A quick check-in on the C-dramas wrapping up…
- 🔥 We’ve got a new hit on our hands: Guo Qilin and Francis Ng’s Escape from the Trilateral Slopes officially broke 10k on Youku’s heat index a few days ago. This makes Guo Qilin the first ‘95 actor to have reached 10k on both iQIYI (for 2021’s My Heroic Husband) and Youku’s heat indices. We’re sure that its Douban debut of 8.2 doesn’t hurt either.
- 👍 Who else is celebrating? Perhaps Zhang Wanyi and Wang Churan: Are You the One debuted on Douban with a very high 8.0. There are still a few episodes left in the show to go, but 8.0 is more than a solid start.
- 🔚 On the other side, A Lonely Hero’s Journey (Joseph Zeng, Zhang Songwen, Chen Duling, and Wang Yuwen) debuted to a pretty low Douban rating of 4.7, while its iQIYI heat index peaked in the low 8ks. The cast may be finding comfort in their strong satellite TV performance: they topped ratings for Dragon TV and Jiangsu TV while coming in second on Beijing TV.
Lots of melons and some reshuffling keeping netizens busy 🍉 …
- 🔁 Reunion alert!!!!! The Double co-stars Wu Jinyan and Wang Xingyue are slated to act opposite of each other again in another Yu Zheng produced drama, 坠落春夜 (Zhui Luo Chun Ye), which is supposedly switching the source material from the modern to Republican era.
- 🧑🧑🧒 While we all await Flourished Peony, Yang Zi has picked up a new historical drama named 家业 (Jia Ye). It sounds like there’s some healthy competition for male lead, with names like Wei Daxun, Liu Yuning, and Wang Xingyue being thrown around.
- 👀 Tian Xiwei fans may be getting their wish after spending months protesting her role in The Days of Seclusion and Love with Liu Yuning…there are rumblings that the drama has been postponed and the female lead may be switched to someone else.
Meanwhile, the news cycle in Chinese entertainment keeps going…
- 🥇 Remember those September issue covers we keep talking about? Well, congrats to Dilraba, whose cover with Harper’s Bazaar China had the highest 24 hour sales among female artists in 2024!
- 📰 Speaking of September issues, Deng Wei unlocked the cover of ELLEMEN China. And if that’s not enough for you, he’s also on the September cover of Figaro Hommes China.
- 💄 On the endorsement side, Wang Xingyue has been announced as makeup ambassador for Estée Lauder. Xu Kai also became the global spokesperson for Yalu 1972 down jackets, in case you were wondering what he would look like in a snowboarding drama.
- 🌸 The Douban rating for our favorite female empowerment drama this year, Blossoms in Adversity, has increased since its debut from 6.7 to 7.3. Hu Yitian and Zhang Jingyi probably don’t mind seeing that bump one bit.
Finally, a summary of changes we made to the C-Drama Airing Schedule this week…
- 🔜 A few distribution licenses for some big names came through recently, including Love Game in Eastern Fantasy (Esther Yu and Ryan Ding) and The Story of Pearl Girl (Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning). Both of these dramas were rumored to air in Q4, so this is a good sign…
- 👻 Dilraba and Chen Feiyu are in the preparation stage for xianxia drama Love Beyond the Grave, where Dilraba will be a female ghost master tied to Chen Feiyu’s general. The drama will be directed by Zoe Qin, who was recently co-director of Lost You Forever.
- 💐 Those Flowers, Wu Jinyan and Maggie Jiang’s new drama, has officially started filming. Wu Jinyan will be reunited with Liang Yongqi, who was her ex-husband in The Double.
- 🏫 Apparently youth drama Reborn, starring Zhang Jingyi and Zhou Yiran, may be airing in a few weeks. Both leads will be looking to capitalize off of some recent successes: Zhou Yiran with last year’s hit When I Fly Towards You and Zhang Jingyi with Blossoms in Adversity.
