中剧
zhōngjù · 'mid-length drama': about 15–25 minutes an episode, between micro and full-length
Zhongju means 'mid-length drama'. It names the format between micro-dramas, a few minutes an episode, and standard series of 40 minutes or more: episodes of about 15 to 25 minutes, often a few dozen of them. Tencent Video uses it as a label of its own. The Old Story of Yu Hong and the remake of Quite the Girl are both released this way.
Dramas
Where it comes up
Short to long: China's micro-dramas start sending hits and stars upstream
Two premieres on one October day show the traffic between vertical micro-dramas and long Chinese television running the other way: a four-billion-view phone hit remade as a 24-episode series, and last year's biggest micro-drama actress in a Republican-era drama. What the long platforms are buying, what the actors have to relearn, and why a hashtag about short dramas making people stupid makes the move matter.
Quite the Girl: A Vertical Micro-Drama Hit Rebuilt as a Long-Form Revenge Romance
A guide to Tencent Video's Quite the Girl: a heroine who plays the obedient niece to use a wealthy heir against her uncle's family, how a hit vertical micro-drama was rebuilt as a landscape long-form series, and what its two leads, Xu Mengjie and Ren Shihao, bring to it.
