When the heavy history meets lightweight short videos, and when the lonely Tang Dynasty border meets the cinematic Lanzhou ink Danxia, what kind of sparks will be sparked? A few days ago, a list from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television gave the answer. Lanzhou's local short drama "White-Haired Old Soldier" was selected as the first batch of recommended plays for the "Micro Short Drama +" action plan in 2026, which not only breaks the mold of traditional cool dramas, but also a "two-way rush" belonging to Lanzhou's cultural tourism. From a single branch to a hundred flowers blooming, Lanzhou is taking advantage of the east wind of micro-short dramas to promote the Yellow River culture and urban IP to the whole country.
Stills from "The White-Haired Old Soldier"
"White-haired Old Soldier" promotional poster
Little people set big ambitions
Strongly trigger the audience's empathetic reaction
For Lanzhou's film and television practitioners, this is a very milestone day.
The State Administration of Radio and Television recently officially announced the first batch of recommended plays for the "Micro Short Drama +" action plan in 2026. In this authoritative list covering multiple units such as "Travel with Micro Short Dramas", "White-Haired Old Pawn" produced by Lanzhou Jingxi Media is prominently listed, becoming the only work in Gansu Province to be selected for the "Travel with Micro Short Dramas" unit.
This is not only the highest honor in the industry, but also a "national stamp" for the creative level of Lanzhou's micro-short dramas. It sends a strong signal to the whole network: Lanzhou can not only shoot short dramas, but also shoot high-quality hits with depth, beauty and traffic.
Why can "White-Haired Old Soldier" break out of the siege? Most of the time, when it comes to micro-short dramas, many people's first impression is often "earthy" or "brainless drama". But "White-Haired Old Pawn" jumped out of the rut and embarked on a new path of "high-quality".
The play is directed by Zhang Ke and starring Zhang Yifang (Grandpa Sanxi), Zhou Ningjia, Song Yu and others. The story is led by a mysterious ancient coin, telling the story of the life and death of Li Danggui (played by Zhou Ningjia), an unsuccessful contemporary treasure appraisal blogger, who accidentally traveled to the Western Regions after the Anshi Rebellion during the live broadcast connection, and escorted the edict side by side with Zhang Laosan (played by Zhang Yifang), a white-haired veteran of the Anxi Army.
In the play, Li Angelou wanted to escape, but was tied up by a stubborn veteran and embarked on a dead end to Anxi. Zhang Laosan dragged his old body to adhere to the oath of "the Tang flag will not fall, and the Anxi army will not die and not retreat", and when he was about to arrive in Kucha City, he resolutely chose to stay to contain the enemy and cover Li Angelica with his life.
"The little people have big ambitions and accurately poke the tears of the audience." Deng Ming, a librarian at the Gansu Provincial Government Research Museum of Literature and History and an expert in Gansu history, commented, "This kind of delicate portrayal of the feelings of the little people's family and country shows the oriental heroism of 'although tens of millions of people are gone', and instantly hits the audience's empathy point." ”
Good works need to be carved
Live shooting restores the Tang Dynasty border
A good work is inseparable from good pictures. In order to pursue the ultimate sense of realism, "White-Haired Old Soldier" directly abandoned studio shooting and filmed the whole process in Gansu.
The crew held a launching ceremony at Lanzhou Ink Danxia Tourist Attraction on May 16, 2025, filming Lanzhou's unique Danxia landform and historical sense with a "cinematic" texture. Among them, the core area of ink Danxia (Nine Colors Danqing) has become the "fa？ade" of the whole play. The landform of Hongshan Bay here is colorful, and the crew deliberately placed the "white-haired old soldier" Zhang Laosan (played by Grandpa Sanxi) in front of this colorful hill formed over hundreds of millions of years, using the grandeur of the environment to set off the smallness and tenacity of the characters, and the visual impact is extremely strong.
At the same time, at the Yegu Tea Horse Station in the scenic area, the crew specially used the vicissitudes of the ancient road in the Danxia landform to design a "Silk Road Station". It restores the scene of the caravan resting and changing horses, perfectly integrates into Lanzhou's Silk Road culture and tea and horse culture, and is a stop with great fireworks and historical thickness in the play.
In addition, the crew used a lot of natural ancient roads and desert Gobi in the hinterland of Danxia for filming. This uncarved desolate texture is very in line with the tragic background of the Anxi Army veterans guarding the border in the play, allowing the audience to feel the unique roughness and vastness of the northwest at a glance.
Hardcore ingenuity
Create an immersive border micro-short drama
"Different from ordinary vertical screen dramas, "White-Haired Old Soldier" adopts a horizontal screen format. According to the relevant person in charge of Whale Xi Media, this kind of frame is more suitable for showing the panorama of ink Danxia, so that the texture and layers of the landform are fully presented in the lens, creating a sense of cinematic immersion, and deliberately refreshing the artistic height of micro-short dramas.
There are also a large number of night scenes and dusk scenes in the play, and the crew uses professional lighting equipment to create a very layered light and shadow effect on the Danxia Mountain at night, and even makes the rocks show a thick "ink color" through post-color grading, integrating the majesty of nature and the tragedy of history.
At the same time, in order to reflect the hardships of the march and the sinister environment, the camera frequently follows the camel and horse teams for mobile shooting. This dynamic perspective makes the originally static mountain seem to come to life, taking the audience to "cloud experience" the long journey of the Silk Road.
In addition, the crew insisted on full-live shooting and did not rely on studio shooting. So in the film, you can hear the real sound of the wind, the sound of horses' hooves and the sound of camel bells. This kind of original radio with atmospheric background music greatly enhances the sense of presence of the border story.
After the filming of the ink Danxia Scenic Area, the film crew moved to the desert, snow-capped mountains and ancient city ruins of the Hexi Corridor. Under the dispatch of the top photography team, the originally static Danxia mountains along the road seem to have been given life.
Integration of film, television, culture and tourism
Gather tourism popularity through visual impact
The biggest highlight of "White-Haired Old Pawn" is that it perfectly practices the deep integration of "film and television + cultural tourism". The play will be launched on Hongguo, Douyin and other platforms on November 7, 2025, quickly triggering a boom in watching dramas.
While traditional tourism promotional videos are still piled up with aerial shots, micro-short dramas have injected soul into the landscape with vivid plots. With the popularity of "White-Haired Old Pawn", the magnificent and powerful Lanzhou ink Danxia Scenic Area in the play quickly caught the attention of young audiences. In particular, Grandpa Sanxi appeared in the shape of "broken armor and gray hair", and behind him were colorful hills formed over hundreds of millions of years, which directly transformed into a tourist attraction.
"This place in the play is amazing, please have the same seat!" ——On social platforms, similar check-in summoning posts emerge one after another. The audience was no longer satisfied with watching the scenery through the screen, but packed their bags and went to Lanzhou Ink Danxia to take photos on the mountain beams walked by Internet celebrity veterans. This kind of two-way rush of "drama red scenery is also red" has successfully transformed the huge online traffic into real cultural tourism consumption.
In fact, the stunning appearance of "White-Haired Old Pawn" is by no means an accidental luck, but the inevitable result of the accumulation of Lanzhou's micro-short drama industry. In recent years, the Lanzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism has actively deployed and encouraged local enterprises to deepen their content and achieved fruitful results. In addition to the costume history category "White-Haired Old Soldier", Lanzhou has also emerged many high-quality works rooted in the local area, building a huge matrix of "traveling in the golden city".
Among them, "I Am Crazy for the West Wind" is the first cultural and tourism micro-short drama in Gansu Province, integrating elements of workplace, love and fantasy. The play shows the majesty of the Hanming Great Wall and the science fiction sense of Mars No. 1 base, and the number of views exceeded 3 million in 5 days of launch, and it was successfully selected as a recommended play by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
"Collecting Gansu - Exploring the Ancient Eight Views" is produced by the Gansu Provincial Library, cleverly combining real-life exploration and classic decryption. In the play, travel photography experts and ancient book restorers shuttle between Baita Mountain, Zhongshan Bridge and Wuquan Mountain, and "activate" the "Eight Views of Lanshan" in the collection of the Gansu Provincial Library in a dynamic narrative way, so that young audiences can complete their cultural roots while chasing the drama.
These short dramas with different styles are like mobile Lanzhou business cards. They either incorporate steaming "beef noodles", or tell stories along the surging Yellow River, and promote Lanzhou's natural scenery and cultural heritage to the whole country through the way of "traveling to Gansu", injecting fresh communication momentum into the development of local tourism.
Let the traffic change the retention
Micro-short dramas enhance the attractiveness of the city
A popular micro-short drama brings fire to a city. The success of "White-Haired Old Soldier" provides an excellent model for the promotion of Lanzhou's cultural tourism resources. In the context of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television launching the 2026 "Yellow River Culture" online audio-visual works collection plan, Lanzhou is ushering in new opportunities.
"At a time when 'attention' is scarce, we still need to continue to make efforts to guide more traffic to local resources, which can be transformed into the city's long-term competitiveness." The person in charge of the Lanzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism said, "We will continue to encourage and support more film and television companies to take root in Lanzhou, excavate more masterpieces that are both artistic and publicity like "White-Haired Old Soldier", avoid homogeneous competition, and achieve win-win development." ”
He said: "We will also further deepen industrial integration, promote the deeper binding of micro-short dramas with urban IP, intangible cultural heritage, and special food, and lengthen the industrial chain, so that the audience can want to eat noodles, see the scenery, and experience after watching the drama." At the same time, it is also necessary to continuously strengthen and improve supporting services, online drainage, offline undertaking, and simultaneously improve service quality and play experience to ensure that tourists do not want to leave when they come, and they want to come when they leave. ”
When the border wind of the Tang Dynasty blows through Lanzhou's ink Danxia, and when the local short dramas ignite the bonfire of culture, we have reason to believe that Lanzhou in the future will run faster and faster on the track of micro-short dramas, so that this "Pearl of the Yellow River" will shine more brightly in the new era. (Reporter Li Chao)