Even weeks after its finale, Like Roses, in Summer’s Tender Kiss remains a drama audiences can’t quite walk away from.
Its ascent from pre-release buzz, to explosive launch, to genuine cultural phenomenon mirrors the evolution of China’s vertical-screen short drama market itself.Much like its Chinese title 盛夏芬德拉 suggests, the show blooms with a kind of emotional richness and visual poetry rarely seen in short-form storytelling. It doesn’t simply ride the wave of the short-drama boom—it redefines what short dramas can be.
This title achieved what many short dramas only dream of:
● 1 million+ pre-release reservations
● 1 billion views within its first 24 hours
● 20 billion cumulative views in 8 days
● 30 billion views in 18 days
● Dominating platform Top 1 for 17 consecutive days
But numbers don’t tell the whole story.
What truly distinguishes Like Roses, in Summer’s Tender Kiss is how it won over two very different viewer groups:
1. traditional short-drama fans hungry for romantic conflict
2. new audiences—urban women & mature viewers—looking for emotional realism and aesthetic integrity
This convergence is exactly why it became a “shared conversation” across Chinese social platforms—and why its cast exploded in popularity almost overnight.
The growth of China’s free-to-watch short drama market has brought in a new demographic:
educated, aesthetically selective, emotionally literate viewers who crave authenticity over cheap thrills.
These viewers:
● are tired of high-conflict, high-noise, three-episodes-and-you're-hooked formulas
● want emotional layering, slower burn romance, and “life-like tenderness”
● expect visual quality closer to film than to traditional web drama
Most short dramas fail them.
Like Roses, in Summer’s Tender Kiss is one of the rare titles that doesn’t.
According to its creative team, the decision was intentional:
“If three episodes aren’t enough for the leads to fall in love, then why force the heartbreak arc so early?”
Instead of relying on shock-value plotting, the team placed full creative energy on:
● emotional pacing
● genuinely felt romantic progression
● textured cinematography
● symbolic mise-en-scène
The result feels closer to a tragic romance film than a disposable 1-minute-per-scene short drama.
From its very first scene, the show announces its difference.
Most short dramas rely on voiceover dumps or punchy lines to introduce the leads.
Like Roses, in Summer’s Tender Kiss does the opposite.
It places the audience inside a dim, spatially oppressive room.
● Instead of bright lighting and quick cuts, the camera lingers, breathing with the characters.the male lead sits alone, silent, already waiting an hour
● the female lead enters through a doorway flooded with faint natural light
● the camera moves—push, pull, subtle shift—to create emotional distance
The viewer doesn’t hear who these people are.
They feel it—through tone, posture, space, silence.
The drama trusts its audience.
And trust is rare in the short-drama market.
If Wong Kar-wai made a vertical short drama, it might look like this.
The recurring rose motif tracks the entire relationship arc:
● budding → tentative attraction
● half-bloom → emotional stirring
● full bloom → emotional surrender
This is not decorative.
It’s narrative through imagery, a hallmark of auteur cinema.
Shot with manual focus—a bold choice—it captures:
● slow breaths
● trembling eyelashes
● the micro-emotions that precede the kiss
It feels intimate not because of physical closeness, but because the lens allows us to inhabit their hesitation and longing.
One of the drama’s most critically praised moments.
No declarations.
No dramatic score.
● Just:flying papers
● frozen hands
● a quiet offering of gloves
● the male lead discovering his name written again and again
It is tenderness expressed through restraint—deeply Eastern, deeply poetic.
When Fish by Cheer Chen plays during the rainy-night scene, it doesn’t accompany the visuals—it completes them.
Lyrics reflect the heroine’s insecurities and longing.
The slow motion, the sound of rainfall, their careful movements under one umbrella create an atmosphere that feels more like memory than present action.This is not background music; it’s interior monologue.
The drama respects its viewers.
Love grows from understanding, not coincidence.
Viewers repeatedly commented that each frame feels “capturable,” “curated,” “like a film still.”
The heroine isn’t a “plot device.”
● She is a character whose:loneliness
● dignity
● sadness
● warmth
…are expressed through visual nuance, not melodrama.
Women saw themselves in her—and stayed for her.
It became “the short drama that doesn’t feel like a short drama.”
That niche was empty.
Now it isn’t.
MiniShort’s rising user base increasingly prefers “high-aesthetic, emotionally mature, story-respectful” short dramas. This title is precisely that.
It aligns with MiniShort’s curated taste for:
● quality visual style
● complex emotional arcs
● romance told with subtlety rather than shock value
● immersive pacing rather than cliffhangers every 30 seconds
Like Roses, in Summer’s Tender Kiss is not only a fan favorite—it represents the direction the short-drama industry is evolving toward, and MiniShort is becoming the hub for this new wave.
