DgcityInside an ornate palace chamber, four women in silk robes and jade hairpins act out a scene of court rivalry. One consort slaps another, a director calls for another take, and then the cast breaks into laughter. The footage will never appear on television, because the performers are not actors. They are tourists who traveled more than 1,500 kilometers to Hengdian World Studios in Zhejiang Province, the vast production base often called China’s Hollywood, to shoot dramas of their own.
The studio, where many of the country’s biggest period series are filmed, opened the experience in August. Since then more than 2,000 people have taken part, and slots are full on most weekends and holidays. During the National Day break, one staff director filmed as many as 20 groups in a single day, working from morning until after dark and still turning people away.
For 388 yuan, roughly $55, visitors get hair and makeup, period costume, a 30-minute directed shoot, and an edited video of about 90 seconds. There are more than 20 scripts to choose from, most built around palace scheming, romance, or betrayal. A solo session with an original script costs 498 yuan.
The attraction is one sign of a broader change in how Chinese consumers spend. With the economy cooling and the property market in a long slump, purchases of luxury goods and home furnishings have softened, but outlays for travel, concerts, role-play games, and other experiences have kept climbing. Short videos of the shoots circulate widely online, drawing new customers to the town.
Participants describe the appeal in simple terms. Chinese schools do not have proms, several noted, so dressing up in costume with friends has become a popular way to mark a gathering. For one afternoon, office workers and students get to wear embroidered gowns, deliver dramatic lines, and leave with a film clip in which they are unmistakably the star.
The economics of the town matter as well. Hengdian built its reputation on long-running television shoots, and the new visitor business helps fill costume departments, makeup teams, and prop warehouses at times when professional filming schedules thin out. Local restaurants, hotels, and photo shops along the studio gates now market packages built around a day on set, turning what began as a single attraction into a small industry of its own. Many visitors leave with plans to return, this time with scripts and costumes in mind for an entire group of friends.
