"Little Ma Yun" Fan Xiaoqin Stars in the Domineering CEO Short Drama "Wealth Star Descends: The Group's Pampered Little Young Master," AI Face-Swapping and Dubbing Spark Controversy

Little Ma Yun Fan Xiaoqin Launches in a Domineering CEO Short Drama! AI Face-Swapping and Dubbing Draw Maximum Criticism, Netizens Say It's So Cringe They Want to Curl Their Toes KennyHJ 48 minutes ago How much longer can this wave of traffic stay hot?

On November 1, the 60-episode short drama that Little Ma Yun Fan Xiaoqin finished filming in three days launched yesterday.

The drama is titled "The God of Wealth Descends: The Group's Pampered Little Young Master." Just from the name, you can tell it's a typical wealthy-family counterattack wish-fulfillment story.

Fan Xiaoqin plays the male lead, a rich young master who descends to the mortal world carrying the divine consciousness of the God of Wealth. He is cast out and lives away from home from childhood, and at 18 he is recognized by his ancestors and returns to the family. The drama has kidnapping scenes, business-war scenes, and scenes of slapping villains in the face—everything you could want. The most outrageous part is that they even arranged a kissing scene for him.

(Image source: Xiaolei screenshot)

I casually binge-watched a few episodes, and honestly, the viewing experience is hard to describe in one sentence. The plot is stale and stiff, and the actors' performances are unbearably awkward.

Some netizens commented that when they scrolled to a clip, they were so embarrassed they could have dug out a three-bedroom apartment with their toes. After watching, Xiaolei deeply agrees, and no wonder everyone who watched it exclaimed it was too cringeworthy—the viewing experience really is torturous.

The filming speed of this short drama is even more mind-blowing. It started shooting on September 10 and announced wrapping on the 12th. By the most generous count, 60 episodes were filmed in 72 hours, less than 40 minutes per episode—not much faster than us scrolling through one short video.

His cousin Huang Xinlong previously revealed during a livestream that although the actual filming only took three days, post-production editing took nearly two months, and all the actors in the drama used dubbing—none of it was their original voices.

In on-set leaked photos, he is wearing an oversized suit that doesn't fit and ear studs, tied to a chair performing a kidnapping scene, which looks a bit awkward no matter how you look at it.

(Image source: Weibo)

As for investment, the team said externally that the total investment in this drama was 1.8 million yuan, and the full set is sold as a package for 59.9 yuan.

Doing a quick calculation, it would take 30,000 people paying to break even, and that's not even counting platform revenue sharing and promotion costs.

To launch the short drama, the team also went all out on promotion, specifically inviting a whole lineup of internet celebrities—including Sanda Ge, Disney's Runaway Princess, Huang Yinxun, Kaosike Ma Jianping, Mi Jiayin, and Zhao Gongzi—to each put out videos to endorse and drive traffic. The scale of the operation was quite impressive.

But honestly, the pressure to recoup the investment is really significant.

What really set this off, though, was the kissing-scene controversy. Many people who watched the clips exclaimed it was cringeworthy—not because the plot was heartbreaking, but because it was hard to watch.

Everyone knows about Fan Xiaoqin's situation: he has a Level 2 intellectual disability, has barely attended school for a few days, and can't even write his own name smoothly. Having him play a domineering CEO young master and even film a kissing scene—is this really finding him a job, or using him as a novelty gimmick?

(Image source: Xiaolei screenshot)

Xiaolei Bibi (ID: xiaoleibbb) thinks this is hardly any inspirational counterattack—it's simply the familiar hype playbook being staged all over again.

Think back on Fan Xiaoqin's path over these years. Doesn't he have to come out and stir something up every so often?

When he was little, he was dug up and packaged because he looked like Ma Yun. He lived in a villa and rode in luxury cars and enjoyed the spotlight for a few years, then was sent back to the countryside once his popularity faded.

Later, after becoming an adult, he first did livestreams mechanically repeating "thank you boss," and selling calligraphy at 50 yuan per piece with hardly anyone buying; then he officially announced a relationship, kissed on livestream, and revealed a pregnancy.

Wave after wave of attention, with every step precisely hitting the traffic nodes.

This time, filming a short drama is the same. The speed of filming 60 episodes in three days is obviously not aimed at making a good work.

On set, he repeated whatever others said line by line. When the director shouted to cry, he squeezed out tears; when told to laugh, he bared his teeth—the whole time like a marionette.

The crew was all his own people too—his brother and cousin joined in, and even the boss personally came on set for a cameo. It's truly no exaggeration to call it a family-workshop-style traffic harvest.

If you ask Xiaolei, the ones who understand marketing best are still the team behind him. They deliberately released the kissing scene to create controversy and brought in a bunch of internet celebrities to build momentum.

(Image source: Xiaolei screenshot)

They know very well in their hearts that praise and criticism are both traffic—the higher the discussion, the more free exposure.

As for whether the drama is good or whether the actor can understand the plot, that's actually not so important. Anyway, short dramas have low costs and fast cycles. They harvest a wave while the heat lasts, recouping as much as they can, and if all else fails, there's still advertising to fall back on.

Xiaolei sometimes really wonders: with this approach of coming out to hype a wave every so often, how much traffic can still be harvested? That face that resembled Ma Yun back then was a trump card, but now it has long lost much of its novelty.

The audience's sympathy and curiosity are also limited. Consuming them once or twice is fine, but if you keep bringing it out to stir-fry, sooner or later people will get tired of it.

After this wave of heat passes and the short-drama money is made, what will happen to Fan Xiaoqin? He is already 18, with no education and no special skills.

How much longer Little Ma Yun Fan Xiaoqin can stay popular, and whether he will crash and burn, Xiaolei doesn't dare to conclude. But I can say that relying on hype to grab attention may make you famous for a while, but it can't keep you famous for a lifetime.

Finally, let me ask everyone: what made you start paying attention to Little Ma Yun Fan Xiaoqin? Feel free to chat in the comments.

Source: Leikeji

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