If the rumors pan out, we’ll be getting some major C-dramas dropping over the next week, but in the meantime, a quick look at some heat indexes…

  • 👏 Zhang Wanyi finally broke 28k on Tencent’s heat index for a drama he headlined! The Rise of Ning, with female lead Ren Min, has officially broken the barrier with just a handful of episodes left. 
  • ❤️‍🔥 Kill Me Love Me broke 9k on Youku’s heat index last week, but couldn’t sustain it for more than a few days. The Liu Xueyi and Wu Jinyan drama is currently sitting around the low 8ks. 
  • 🔮 The new kid on the block this week is Fangs of Fortune, the Guo Jingming drama starring Neo Hou, Chen Duling, Tian Jiarui, and Cheng Xiao. It just premiered yesterday but shot up past 8k on iQIYI’s heat index in less than 24 hours. 

We’re a little light on melons this week but there’s still one that seems fairly credible 🍉 …

  • 🥠 Tan Songyun is rumored for a new drama named 我和我的命 (Wo He Wo De Ming; trans: Me and My Destiny), a historical drama centered around a woman who embarks on a journey of entrepreneurship. No male lead mentioned yet for the drama.

A quick look at C-Ent news…

  • 🏆 The last of the three major C-drama awards, the China TV Golden Eagle Awards, was last week! Zhao Liying won best actress for her performance in Wild Bloom (she also won at the Feitian Awards a few weeks ago). Some other fun happenings at the awards ceremony: Wang Xingyue, Tan Songyun, and Yan Ni had a short performance, and Zhang Xincheng snapped a selfie with his fellow Best Supporting Actor nominees. 
  • 📰 We’ve got some dark and broody magazine covers for November! Liu Shishi is on the cover of Marie Claire China and Victoria Song on Harper’s Bazaar China
  • 🧥 On the sponsorship side: Chen Zheyuan became YAYA’s brand spokesperson, while Bai Jingting picked up brand spokesperson for Eggy Party, a video game. And finally, Neo Hou became FRED’s brand spokesperson in a sparkly ad, very appropriate for the jewelry brand. 

If the rumors are true, it’s go time on some big C-dramas soon! A brief review of changes we made to our C-Drama Airing Schedule

  • 💎 The latest on Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning’s hopefully very imminent drama, The Story of Pearl Girl: there’s a press conference on October 30, followed by rumored airing on November 1. So the historical drama should be dropping very, very soon…
  • 🎮 Also highly suspected to drop November 1 is Love Game in Eastern Fantasy, with Esther Yu and Ryan Ding. There was an accidental leak of a poster with November 1 that then was quickly deleted, heh. 
  • ✔️ Another melon crossed off the list is 三线谜回 (San Xian Mi Hui), which we wrote about few months ago. Filming just started for this modern fantasy drama with Meng Ziyi (character intro here) and Wang Hongyi (character intro here). 
  • 🔚 Congrats to Li Qin and Chen Zheyuan for wrapping filming on Fated Hearts. The historical drama released a smoldering sneak peek to celebrate over here
  • 👀 After Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty 2 turned out to be iQIYI’s summer hit of 2024, they decided to keep the momentum going with another sequel. Lo and behold, Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty 3: To Chang An started filming last week, marking less than three months between airing and filming.