Jolene Foo's route to Chinese drama fandom happened after moving from her native Malaysia to Norway in her late 20s. Foo, who grew up as a "third-generation Chinese kid," was looking for a way to reconnect with her homeland. Her friends recommended Chinese dramas, or C-dramas for short.
"What really drew me in was the cultural dimension," she told DW. "As someone who is of the Chinese diaspora, watching C-dramas became a way of reconnecting with my roots."
Tanvir Khan had just finished his secondary school exam in 2018 and was surfing Facebook. He came across a short video from a serialized C-drama, entitled "The Story of Yanxi Palace." He was enthralled.
"I don't know whether I can explain it properly or not, but you know when you see a scene and something inside you just clicks?" Khan, who is now in his final year of undergraduate studies in Dhaka, Bangladesh, told DW. "It's like your mind tells you, Yes, this is exactly what I wanted to watch."
From that moment on, Khan said, he was hooked. He is now an administrator for a Facebook group for C-drama fans with over 700,000 members from around the world and regularly translates subtitles from English into his native Bengali.
"I know that these are quality dramas. That is why I want to share it with my Bengali friends!" said Khan.
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The global rise of Chinese entertainment began in the early 2000s when the poetic martial arts and sweeping visuals of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" put Chinese storytelling on the map. That momentum carried into television, where dramas evolved from historical epics to modern romances and fantasy hits.
In the 2010s, Netflix and Viki introduced these dramas to global audiences and since 2020, have moved to video-on-demand (VOD) apps. Many are now being streamed on YouTube and Facebook with local language subtitles, making them accessible to even more people around the globe.
According to Myat Pan Phyu of Media Partners Asia, an independent research firm tracking Asia-Pacific's video entertainment industries, Chinese dramas are "a structural pillar of Asia's premium VOD landscape, delivering sustained audience engagement and cross-border reach."
Demand is strong in markets like Taiwan and Thailand and is rapidly growing in Southeast Asia. Though trailing in popularity to Korean drama, or K-drama, C-dramas now reach tens of millions of viewers across the region.
"Since 2022, C-dramas have expanded their share of premium VOD hours most sharply in Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia, with moderate gains in Malaysia and the Philippines," she added.
Journalist Naman Ramachandran tracks the entertainment industry in Asia for the American trade publication Variety. He has witnessed the rise of Chinese dramas into an industry powerhouse. But lately, he said, there has been a shift.
"The longer dramas do exist and they are doing well," said Ramachandran. "But many of the traditional players are now going towards the shorter formats simply because that's where the attention is."
These new, shorter programs are called microdramas. They are ultra-short, scripted series delivered in vertical format optimized for mobile viewing, often just a few minutes per episode. Microdramas have exploded in popularity on streaming apps, offering short, fast-paced stories on romance, family conflicts, workplace struggles, revenge plots and aspirational lifestyles.
"The storytelling and the plots, everything is heightened," said Ramachandran. "There is no room to pause and breathe as everything has to happen in those two minutes. It hooks you!"
A recent report by Media Partners Asia forecasts that globally, microdramas will hit a revenue of $9 billion (€7.6 billion) by 2030 outside of China, up from a reported $1.4 billion in 2024.
One of the main players in the production of microdramas is COL Group, the Beijing-based digital content company behind two of the most popular apps for microdramas, ReelShort and FlareFlow.
The company started focusing on short, vertical content for the phone in 2021, when most dramas were being produced for movie theaters or television, said Timothy Oh, General Manager for Southeast Asia at COL Group.
"It is easy to watch for people who are not necessarily ready to commit to a full drama series," said Oh. "I wouldn't say it's an evolution of purely Chinese dramas, but it is an evolution of how content is being consumed."
The company is betting big on microdramas and will open the industry's first dedicated microdrama studio near Macau featuring a 10,000-square-meter facility. It also boasts 30 international production teams across major cities allowing the company to localize content for different audiences. Both ReelShort and FlareFlow are seeing significant growth in both the US and Germany.
"I think this shows that Chinese content travels and translates well," said Oh, adding "they are usually just simple stories from a universal perspective."
Shaoyu Yuan, a professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, has been following the growth of C-dramas. For him, China's surge in drama production isn't just about entertainment or revenue, it's part of a broader strategy of soft power. The state shapes this ecosystem through boundaries, censorship and incentives, then amplifies stories that fit its preferred messaging.
"It is a hybrid model, market-led in creation but state-shaped in the environment, which is why the growth looks sudden even though it has been building for a long time," said Yuan.
C-drama fan Foo says that for international viewers, China's drive for soft power is visible through how accessible C-dramas have become. Many of these platforms now host full series on YouTube, often with multiple subtitle options released quickly and consistently.
"I don't think that kind of accessibility happens by accident," said Foo. "It feels to me as a pretty clear signal that they want to reach global audiences and lower the barrier to entry."
However, for Foo and many viewers across the world, these shows offer something they cannot get anywhere else: a glimpse into contemporary China.
"While these stories are fictional and not a direct reflection of reality, they still provide a small but valuable window into a society that is often oversimplified or misunderstood," said Foo.
For Yuan, when viewers binge Chinese dramas, they spend hours immersed in Chinese culture, its stories, romance, social norms and even the language, instead of politics. And this repeated exposure contributes to a softer, more human image of China.
"Dramas do not magically erase political concerns, but they do change the emotional baseline," said Yuan.