Newly Approved Costume Dramas Face Their Biggest Challenge Yet

Lately, the term "prefab hit" has become the industry's favorite punching bag.

And no one's safe—not even the once-unshakable fantasy dramas aimed at female audiences. In fact, some male-centric detective dramas are getting roasted even harder, sarcastically praised as "glorious ancestral offerings".

So what exactly is a "prefab hit"?

It's a show that looks like a smash on paper—but only on paper. It might trend on a single platform, flood social media for a hot minute, and boast viral moments. But the actual viewership? Underwhelming. The wider public? Uninterested. Cultural impact? Pretty much a flatline.

The formula is painfully familiar: slap a trending IP onto the conveyor belt, attach a big-name idol, lock in some pre-scheduled hashtags, hype up a fictional couple (whether they have chemistry or not), rally fanbases to rig the engagement stats, and let the algorithm handle the rest. Rinse, repeat, regret.

The blueprint worked once—spectacularly so—with breakout fantasy dramas like The Journey of Flower and Eternal Love. These were genuine hits, not factory-made illusions. They set off a chain reaction that flooded the market with similar titles.

For a while, female-led romance fantasies were the ultimate prefab hit machine. Production companies fought to sign top authors from the female fiction scene, turning them into high-demand creatives overnight.

But then came the crash.

The market got saturated. The stories got stale. Sugar-sweet romances turned into synthetic, plotless "candy shows." Audiences started to feel like they were watching the same love triangle in different costumes on loop.

Now, we're seeing a pivot. Instead of chasing "true love under starlight," female-focused costume dramas are embracing revenge arcs, complex mysteries, and stronger, more independent protagonists.

So here's the big question: Can the same prefab playbook still work in 2025?

Audiences are getting pickier. They want something fresh. They want quality. And the drama industry—both old powerhouses and new challengers—is scrambling to keep up.

With half of 2025 already behind us, we can start to trace some emerging patterns by looking at newly approved projects.

In our last industry snapshot, we analyzed the drama registration trends from the first half of the year. Some key takeaways? Long-form series are declining slightly. Short dramas are breaking out of the "suspense-only" mold. Historical epics with heavy themes are on the rise. And modern dramas are no longer chained to romance as their central plotline.

Now, let's take a closer look at what's brewing in the world of newly filed costume dramas—and why male-focused IP adaptations are suddenly taking center stage.

The Rise of Grounded, Gritty Male-Led Costume Dramas

Change is in the air—and it's reshaping the landscape of period dramas.

Female-led historical dramas have already undergone a mini-revolution. Gone are the days of doe-eyed heroines dreaming of love. These new stories focus on loyalty, justice, and self-determination. "May the heavens judge the wicked" has replaced "I'll love you forever" as the emotional core.

But male-focused dramas haven't had it easy either.

The old-school "unstoppable male lead" trope—also known in Chinese internet slang as the "Dragon-AoTian" type—has worn out its welcome. These characters were often invincible, arrogant, and... kind of boring. Even when adapted from beloved web novels, they failed to live up to the hype.

This year's wave of newly approved male-led costume dramas, however, signals a shift. They're going darker, deeper, and more grounded.

We're talking power struggles, complex vendettas, political mind games, and epic journeys from zero to hero. These shows don't just appeal to male viewers. Their themes—ambition, survival, identity—resonate across the board, drawing in a broader demographic. And in the age of algorithm-driven virality, relatability matters more than ever.

No wonder top production companies are betting big on this formula.

A number of standout projects are already creating buzz, thanks to their unique premises and strong source material.

Qing Dynasty Wastrel 庆朝败家子 (New Classics Media)
Adapted from the popular comic The Prodigal Son of Ming, this one promises a wildly unpredictable lead—think Joy of Life's Fan Sizhe, but with even more chaos and comedic timing. The clash between noble lineage and "good-for-nothing" behavior sets the stage for serious hijinks and unexpected redemption.

Lotus Step 步步生莲 (Ciwen Media)
Based on Yue Guan's novel, this is a classic underdog story. The protagonist, an illegitimate son treated like a servant, fights his way up to become a war hero on the Song dynasty frontier. It's gritty, emotional, and tailor-made for fans of character-driven growth.

Legend of Su Kuang 苏旷传奇 (iQIYI)
Adapted from Piao Deng's wuxia tale, this series delivers old-school martial arts action with a twist: the original author is a post-80s female writer, bringing a fresh emotional lens to a traditionally male genre. Expect a mix of blood, brotherhood, and betrayals.

Great Ming: Father and Son 大明好父子
Based on the novel The Little Prime Minister, this inventive story flips the traditional filial piety trope on its head. Instead of a father pushing his son, it's the son masterminding a "tiger dad" transformation—getting his father to pass imperial exams and save the family's reputation.

Ambition in Chaos 少年宏图
From the novel Chaos and Ambition by Jiu Tu, this one follows a chosen one fated to end an era of war and suffering. It has all the ingredients of a sweeping epic: destiny, sacrifice, political turmoil, and a whole lot of swordplay.

Happy Mahua's Yan Sanhe (晏三合) boldly combines palace politics, detective drama, and supernatural deduction—think House of Cards meets Ghostbusters, set in ancient China. Meanwhile, The Archer's Journey (长弓少年行) brings high-octane action and adventure, decoding the Song dynasty's forgotten black ops and cold weapons combat. Expect martial flair with a tactical edge.

But it's not just solo protagonists stealing the spotlight anymore. Two major upcoming period productions embrace the ensemble drama model, ditching the classic "chosen one" narrative to give every character meaningful arcs and fully developed backstories. That's rare in the genre—and audiences are here for it.

Shi Jin (什锦), directed by Fei Zhenxiang and adapted from Mao Ni's work, tells the story of a low-ranking, underappreciated magistrate in the Jiajing era who assembles ten outcast imperial guards to investigate crimes. Together, they form a ragtag justice league of the disenfranchised—painting a vibrant, often brutal portrait of underdog resilience in a corrupt system.

A Dream of Jiangnan (一念江南), the second installment of Linmon Pictures' "A Dream" anthology, weaves together the lives of five strangers—each with wildly different personalities and backstories—who are all cast adrift by war. Their journey isn't just about survival; it's about reclaiming identity, rebuilding home, and redefining fate.

Male Webnovels Dominate, Female Writers Hold Their Ground

If one trend is loud and clear this year, it's this: male-centric IPs are booming in the costume drama space.

Ever since Joy of Life became a sensation, its author Mao Ni has been a golden goose, and now he's joined by a slew of popular male web novelists—Shang Shan Da Lao Hu E, Jiu Tu, San Jie Da Shi, Yuan Tai Ji, and Piao Deng—all crossing over into television. Their stories feature strategy, action, legacy, and ambition—tailor-made for high-budget adaptations.

Female-focused dramas, on the other hand, remain heavily reliant on bestselling IP authors. It's turning into something of a battlefield, with multiple shows from the same writer headed for the screen at the same time.

Take Zhi Zhi, for example—the author of The Concubine's Strategies (庶女攻略) and Blossom (九重紫). She currently has three dramas in development:

Spring in Jinling 金陵春

The Cousin 表小姐

Hua Jiao 花娇

All are rich in intrigue, blending palace politics with mystery and the ever-popular "household power struggle" narrative.

Then there's Jiu Lu Fei Xiang, arguably the reigning queen of xianxia fantasy (Love Between Fairy and Devil, The Last Immortal). She's got two more titles filed for production:

Ben Ru Ji 本如寄

My Master's Heartache 师父心塞

These two dig deeper into her signature storytelling—a headstrong female lead, softer male counterparts, and all the emotional tension of taboo dynamics like master-disciple romances and reversed gender roles.

While many dramas still follow familiar romantic arcs, a fresh wave of female-centric stories with professional ambition and historical curiosity is beginning to take hold.

Starry River (长河疏星), based on the novel The Wei-Jin Foodie, centers around a time-traveling woman who builds a construction empire during the Wei-Jin period. Infrastructure never looked so cool.

Lady Rui Jiang (芮姜传) breathes life into the real-life Spring and Autumn-period noblewoman, Rui Jiang, offering a rare portrait of female diplomacy and resilience in ancient China.

Moonlight Order (锦月令) delivers a stylish 16-episode thriller with a high-concept hook: a badass female spy locked in a dangerous game of deception with a fugitive ex-crown prince. Think Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but in brocade.

Business Dramas and Cultural Renaissance

There's a new wave rising—costume business dramas that spotlight traditional craftsmanship, lost skills, and historical industries. These shows go beyond aesthetic nostalgia, reflecting turbulent social change and personal transformation through real professions and cultural legacies.

The Last Imperial Chef (最后的御厨), directed by Hui Kaidong and written by Liang Zhenhua, dramatizes the downfall and reinvention of the Qing dynasty's final royal chef in roaring 1920s Shanghai. Expect a spicy blend of cuisine and capitalism.

Heavenly Fragrance (天香), adapted from Wang Anyi's literary novel, uses the story of a Ming dynasty embroidery family to explore artistry, inheritance, and decline.

Red-Sailed Ship (红头船上) tells the tale of Lin Yuchan, a tea-picker-turned-entrepreneur in the waning years of the Qing dynasty, marking a rare portrayal of rural female entrepreneurship in historical fiction.

Myth, Monsters, and the Xianxia Revival

While the once-unshakable xianxia genre has slightly cooled in volume, it's far from dead. In fact, it's expanding into new mythological territory with the resurgence of classic tales and strange folklore.

Huace is bringing us Strange Tales: Romance by the Ferry (聊斋之渡风月), drawing from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio—the 18th-century supernatural classic by Pu Songling.

New Classics is reviving the legendary Investiture of the Gods (封神演义), featuring Jiang Ziya, Nezha, Yang Jian, and that trickster, Shen Gongbao.

Flower Immortals (花仙) is a visually lush adaptation of Qing author Li Ruzhen's Destiny of Flowers (镜花缘), a whimsical fantasy exploring gender, knowledge, and justice through myth.

Blockbuster animated films like Ne Zha and Chang'an prove that myth runs deep in the cultural bloodstream. It's in our collective DNA—and now it's leaping back into live-action.

Yes, the genre is creatively exhausted. But it's also a non-negotiable market pillar.

Beyond Jiu Lu Fei Xiang's consistent output, director Guo Jingming is going all in. His upcoming series Inferno of Wings (燃羽), weaving mystery, Eastern fantasy, and ornate visuals into a crime-fantasy hybrid that promises aesthetic overload.

Studios like New Classics Media, Huace, Linmon, Stellar Imagination, and newcomer Youge Giant Films continue to stake their claims in the xianxia and mythos territory. That signals one thing: the genre isn't going anywhere. The real question is—can they reinvent it?

Why Xianxia's Spark is Flickering

Let's talk about what's coming. Titles like:

A Thousand Fragrances 千香

Perfect Match 佳偶天成

Ten Thousand Wild Dreams 十万狂花入梦来

Ascend to Clouds 入青云

Gathering Three Thousand Lights 揽流光三千

My Cautious Senior Brother 师兄太稳健

Carefree 逍遥

Mu Xu Oath 慕胥辞

Offering Fish 献鱼

Plus male-focused epic A Mortal's Journey to Immortality 凡人修仙传

Always the same: "Defy fate." "Save the realms." "Guard the Three Worlds." Romantic pairings born of prophecy. Destiny-bound duos racing to stop ancient evils. And then there's the casting. Instead of surprises, it's the usual suspects.

That said, there are a few sparks of promise:

A Thousand Fragrances, starring Ju Jingyi and Song Weilong, reportedly toys with a xianxia-meets-ABO setup—an unusual blend of gender dynamics and fantasy lore.

Mu Xu Oath, featuring Dilraba and Chen Feiyu, ditches divine politics for something closer to Ghost: a star-crossed love between a human and a wandering spirit.

Offering Fish, with Chen Feiyu again, pairs a yandere emperor (dark, obsessive, emotionally unstable) with a slacker office-worker type heroine.

But here's the catch: novel concepts aren't enough.

In today's xianxia space, originality too often gets lost in the formulaic churn. Fresh ideas enter the script… only to be flattened by conveyor-belt storytelling. If the leads also happen to be weak performers or lack on-screen chemistry, then no amount of reincarnation or realm-saving can salvage the series.

On top of creative fatigue, xianxia is facing an IP drought. The Feud (临江仙) may stand out as a rare original, but most upcoming shows still rely on adapting web novels—and the golden well is running dry.

The greatest hits have either been filmed or are in progress. What's left are over-farmed tropes and second-string stories that struggle to bring anything genuinely new.

Some are calling for a return to roots—or at least a shift in focus. Could a more "career mode" approach to cultivation dramas, where characters actually earn their way through hardship instead of being born demigods, reignite viewer passion?

Recent titles like Heavy Dawn and Tree on Xiantai try to pivot back toward cultivation arcs. Their heroines don't start as thousand-year-old deities—they're mortals, climbing the ranks, learning through setbacks. The genre is at least gesturing toward ambition beyond courtship.

But there's a catch: the romance still hogs the spotlight. While the setup screams "career mode," the actual screen time is more like "romantic side quest in disguise." Cultivation becomes a metaphor for relationship growth, not personal transformation.

That's not necessarily bad—but if every journey to godhood is secretly a dating sim, then xianxia might still be stuck chasing the wrong kind of ascension.

Some hope lies in female-led cultivation epics that prioritize power arcs over romance arcs, with vengeance and self-actualization as the narrative engine—not soulmate angst.

Take Fleeting Sorrow (朝花不见愁). Adapted from Shi Jing's novel I Cannot Become Immortal—by the same author behind Story of Kunning—it rewrites the female xianxia blueprint. Jian Chou begins as a powerless mortal betrayed by her husband, who kills her to attain enlightenment. She comes back stronger—climbing every stage of the immortal path, ultimately slaying him and claiming supremacy in her realm.

On the flip side, Slacker's Ascent (咸鱼飞升) may offer xianxia its first truly "lie-flat" cultivation comedy. Wang Hedi plays Song Qianji, a once-determined cultivator who fails his heavenly tribulation, dies, and is reborn—this time deciding to chill out and reject the grind. But ironically, fate keeps rewarding his inaction: treasure lands at his feet, enemies self-destruct, and he levels up while barely trying.

Though it's male-led, the story comes from a female-authored webnovel and adopts a tone and aesthetic closer to female gaze fantasy—subversive, deadpan, emotionally light. No toxic love triangle, no destiny-bound soulmates. Just one guy trying to slack his way through immortality—and accidentally winning.

In a market flooded with try-hard immortals and overcooked star-crossed lovers, this kind of breezy meta-humor and genre deconstruction might just be the refreshing take xianxia needs.

Costume Dramas Aren't Getting Any Shorter

Costume dramas aren't getting any shorter—and that's intentional.

Short dramas may dominate with their fast pace and dopamine hits, but long-form costume dramas are playing an entirely different game. To stand out in 2025, they must deliver originality in premise, mastery in layered storytelling, and a cinematic level of detail. That means sweeping battlefields, politically charged courtrooms, and even the smallest props—from candles to calligraphy—must be designed with care and intention.

This isn't just about aesthetic polish. Viewers are increasingly resistant to another sugary xianxia romance dressed up in different robes. In response, production teams are breaking free from the "Three Lives, Three Worlds" trap—fusing in modern values, or reimagining ancient myths to awaken collective memory in fresh ways.

And while the industry overall is pivoting toward short-form content, costume dramas are stubbornly sticking to their epic lengths.

Most newly filed historical series fall within the 30–40 episode range. A few land in the 24–28 range. But only two costume dramas filed this year run under 18 episodes—a testament to how deeply entrenched long-form storytelling remains in the genre.

Among the 40-episode epics are:

A Dream of Jiangnan

Heavenly Fragrance

Red-Sailed Ship

Ben Ru Ji

Flower Immortals

Yan Sanhe

Qing Dynasty Wastrel

Investiture of the Gods

The rare outliers?

Moonlight Order (16 eps): A zippy romantic comedy with a spy-thriller twist

The Far-Sighted Chronicles (12 eps): A compact, character-driven historical drama based on the biography of Su Xun's mother—an unsung matriarch in Chinese literary history

Costume dramas remain the backbone of China's serialized television output. But instead of clinging to the same old tropes, the genre is evolving—branching into business tales, espionage thrillers, mythology, female-led survival stories, and more. The aim is clear: move beyond a niche demographic and welcome viewers of all genders, ages, and cultural backgrounds into the fold.

Whether you're adapting for a male-centric or female-focused audience, the future of period drama lies not in chasing prefabricated trends, but in championing vision, depth, and originality. The era of blindly following the formula is over.