ReelShort is the latest Chinese export to conquer America

A show called COLCOL“Never Divorce a Secret Billionaire Heiress” dives head first into a seedy melee of passion and betrayal. Within the first 30 seconds of the micro-series, which consists of 55 two-minute episodes, a woman named Joyce is forced to give her husband’s lover a blood transfusion in order to save the mistress’s life. The first ten minutes depict coerced marriages, inheritance battles and sundry infidelities. The storyline is choppy and nearly impossible to follow. To say the acting is hammy would be generous.American viewers can tune in to dozens of similar rapid-fire dramas, with titles such as “The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband” and “Son-in-Law’s Revenge”, on an app called ReelShort. If it all seems a bit foreign, then that is because it is. ReelShort is owned by Group, a digital publisher based in Beijing. Some of its shows are adapted by Chinese teams at ’s Californian subsidiary, Crazy Maple Studio, from Chinese scripts that were first written and produced for audiences in China.