By He Huifeng

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In Xingyang, Henan province, a long-stalled project by Evergrande – the world’s most indebted real estate developer – lays bare two sharply contrasting realities.
On social media, frustrated buyers who paid for their long-promised flats years ago plead for updates on their unfinished homes. Meanwhile, the project’s lavish sales hall has found a new lease of life: under its glittering chandeliers, production crews shoot family feuds and love triangles for China’s booming micro-drama industry.
The on-screen opulence stands in stark opposition to the idle construction outside, a scene playing out across China. As the micro-drama craze sweeps the country, stalled commercial and residential properties are being repurposed into film sets.
Over the past couple of years, the micro-drama industry has become one of the fastest-growing sectors in the country’s entertainment market. According to the China Television Drama Production Industry Association (CTDPIA), its market size exceeded 50.5 billion yuan (US$7.1 billion) in 2024, with projections of 63.43 billion yuan in 2025, potentially reaching 85.6 billion yuan by 2027.
In 2024, the audience for micro-dramas surpassed 660 million people nationwide, spanning tier-one cities to smaller towns – and, for the first time, overtaking national box office revenue.
Urban romance dramas set in luxurious office buildings and flats have proven especially popular. This has generated new demand for high-end shooting locations, at a time when stricter regulations and cash flow shortages have triggered widespread delays to projects.
More idle buildings are being repurposed into micro-drama sets, where a model flat becomes a wealthy heiress’s lavish bedroom – or the clubhouse of an unfinished project hosts a high-end drinks party where the protagonist confronts their nemesis.
Nationally, the average office vacancy rate stood at 23.5 per cent by the end of the first quarter of 2025, while average rents fell 2.9 per cent quarter-on-quarter amid pressure to offload inventory, according to property consultancy CBRE.
Near Xingyang, a vacant mall in Xinzheng has been refashioned into a filming base, producing about 700 micro-dramas in under a year and hosting eight to nine crews daily, according to the Guangdong-based news website TFCaijing.com.

Offices and industrial estates in provinces such as Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Henan, Hebei and Shaanxi routinely open their doors to production crews for daily or hourly rentals.
On September 9, Chinese property giant Greenland Holding Group signed strategic partnerships with dozens of leading micro-drama producers, according to TFCaijing.com. Over 20 commercial and residential projects developed by the company in Zhengzhou are now available for on-location filming, with an expected annual capacity to host more than 1,000 micro dramas.
“When the market was good, developers didn’t care about such small amounts of money. Now, as long as it can generate a bit of extra income, we’ll do our best to accommodate them (crew requests),” Lin Han, a leasing agent at a Guangzhou office building, was quoted as saying.
A 200-square-metre office rents for about 1,500–2,000 yuan (US$210-281) per day, Lin added.
However, while the micro-drama boom has breathed life into some previously empty sites, industry insiders said the wider impact has been limited.
“Currently, producing a micro drama typically costs 500,000 (about US$70,300) to 2 million yuan, with filming lasting just 5–15 days,” said Wang Pengyuan, founder of Fanfu micro-drama studio.
“Location resources are actually oversupplied. Many cities aim to build micro-drama hubs, but crews prioritise areas with established support – actors, technicians and full equipment,” he added.
“That’s why Zhengzhou and Xi’an attract so many productions, while other locations remain less popular. Even subsidies often fail to draw crews.”
No matter how many production teams arrive, China’s vast property glut remains largely untouched. Lavish on-screen romances may flicker by in a few minutes, but the reality for countless unfinished or idle properties nationwide remains cold, Wang said.