Simba’s Xinxuan livestreaming brand collaborated with Oushiman to launch ‘She Looks Like a Bright Pearl’ (她似珍珠璀璨). Taobao also released the L’Oréal title of the ‘League of Milk Dads’ (奶爸联盟) and other branded microdramas. Microdramas tagged with 618 promotional products links, have become the latest marketing strategy for the festival.
