Hengdian Turns Tourists Into Drama Stars as AI Squeezes Film Crews

A 388 Yuan Starring Role as Filming Work Shrinks

At Hengdian World Studios in Zhejiang province, 388 yuan buys a visitor costumes, makeup, a director and a starring role in a short drama. Behind the attraction is a harder change for China's largest film and television production base: artificial intelligence is reducing demand for the crews whose skills now help tourists perform palace confrontations and fantasy adventures.

The pressure reaches beyond actors. Tu Guanghao, founder of the short drama producer Deyu Film, said his company cut its workforce from 200 people to 30 while shifting its attention toward AI productions. That is an 85 percent reduction. Other directors described fewer projects and falling earnings, including one who said his daily rate had been halved.

Hengdian's short drama crews have fallen by an estimated 60 to 70 percent, although the period and counting method behind that estimate were not specified. A more narrowly defined figure puts the decline in short drama production starts in the first quarter of 2026 at three quarters compared with a year earlier.

Tourist filming gives some displaced skills a different customer. Instead of producing entertainment for an audience watching a screen, directors and camera operators are selling visitors the experience of becoming the performer. The finished film is usually only a minute or two long, but getting there involves real costumes, repeated takes, coaching and editing.

Hengdian drew more than 9 million visitors in the first half of 2026, up 21.2 percent from a year earlier. During the seven days of the National Day holiday, it received 830,000 visits, a 23 percent increase. Those crowds provide a substantial market for its new filming packages.

What Visitors Get for Their Money

The main advertised packages start at 218 yuan without makeup and styling, or 388 yuan with them. Visitors choose a script and role, dress for the scene and work with a director who explains where to stand, where to look and how to deliver each line.

Packages vary by operator and booking. Clare Huang and her friends paid 388 yuan each for hair, makeup, costumes, a directed shoot lasting 30 minutes and an edited video lasting 90 seconds. Another customer, a 28-year-old influencer identified by her surname Xie, paid 498 yuan for a solo production using an original script.

The total visit takes longer than the finished video suggests. Individual scenes can take 10 to 45 minutes, while fuller experiences commonly take one to two hours, with additional time for preparation and waiting. Some booking guidance advises allowing half a day and says edited videos arrive within 48 hours.

The attraction has acquired the joking nickname of a "Hengdian landing visa." Despite an early description suggesting a production spread over three days, detailed visitor experiences describe filming completed during a single visit.

Admission also needs checking before payment. Some packages include entry to a scenic area, while a visitor using the pseudonym Zhang Di paid a separate admission charge of 239 yuan alongside the 388 yuan filming fee. Combined offers pairing a filming experience with a scenic area start at 499 yuan.

A Palace Dispute That Kept Ending in Laughter

Sun Kemin, a university student in Hangzhou, discovered the experience through social media. She and a friend decided to visit on August 17 and were filming two days later.

Sun played the descendant of a family skilled in ronghua, the traditional craft of making velvet flowers. Her friend played a rival who had secretly learned the technique and claimed it as her own. Their characters were competing to supply work to the imperial court.

Sun described the difficulty of acting opposite someone she knew so well:

We had to do it again and again. The hardest part was not laughing. When you make eye contact with the other actor, you suddenly get nervous.

The pair spent about an hour filming, with a director coaching them and supporting performers filling out the scene. Each paid 388 yuan for costumes, makeup, filming and a finished video. Sun later posted the result online, prompting friends to ask about prices and reservations.

Directors Teach Acting One Line at a Time

Wu Yizhuo, a director who previously worked as an actor, said he handles 14 or 15 visitor groups on a busy day and sometimes as many as 20. His work includes demonstrating gestures and emotions, calming nervous beginners and finding ways around forgotten dialogue.

Wu explained how changing camera angles lets a visitor learn a speech in smaller pieces:

If there are 10 words, maybe I'll ask them to remember five first. Then we change the camera angle, and they remember the other five.

Editing joins those separately filmed pieces into a continuous scene. That makes the experience manageable for someone without acting lessons while keeping the finished story moving.

Jia Yi, 26, chose the 388 yuan package after seeing a video inspired by Empresses in the Palace, a series she had watched more than 10 times. When her delivery sounded stiff, the director broke down her longer lines. More than 40 minutes of filming produced a video just over a minute long, along with photographs.

National Day demand stretched some teams from morning until dark. Director Wang Weili said he still could not accommodate everyone and had once filmed 20 groups in a day. Another holiday estimate put bookings at 70 to 80 a day across several directors and locations, while peak participation across the attraction exceeded 100 people daily. Those totals count different units, including groups, bookings and individual visitors.

How a Group Activity Became a Solo Attraction

Hengdian's visitor filming business predates the current AI disruption. Wu said filmmaking experiences were available as early as 2007, mainly for tour groups of 20 or 30 people. The newer short drama format makes participation practical for one person or a pair of friends.

He Hongyan, head of the studio complex's brand department, described a change in the visitor mix. Tour groups once accounted for more than 70 percent of customers, with independent travelers making up about 30 percent. By 2026, those proportions had almost reversed.

The development of the attraction spans several stages:

• 2007: Visitor filmmaking experiences were already available, mainly for larger tour groups.
• April 2025: Yuliia, a resident of Sanya with Russian and Georgian heritage, filmed an Empresses in the Palace experience.
• August 2026: Hengdian introduced its newer short drama experience for independent visitors.
• National Day 2026: Heavy demand filled schedules and extended directors' working days.
• October 23, 2026: Hengdian announced a separate investment in an AI film service platform.

Participation passed 2,000 after the August launch. The timing of that milestone is given as late August in one account and by the end of September in another. Hengdian also said bookings were full on most days, particularly weekends and holidays.

Familiar Stories Bring Fans Onto the Set

Imperial palace intrigue, dragon king fantasy and time travel are among the most popular genres, according to director Zhang Jinquan. Other choices include romance, betrayal and revenge, allowing visitors to try a character far removed from everyday life.

Script selection varies across the attraction's offerings. Packages have advertised more than 20 scripts, nearly 30 scripts or more than 40 choices. Some free experiences use a fixed scene, while paid productions allow more choice and more extensive preparation.

Empresses in the Palace supplies a particularly recognizable setting and set of roles. Visitors can recreate its famous blood test confrontation, dress as members of the imperial household or take supporting parts. Staff members and other performers act opposite customers, giving a solo traveler someone to exchange lines with.

Wu said most customers are women in their 20s, although families, children and foreign visitors also participate. Some overseas customers speak Chinese; others use translators. Teams have begun translating scripts in response to inquiries from international visitors.

Yuliia, who lives and works in Sanya, filmed her palace drama in April 2025 and shared the experience on a Xiaohongshu account with about 670,000 followers. Sun's much smaller circle of friends also asked how to book after seeing her video. Both examples show how the finished product becomes an advertisement carried by the customer.

AI Changes Who Needs Hengdian's Crews

Hengdian hosted 4,016 newly started vertical dramas in 2025, an increase of 237 percent from the previous year. Vertical dramas are filmed for upright phone screens and usually tell their stories through brief episodes.

From January through September 2026, Hengdian recorded 2,622 new vertical drama crews and 294 traditional drama crews. Vertical productions therefore outnumbered traditional ones by almost nine to one during that period, even as workers described a sharp contraction in available jobs.

Across the industry, figures for the first quarter of 2026 put newly released microdramas at about 128,000, including about 122,000 made with AI. That represents more than 95 percent. Computer generated productions can reduce the need for physical sets, costume departments and large groups of performers.

Tu's company illustrates that shift at the business level: it retained only a few live action projects commissioned by platforms while concentrating on AI dramas. Actors also described workloads below a third of the previous year's level. A figure for prop rental businesses around Hengdian put the decline in activity at 87 percent compared with a year earlier.

Tourist Filming Brings Work, With Limits

Bu Xiting, an associate research fellow at the Communication University of China, said Hengdian can reuse its sets, costumes, equipment and experienced workers when commercial filming slows. The attraction puts existing resources to work rather than requiring a new production base.

Bu described the change in what customers are buying:

Visitors are paying not just to see a set, but to immerse themselves in a story, play a role and leave with something they can share.

For some workers, tourist filming provides extra income between productions. One director working on the attraction also acted and edited films. Makeup assistants who normally served commercial crews took holiday work preparing visitors.

The same demand creates pressure to move people through quickly. Zhang Di described her visit as resembling an assembly line, with makeup completed in about 30 minutes and filming in less than 20. Other customers complained about limited scripts and the quality of styling.

He acknowledged that customers wanted different levels of service. Hengdian subsequently added a luxury solo package priced at 1,299 yuan, including additional footage and retouched costume and production photographs.

Every extra filming team requires more people. Directors, camera operators, makeup staff and supporting performers all need time with each group. Holiday popularity therefore brings both revenue and staffing costs. Hengdian has recorded repeat customers, including one who tried four or five scripts, while continuing to develop new genres and settings.

Hengdian Also Invests in Its Digital Future

Hengdian is pursuing AI production alongside tourism. On October 23, 2026, its film industry development conference announced a planned investment of 230 million yuan in an AI film service platform, with construction scheduled over three years.

The project was procured by a local state owned entity in Dongyang. Dongyang Shenkong Engine and Volcano Engine, associated with ByteDance, jointly won the contract. Planned functions include script development, previews of camera shots and a dataset tailored to film production.

Hengdian officials described a need for more precise digital material. A general AI model may generate an ancient building quickly, while a production seeking a palace from a particular historical period needs more carefully prepared reference data.

The announcement also prompted claims that the likenesses of 150,000 extras would be used for AI. Hengdian rejected that account, saying approximately 8,000 extras live and work there regularly. The larger figure represented cumulative registrations since the actors' union was established in 2003. Officials said any relevant authorization would require the individual's consent.

The two investments serve different customers. The digital platform aims to help producers make films with new tools. The tourist attraction sells access to the physical sets and human coaching that visitors want to experience themselves. For workers facing fewer conventional productions, the immediate benefit is another opportunity to use skills they already have.

Key Points

• Hengdian's tourist drama packages start at 218 yuan, or 388 yuan with makeup and styling.
• Visitors generally receive an edited film lasting one or two minutes after a directed shoot and preparation.
• More than 2,000 people joined the newer attraction after its August 2026 launch, with heavy holiday demand.
• AI production is squeezing live action employment, while tourist filming provides additional work for some crews.
• Hengdian received more than 9 million visitors in the first half of 2026, up 21.2 percent.
• A separate AI film service platform has a planned investment of 230 million yuan and a construction period of three years.