Ruby Lin Taps Yuan Hong as her Leading Man in Drama Adaptation of Han Dynasty Romance C-novel

Actress and producer Ruby Lin is one savvy woman with great taste in men, both in real life and for her drama counterparts. This is the girl who dated Jimmy Lin (forever young and super smart with his career and family life) and likely dated both Alec Su and Wallace Huo as well. I’ve become her fan late in her career after Drama Go Go Go, which was cute, smart and cheeky, and she rounded up three pretty fantastic choices of leading men from Jiro Wang to Lin Geng Xin to Hu Bing. That’s like an entire meal of appetizer, main course, and dessert, and I don’t mean one of those value $15.99 three course specials from TGI Fridays. Her good taste continues because she’s tapped Yuan Hong (my loverboy) to be her next leading man (guy1)! She’s already planning her first TW-drama production in her increasingly successful production company, but the buzz around her recently has been all about her current production of the C-drama adaptation of the popular time-traveling romance novel Xiu Li Jiang Shan  by C-writer Li Xin (秀麗江山 translates to beautiful mountains and rivers, but in this novel is a pun on the combination of the OTPs names referring to the beauty of a woman and a country).

Time traveling may be passe in the two years since Gong and  Bu Bu Jing Xin, so this adaptation will strip out the time-travel element of the novel but stick with the basic epic true story of how a prince restored his family dynasty and also found the love of his life. The drama is called Chang Ge Xing (秀丽江山之长歌行) and is a fictional account of the real life story of Emperor Guangwu of Han. For those of you who read Da Mo Yao and Yun Zhong Ge along with my translations the Han dynasty will not be foreign to you. But those two novels centered around the early-to-mid era of the Han dynasty (also known as the Western Han era), and featured Emperor Wu (Liu Che), Emperor Zhao (Liu Fu Ling), and Emperor Xuan (Liu Xun/Liu Bing Yi). This novel is set a few generations later about their descendant Liu Xiu (劉秀), who restored the Han dynasty after an official deposed the Liu family and started the short-lived Xin dynasty, which bisected the Han dynasty so that Liu Xiu’s return of the Liu family to rule is known as the Eastern Han dynasty. Liu Xiu was famously in love with his Empress Yin Li Hua (陰麗華, ergo the Xiu Li in the title) and this novel is about their love story and his revival of the Han dynasty. Playing Liu Xiu is Yuan Hong, and from all accounts of those who read this novel this is a insanely awesome male lead, and Ruby herself will be playing Yin Li Hua. Ruby has been wanting to work with Yuan Hong for a long time and I’m thrilled it’s finally happened. I think she secretly wants all the BBJX princes and I don’t blame her at all. Check out the official stills and start counting down with me until this airs.