The Chinese tycoon film genre once created a great attraction for audiences thanks to the familiar motif of the "badass tycoon" image in love with an ordinary girl, bringing a romantic and sweet feeling.
This genre is especially popular with details such as "marital contract", "enemy in a narrow alley", and a cast of actors with outstanding appearances, luxurious and eye-catching styles.
Thanks to the effect from this film genre, many actors have been noticed, sought after and have significant income.
However, recently, the short film market has changed, causing job opportunities for actors in the director's film genre to gradually shrink.
Zhang Xiaolei, 28 years old, used to pursue the "badass CEO" film genre for 3 years, participating in nearly 200 works with an income of 20,000-30,000 yuan (77-115 million VND)/month. However, when the market shrank, he left the city to return to his hometown to farm, considering it a practical choice to stabilize his life.
Not only him, many short film actors are also in a similar situation. Ngo Duy Ban (39 years old), who used to have a tight filming schedule at the end of 2025, is now also in a situation of having little work, feeling gradually forgotten by the audience.
Tran Vu Tich is going through a difficult period after a period considered the "peak" of her career. Previously, she had a movie leading the charts and received a cat-xe of about 3,000 yuan (11 million VND)/day, but after the Lunar New Year, cooperation invitations almost disappeared, and many projects were canceled for unknown reasons.
Realizing that this situation does not only happen to her personally but also to many colleagues, she is now switching to personal activities such as meeting friends and making video content on social networks.
At the end of 2025, the AI technology wave began to strongly change China's short film industry. Prominent is the film "Hoac cu noi" which attracted attention when its grand scenes were completed in just 48 hours. During the recent Tet holiday, the total number of short film views reached 8.7 billion, of which about 30% came from products created by AI.
At the beginning of 2026, the short film "Tuyet son cuu ho ly" with a duration of 7 minutes and produced by 4 young people at a cost of 40 CNY (about 153,000 VND) using AI technology reached 5 billion views in just 3 days and became a multi-platform phenomenon.
According to producer Ngo Cuong (Tay An), the application of AI helps significantly reduce personnel and costs. If previously an 80-episode project needed about 400,000 yuan, of which most was for actors, now the cost is only about 100,000 yuan when using technology.
No longer needing actors, studios or complex props, many producers only need powerful computers to operate the entire process. This makes the trend of shifting to AI-produced films increasingly clear, leading to the shrinking of manned projects.
In addition, the general director film genre is also tightened in terms of content. In February 2025, the National Radio and Television Administration of China requested the removal of 25,300 short TV series of general directors, with a total of nearly 1.4 million episodes, due to content regulations violations.
This agency said that many films exploit the image of businessmen in the direction of wealth and power, combining unreasonable romantic details, far from reality to attract views. Some producers are also said to be running after sensational scripts, lacking authenticity.
