Get ready for a long one, guys. C-Ent had lots of tea to share this week, but first let’s do quick check-in on heat indexes…
- ❤️🩹 Tian Xiwei’s latest vehicle for rebranding herself as “the edgy girl,” otherwise known as In Between, has entered the chat. So far, it looks like China hasn’t completely rejected its many controversial cheating storylines, as In Between just passed a Youku heat index of 8k — honestly, not bad for only a handful of days.
- 🕵️ Hello, Chen Zheyuan in a uniform! Or not. His new Republican drama with Nie Yuan and Xing Fei, Dark Night and Dawn, is performing a little sluggishly at the moment, lingering around the 7k threshold on iQIYI’s heat index. It’s only been out for a few days, so there’s still time for it to pick up.
- 🤔 The heat is not heating so far for Love of Nirvana (Ren Jialun, Li Landi, Jeremy Tsui). Let’s just say that it hasn’t even broken the 26k mark on Tencent’s heat index after a week of airing.
- 😌 On the other hand, the heat finally heated for The First Shot, which crossed 10k after spending over a week above 9.5k on Youku’s heat index. Johnny Huang, Wang Ziqi, and Xie Keyin may or may not be adding this one to their resumes ASAP.
Oh, and there were some interesting melons making the rounds this week 🍉 …
- 🧚 Dylan Wang and Liu Yifei??? Together, in a xianxia drama??? SHUT UP. If true (and it’s still a big ‘if’), I’m Not An Immortal (我不成仙) likely won’t start filming until 2025 — with Yi Zheng, director of Dylan’s mega-hit Love Between Fairy and Devil, supposedly at its helm. Rumor has it that once greenlit, a ton of investment money is going to flow in…
- ⏳ Bai Jingting heard about another time loop drama after his big hit Reset and said yes. He’s rumored to be joining Give Me Five alongside Liu Zhangmu, his Always on the Move director. Melons currently name Zhou Ye as his female lead.
- ⏭️ Guo Qilin may have picked his next drama after his summer hit, Escape from the Trilateral Slopes. He and Sandra Ma are supposedly gearing up for a Republican drama, 迷径之上 (Mi Jing Zhi Shang).
- 🚨 A new drama might be on the horizon for Wei Daxun and Sun Qian. A Sinless Person (无罪之身), is slated to be a thriller about a murder case investigation… which is an interesting shift for Wei Daxun after he exploded post-Fireworks of my Heart.
Meanwhile, it was a pretty boring week on the entertainment news front. Just kidding, lots happened in that everyone found out that everyone is dating…
- 💘 Love is still in the air. After we wrote up a special dating edition of all the couple reveals last week, lo and behold, up popped some new photos of Liu Xiening (The Double, Story of Kunning Palace) and He Yu (The Legend of Shen Li). As for when the rumors started, well, last year, Liu Xiening posted a video of He Yu on her Douyin and then promptly deleted it. Netizens are joking that their couple name should be… wait for it… Liu Yuning 😂.
- 👀 The (confirmed) dating news of the week is Huang Xiaoming and his new influencer girlfriend, Ye Ke. They’ve been rumored to be together for a while, but this is his first relationship confirmation since he and Angelababy divorced in 2022 after seven years of marriage.
- 🏆 The Feitian (Flying Asparas) Awards were last night! Zhao Liying scored a win for Wild Bloom with Best Actress. Li Lu and Lei Jiayin won Best Director and Best Actor, respectively, for A Lifelong Journey.
- 📰 Xin Zhilei continues getting some great pick-ups after successive hits in Divas Hit The Road 5 and Blossoms Shanghai: she’s on the October cover of Cosmopolitan China.
- 👗 Our favorite weeks in the year might be the Fashion Weeks, and this time it’s Milan: Versace had quite the line-up with Zhao Lusi (with her dogs!!!!), Wang Anyu, and Chang Huasen. Fresh off his new endorsement, Wang Yibo attended Jimmy Choo’s show, while Li Xian was at the Prada show and Tian Xiwei graced Gucci’s show. Next up: Paris Fashion Week, where we’re expecting a stacked invitee list for Dior (Deng Wei, Dilraba, and Zhou Ye are on the way!)
- 🧥 A few big sponsorships were announced this week: Tang Yan is Fendi’s new brand spokesperson, announced just in time for her to attend the Milan show. Dylan Wang landed Henessy spokesperson, while Yang Zi joined Tan Jianci as the Asia-Pacific Brand Ambassador to Michael Kors.
Whew, and lastly, a quick summary of some updates we made recently to the C-Drama Airing Schedule…
- 🔜 In a win for fans of light-hearted romances, You Are My Lover Friend is landing on 9/23, starring real-life childhood friends Zhang Xincheng and Wang Yuwen. They even re-created an old photo — check out a young Zhang Xincheng rocking quite the hairstyle over here.
- 🤞 Looking ahead, lots of big dramas are coming soon. Zhang Wanyi’s third drama of the year with Ren Min, The Rise of Ning, is rumored to follow Love of Nirvana. Also expected soon are wuxia drama Snowy Night: Timeless Love (Li Qin, Joseph Zeng) and the much-anticipated The Story of Pearl Girl (Zhao Lusi, Liu Yuning). A Youku exec said recently that The Story of Pearl Girl would air in October, and we will take that confirmation!
- ✅ Zhao Lusi and William Chan’s Love’s Ambition has wrapped filming. To celebrate, we got a vibe-y mini trailer and some fun content of the leads dancing (one lead is significantly more comfortable dancing than the other, cough cough William Chan).
- 2️⃣ Sequel time: The Imperial Coroner 2, sequel to the 2021 dark horse success story The Imperial Coroner, with Wang Ziqi and Su Xiaotong has started filming. The Ingenious One 2 with Chen Xiao and Mao Xiaotong also just announced their second season, although no word yet on filming will start.
