The first half of 2024 has notoriously been mediocre for Chinese dramas. Not many of them, outside of War of Faith and Joy of Life 2, caught on. Even fewer gave us exciting new actors and actresses to follow, in the way they usually do. So thank goodness for the climb of a name that perhaps not everyone expected: Wang Xingyue, who recently played Duke Su in the historical drama The Double.
This also surprised us. Wang Xingyue first caught our eye in 2023’s Story of Kunning Palace, and though we’d clocked him as a young actor with potential star power to watch in the future, we didn’t think he would rise so quickly. After the airing of The Double, however, it feels like he’s everywhere: at the top of character popularity charts, regularly trending on Weibo’s Hot Searches, even picking up endorsements from food brands (with rumors of a luxury endorsement coming next).
Given his age (22) and his relative newness in the Chinese entertainment industry, we were curious to see where the trajectory of his career fits into his still-growing filmography. However, because we think that Douban and MyDramaList ratings can often be skewed by recency, fan wars, and reach, we developed our own internal drama meter to rank dramas specific to the actor or actress.
In this case, we tried to determine an objective view of Wang Xingyue’s best dramas by measuring the underlying drama characteristics specific to him, including:
- The show’s general audience viewership
- How important his role is in the drama
- What type of role he played
- The show’s Douban rating, as ranked by users
Here are the results!
The top 5 Wang Xingyue TV shows and dramas: a breakdown
Because Wang Xingyue currently has such a limited filmography, we couldn’t only look at the dramas where he’s the male lead (that would have made our sample size too small). So instead, we took the dramas where he’s in one of the first 10 billing spots.
Out of those Chinese dramas, these are the top five that our drama meter determined are his best.
Based on their scores, we put them in a recommended watching order below.
1. The Double (2024)
Wang Xingyue’s best offering to audiences ranks first on the outsize strength of two factors: its better-than-expected reviews (it debuted on Douban with a solid rating of 6.6), and his major leading role in the show.
To begin with, The Double is a quality TV show with good production value and some beautiful cinematography, despite its smaller budget compared to tentpole dramas such as Fox Spirit Matchmaker. We would call The Double a female-centric revenge drama, with an age-old question at its core: can Xue Fangfei assume a second identity while infiltrating the court to take revenge on those who wronged her, betrayed her father, and murdered her savior?
Wang Xingyue plays Xiao Heng: the high-ranking duke helping Xue Fangfei who enjoys (1) making dramatic entrances in capes and (2) doing drills with his sword in the rain half-naked (believe it or not, that’s not a double entendre). Besides looking good covered in blood, he’s resourceful, charismatic, and may or may not be operating alongside Xue Fangfei with a motive of his own. And because the female gaze is female gazing, the director also understands how important it is to linger on Wang Xingyue’s shirtless scenes by a waterfall.
He and his co-star, Wu Jinyan, have wonderful chemistry in this Chinese drama. They date the old-fashioned way (e.g. flirting through chess and not getting together until essentially Episode 999, certainly making this one a slowburn romance). Both leads are also smart, and the show is best when they’re working together to try to pull off the grand revenge plot. We’re guessing that it was likely a combination of these ingredients that helped The Double break out of the pack in summer 2024.
2. Story of Kunning Palace (2023)
Number two is the historical drama Story of Kunning Palace, the only 2023 female-led iQiyi drama to break iQiyi’s 10K heat index threshold. No surprises, then, that its widespread viewership and higher-than-average Douban rating of 6.9 scored points with our drama meter.
However, it was knocked off from taking the #1 spot on this list because Wang Xingyue, with some reduced screentime, plays the second male lead in it: the noble Justice official Zhang Zhe. He’s one of three love interests for Jiang Xuening, the anti-heroine who gets a second chance to travel back in time and rectify her wrongs. Is he a stick-in-the-mud, however, or a gentle soul who likes to do pottery in his spare time? You be the judge! Just one thing is certain to us, personally: he’s a lot less morally gray than his rival for Jiang Xuening, the famously toxic Xie Wei.
Story of Kunning Palace also marks the third collaboration between him and Jiang Xuening’s actress, Bai Lu (they’ve become close friends in real life, to the point that he’s described her as someone who “provides a sense of security” for him). Together with rising star Zhang Linghe (the first male lead), they make this drama pretty bingable, particularly for lovers of court intrigue.
- 👀 # of episodes: 38
- 🥝 Original network: iQIYI
- 📺 Watch Story of Kunning Palace on: iQIYI
3. Scent of Time (2023)
Our drama meter put this TV show third on this list, primarily because of his increased amount of screentime as the first male lead. We’d just note that the reason it’s not #2 is because it did provoke many more mixed reviews than his usual dramas do upon airing. As of right now, Scent of Time has a Douban rating of only 6.1—the lowest out of all of the TV shows on this list.
The reason probably stems back to audiences’ issues with a confusing plot, and a very controversial ending. Scent of Time was also one of the earlier starring vehicles for Zhou Ye, who plays the female lead role of Hua Qian, the anti-heroine who gets a second chance to travel back in time and rectify her wrongs. (Sound familiar? 😄) She picks up three love interests along the way, as one does: the ex-husband, the lord, and the bodyguard. Here are all three of the actors in a modern-day group photoshoot with Zhou Ye—you can pick your fighter!
If you chose Wang Xingyue, congratulations: you just threw your weight behind the somewhat obsessive lord who at one point strolls around his bedroom half-robed, Zhong Xiwu. He and Zhou Ye, however, have interesting chemistry (for the nosy like us, she’s one of the actresses with whom he’s had dating rumors, though both of their studios have denied it)—and the ending of the show is reportedly frustrating.
In this respect, it might actually be the opposite of Story of Kunning Palace: you will get more Wang Xingyue on your screen, but you’d be gambling that on a show that might be a little hit-and-miss.
- 👀 # of episodes: 30
- 👖Original network: Youku
- 📺 Watch Scent of Time on: Max
4. Amidst a Snowstorm of Love (2024)
Outside of The Double, Amidst a Snowstorm of Love was Wang Xingyue’s second drama to air in 2024—though it is, unfortunately, a modern romance drama for two people that don’t include him. Instead, the two leads in this Chinese drama are played by Leo Wu (affectionately nicknamed by China as “the nation’s little brother”) and Zhao Jin Mai (who you might have seen in Reset or The Princess Royal). Both are accomplished pool players in the drama, which is mostly about the progression of their relationship from strangers to lovers in the world of professional billiards.
Wang Xingyue, meanwhile, plays the cousin and coach to Zhao Jin Mai’s character, Yin Guo. He was only 20 years old when he filmed it, which we think is a little ironic because he’s supposed to be her elder by at least a good few years! To make up for his reduced screentime as a side character, however, the show has him leaning stylishly over a lot of tables and playing a lot of pool in button-down shirts, because he is also a billiards genius. Apropos of nothing, he also likes wearing a lot of suit vests and, of all things, black turtlenecks.
Despite his love of formalwear (he even pops up at the airport in a full suit and tie), his first loyalty is not to black tie optional, but to his baby cousin—and we do get a bit of a developing rivals-to-bromance storyline between his character and Leo Wu’s.
With a Douban rating of 6.6, it’s probably safe to say that the show performed to expectations in China. Unlike The Double, however, this is definitely a slower-moving, slice-of-life-esque drama. If you’re watching only for Wang Xingyue, just know that he doesn’t show up much in the first few episodes, which our meter factored in.
- 👀 # of episodes: 30
- 🐧Original network: Tencent Video
- 📺 Watch Amidst a Snowstorm of Love on: Netflix, YouTube, Viki, Tencent
5. One and Only (2021)
There’s one (and only one) reason why One and Only, rated a relatively lofty 7.3 on Douban, is ranked last on our list.
Wang Xingyue is the villain in it.
Aside from that, One and Only is in truth an impressive achievement for him:
- One and Only marks his second collaboration with Bai Lu.
- He was only 18 years old during filming.
- It was his first time acting—and holding his own against veteran actors like Bai Lu and Allen Ren—in a tentpole Chinese drama.
But yes: at the end of the day, he is definitely the villain in One and Only. That means that if you devote 40 hours of your life watching One and Only for him, you’ll get to see him play the power-loving, scheming emperor who tries time and again to foil the romance between a righteous general and a mute princess for his personal gain. At least he looks very pretty while doing so.
One and Only, with its slowburn romance and court intrigue continued in Part 2 (Forever and Ever), was a big hit in China and abroad. Wang Xingyue being the villain is simply the asterisk to be aware of, if you watch it as his fan. At best, you might get a little whiplash alongside a new appreciation of his versatility. At worst, you’ll leave the drama wanting to punch him in the face.
- 👀 # of episodes: 24
- 🥝 Original network: iQIYI
- 📺 Watch One and Only on: Amazon Prime, Viki, iQIYI
The verdict
As a last step, we plotted Wang Xingyue’s best TV shows and dramas out onto a scatterplot to see where they fall against each other on a Douban rating vs. # of Douban ratings basis, categorized by the role he played in each drama:
A few quick observations:
- His most popular dramas (so far) are ones where he’s second male lead—but not for long, probably! The scatterplot shows his progression pretty clearly, as The Double is the first drama where he’s first male lead to encroach on “popular” territory.
- His bread-and-butter so far seems to be historical period dramas. He’s dabbled only a little bit in modern and wuxia dramas, and has not done a xianxia drama yet.
- His average Douban rating is 6.4, and he’s been pretty consistent recently: all of his dramas in 2023 and 2024 surpassed a 6.0 Douban rating (we personally consider breaking the threshold of 6.0 a litmus test for watchability).
- Since his debut, we noticed that he’s averaged about two dramas a year.
It’s likely too early to predict his ceiling. We’ll be excited to revisit this in a few years from now if he can keep up this trajectory to be able to match up with the Yang Yangs and even Bai Jingtings of Chinese entertainment—but it does look like he’s on a good run at the moment. Next up for Wang Xingyue is Perfect Match (with Lu Yuxiao and the same producer as The Double) and Calming Waves (with Julia Xiang).
can’t wait to see him with lu yuxiao in perfect match!!