Zhao Lusi: Best TV Shows and Dramas, Ranked

Is Zhao Lusi one of the biggest “It Girls” out of the ‘95 flowers in Chinese entertainment?

We did a quick comparison of all the actresses in her age bracket (those born between 1995 and 1999) to see if her numbers match up to her aura, and as of the time of this post: 

• She’s got the second-most Weibo followers (28+ million, second after Guan Xiaotong). 
• She’s got the most Instagram followers internationally (4+ million).
• She’s got the most tag playback volume on Douyin (100+ billion views). 
• She’s got the most first-billed roles in the last two years (3, vs. Guan Xiaotong’s 2 and Esther Yu’s 2).  

So if she isn’t the “It Girl,” she’s certainly one of them.

In the spirit of curiosity, we then tried to superimpose her trajectory onto her filmography to understand how they match up! But we found this harder to do than we expected. Zhao Lusi has constructed a bit of an up-and-down body of work, which might even mirror her “It’s so over”-”We’re so back” relationship with the general public (right now, we think that China’s again in the “We’re so back” era, as everyone has most recently been in love with her daily outfits during the filming of Love’s Ambition). 

Like with Wang Xingyue, however, we still wanted to figure out which of Zhao Lusi’s dramas would come out on top if we did a battle royale of her filmography. For those unfamiliar with how we usually approach this, we’ve developed an internal drama meter to rank dramas specific to the actor or actress, because we think that Douban and MyDramaList ratings can often be skewed by recency, fan wars, and reach.

In this case, we tried to determine an objective view of Zhao Lusi’s best dramas by measuring the underlying drama characteristics specific to her, including:

1. The show’s general audience viewership
2. How important her role is in the drama
3. What type of role she played
4. The show’s Douban rating, as ranked by users

Here are the results! 

The top 5 Zhao Lusi TV shows and dramas: a breakdown

Cr: 赵露思’s Weibo

So our sample size was simple: we looked at all of the dramas where Zhao Lusi is credited as a main lead. 

Out of those Chinese dramas, these are the top five that our drama meter determined are Zhao Lusi’s best.

Based on their scores, we put them in a recommended watching order below.

1. Love Like the Galaxy (2022)

Tencent’s beloved Love Like the Galaxy is first on this list of recommended Zhao Lusi dramas, and for good reason: it has such juggernaut numbers (both in terms of viewership and Douban ratings) that Zhao Lusi’s other dramas didn’t stand a chance against it when it was time to crunch the scores.  

Zhao Lusi plays Niao Niao in Love Like the Galaxy. She isn’t your average good girl. She grew up in an asylum you wouldn’t last an hour in (aka the household of a very overbearing Chinese mother). She doesn’t run away from trouble, she makes trouble. Most importantly, she’s better than us all and doesn’t fold in the presence of brooding, handsome generals. 

Leo Wu plays Ling Buyi, who isn’t your average good boy. He is a brooding, handsome general. He’s the foster son of the Emperor. He murders a lot in his free time. He’s a little unhinged, though gratifyingly fashion-forward. Most importantly, he falls in love with Niao Niao before even seeing her face, and knows how to pine in the fading sunlight. 

In any other drama, Niao Niao and Ling Buyi might easily have been the villains—so Love Like the Galaxy probably isn’t your average historical romance TV show either. Instead, it’s as invested in the domestic drama of family and women as it is in its grand arc of politics, war, and revenge. It broke multiple records upon airing in 2022. And it likely played a significant role in boosting Zhao Lusi’s profile at the time, turning her from a “rising” actress to the “risen” star who can headline a big-budget drama today. 

• 👀 # of episodes: 56 (combined across Part 1 and Part 2)
• 🐧 Original network: Tencent
• 📺 Watch Love Like The Galaxy on: YouTube, Viki, Tencent

2. The Romance of Tiger and Rose (2020)

Before we get into it, we also admit that this drama (“The Romance of What and What?”) is no Hidden Love (which boasts fan favorite Chen Zheyuan as Zhao Lusi’s co-star 😅), or even Who Rules the World (which has internationally recognized Yang Yang 🫠).

So we’d totally forgive you if you’re asking right now, why is this ranked second on this list above both?

We can only point to what the hard numbers must have shown our drama meter: The Romance of Tiger and Rose has the second-highest Douban score (7.3) and the second-highest number of people who rated it (395,458, at the time of publication) out of Zhao Lusi’s dramas. It might just be a little bit underrated in the West.

In this wuxia drama, Zhao Lusi plays Chen Xiaoqian: a hard-working screenwriter who is one day unceremoniously yeeted into her own script, aka a parallel historical world full of hot men with fantastic bone structure. Well, that’s fine and dandy, one might think. And one would be right. Until one realizes that one did not transmigrate into the body of the main female lead character in the script, but rather the Third Princess Chen Qianqian—the side character who’s supposed to die tragically early. Also, Hot Man #1 (the Crown Prince of his city, played by Ryan Ding) hates you.  

Alright, so as you can probably tell, the truth is that The Romance of Tiger and Rose has “romance” in the drama, but it’s equal parts comedy. It’s also extremely genre-aware to an extent that might even be considered subversive (a seeming pattern in the dramas and roles that Zhao Lusi enjoys playing, we must say). And while it’s not quite a high-budget blockbuster, The Romance of Tiger and Rose is an intelligent meta parody that makes fun of a lot of the tropes that run rampant in Chinese dramas.

As for Zhao Lusi herself, this was probably the drama that helped her break out in the first place. So at the end of the day, we’d argue that it deserves this #2 spot, and is completely worth watching if you’re a fan of Zhao Lusi’s terrific comedic instinct.

• 👀 # of episodes: 24
• 🐧 Original network: Tencent
• 📺 Watch Romance of Tiger and Rose on: YouTube, Viki, Amazon Prime, Tencent

3. Hidden Love (2023)

Is it the very relatable question at the heart of Hidden Love that makes it so globally popular?

Because this modern romance drama is brave enough to ask—

What if you (F17) have a crush on your older brother’s best friend (M22), but he doesn’t like you back? 😱

It’s true, in numbers, it does fall short of Love Like The Galaxy and Romance of Tiger and Rose, with only a 6.7 score on Douban. However, Hidden Love makes up for it with a certain “je ne sais quoi” chemistry between Zhao Lusi and Chen Zheyuan, who play the two characters in this predicament (Sang Zhi and Duan Jiaxu, respectively). She sees him as the love of her life. He sees her as his best friend’s younger sister.

Zhao Lusi’s dedication to the role needn’t be described—even after some reported disruptions during filming that resulted in the original director leaving, she carried the drama on her shoulders until wrap (to the point that she famously wore her own fits on the show, because production didn’t have the budget for costume design).

It also helps that she has a charismatic leading man in Chen Zheyuan who’s a walking green flag in the drama. We personally rate him high on our “Find A Man Who Looks At You The Way He Looks At Her” scale, as well as our “Best Hair Game In Chinese Dramas” scale. The cherry on top is that a sequel based on Sang Zhi’s brother, with Bai Jingting and Zhang Ruonan primed to star, is being filmed as we speak—so there’s still more story to go as well. 

Just be aware that there was some controversy over the age gap between the two leads when Sang Zhi is younger (around middle school age). If you’d rather skip that, you can head straight to Episode 8, which is when she ages up to college.

• 👀 # of episodes: 25
• 👖 Original network: Youku
• 📺 Watch Hidden Love on: Netflix, Youku

4. Who Rules the World (2022)

Next up on this list of recommended Zhao Lusi TV shows to watch is Who Rules the World, otherwise known as the drama that’s impossible to say without mentally tacking on a “GIRLS!” to the end of it. It’s also Zhao Lusi’s first collaboration with Yang Yang, one of China’s biggest male stars, though it fell slightly short of its high expectations and is rated a 5.6 on Douban today. 

Despite the mixed reviews on its pacing, production, and fight sequences, however, Who Rules the World does give us something that Zhao Lusi’s other dramas can’t provide: Zhao Lusi in flight. The wuxia genre is definitely outside of Zhao Lusi’s usual wheelhouse, and Who Rules the World is a rare chance to see her pirouetting high up in the sky as a martial artist. 

But it must be said that she isn’t just a martial artist in Who Rules the World, but one of the most powerful martial artists in the jianghu: the reckless and carefree Bai Fengxi. Her rival and counterpart is the elegant and just Hei Fengxi, who’s played by none other than Yang Yang. And together, they have a rivals to friends to lovers arc that’s complicated by politics, betrayal, and double identities in a kingdom torn apart by ambition. 

This drama is undoubtedly big-budget, with some beautifully lit cinematography to boot, so it’s a shame that its reception didn’t quite match up to the investment put into it. But no matter what, you can rest content knowing that Zhao Lusi at least must have had a good time filming this drama: she got to lounge around and be fed dinner by Yang Yang! Some may say that sometimes that’s all a drama needs.

• 👀 # of episodes: 40
• 🐧 Original network: Tencent
• 📺 Watch Who Rules the World on: Netflix, Tencent

5. The Long Ballad (2021)

Our drama meter actually called fifth race a close race between The Long Ballad, Dating in the Kitchen, and The Last Immortal.

The Long Ballad, however, came out on top by fine margins due to its more widespread popularity while it was airing — despite Zhao Lusi’s reduced screentime as second female lead.

Yes, before you read on any further, you should know that this drama is the only entry on this list where Zhao Lusi is not the first female lead. The top-billed role of Li Changge, the princess seeking revenge for the massacre of her family, is instead played by Dilraba Dilmurat, one of China’s biggest female stars. If you liked Love Like The Galaxy, however, you’ll be pleased to see Leo Wu again on your screen: he’s Ashile Sun, a tribal prince in the enemy faction of the Tang emperor.

Zhao Lusi, meanwhile, is Li Leyan, the cousin of Li Changge who’s also inexorably drawn into the bloody politics of the Tang dynasty. She arguably steals the show at times with her character arc from a naïve girl to an intelligent and kind princess, so you can still expect to see quite a bit of her on her screen (though you might get a little whiplash seeing her facing off against Wu Lei). We might even go so far as to say that it mirrors Zhao Lusi’s own growth from second female lead back in 2021 to first-billed actress in S-level Chinese dramas today. 

• 👀 # of episodes: 49
• 🐧 Original network: Tencent
• 📺 Watch The Long Ballad on: YouTube, Viki, iQIYI

The verdict

As a last step, we plotted Zhao Lusi’s best TV shows and dramas out onto a scatterplot to see where they fall against each other on purely a Douban rating vs. # of Douban users basis, categorized by genre:

A few quick observations:

• Interestingly, despite Hidden Love’s success, Zhao Lusi’s bread-and-butter seems still very much to be historical period dramas. That’s where she’s clearly found the most success so far.
• If Romance of Tiger and Rose put her on the map in 2020, then we think we can also safely say that Love Like the Galaxy was the drama that made her a household name in 2022.
• Her average Douban is 5.5, though it increases to a 6.0 if we just look at the dramas she’s done since 2022. If anything, this showcases that with Zhao Lusi, the great highs (Love Like the Galaxy) also come with great lows (Gen Z).
• Zhao Lusi is very much of a busy bee, with three shows airing every year. 2024 will likely be the first year where that’s not the case. 

So where does an “It Girl” go? Likely up, we hope. Besides The Story of Pearl Girl with Liu Yuning, next up for Zhao Lusi is the modern romance drama Love’s Ambition, which we predict may be another banger if the hype for it is anything to go by (thank the power of Zhao Lusi’s fashion for that).