I’ve noticed that over the years I’ve been writing about C-dramas, and C-entertainment more and more due to the rise of both the quality as well as the increase in cross-border collaborations. Some folks new to C-dramas, or haven’t even dipped a toe in, sometimes enjoy my posts without a clue of who’s popular and why certain stars seem to be pairing up all the time. It’ll take a while to get used to the breadth and depth of acting projects, both dramas and movies, coming out of the huge market that is China, and it’s one market that the Korean stars have been diving into one after another.
The C-entertainment industry monitoring company Vlinkage recently released a ranking report for listing the most buzzed about entertainers in China for all of 2014. The top 100 includes Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese, Hong Kong, and Korean stars, basically any star that got popularity exposure in China was then tabulated by the firm based on online searches, news articles written, weibo followers and reblogs, and online chatter. Topping the one-two position are two good friend actresses Yang Mi and Liu Shi Shi while the third and fourth rank crossed a short strait and landed in the laps of Kim Soo Hyun and Lee Min Ho. Check out the full list below and get a feel for who the C-audience made/kept popular last year.
2014’s Top 100 most buzzed about stars in China, the first half list as ranked:
1. Yang Mi
2. Liu Shi Shi
3. Kim Soo Hyun
4. Lee Min Ho
5. Zhao Li Ying
6. Tang Yan
7. Hu Ge
8. Wallace Chung
9. LI Yi Feng
10. Fan Bing Bing
11. Tong Li Ya
12. Hans Zhang
13. Crystal Liu
14. Gao Yuan Yuan
15. Ruby Lin
16 Lu Yen
17. Qiao Zhen Yu
18. Lee Jong Seok
19. Park Shin Hye
20. Jimmy Lin
21. Qi Wei
22. Chen He
23. Nicky Wu
24. Sun Li
25. Wu Xiu Po
26. Victoria Song (Song Qian)
27. Hawick Lau
28. Jeon Ji Hyun
29. Luo Yi Xiao
30. Chen Qiao En
31. Zhao Wei
32. Chen Xiao
33. Huang Xiaoming
34. Yuan Shan Shan
35. Zheng Shuang
36. Ma Tian Yu
37. Liu Tao
38. Li Jing Ming
39. Li Xiao Lu
40. Gloria Tang
41. Deng Cao
42. Shu Cang
43. Sammul Chan
44. Lu Yi
45. Xie Na
46. Angelababy
47. Zhang Meng
48. Guo De Gang
49. Jung Soo Jung (Krystal Jung)
50. Wen Zhang
Some notables in the second half of the list:
52. Wallace Huo
55. Gillian Chung
56. Eddie Peng
61. Jiro Wang
63. Show Luo
65. Kim Woo Bin
75. Park Hae Jin
85. Ming Dao
86. Jang Geun Seok
92. Stephen Chow
94. Edison Chen
95. Nicolas Tse
96. Janine Chang
99. Ariel Lin
* Random aside: I find the numbers 94 and 95, in that order, to be insanely ironic.
The sub-list ranking of just the Top 10 non-Chinese speaking stars within the greater Top 100 list:
1. Kim Soo Hyun
2. Lee Min Ho
3. Lee Jong Seok
4. Park Shin Hye
5. Jeon Ji Hyun
6. Jung Soo Jung (Krystal Jung)
7. Kim Woo Bin
8. Park Hae Jin
9. Jang Geun Seok
10. Lee Jun KI
The Top 100 sliced into various sub-groups, such as top actresses and top actors and so on, so read on at your leisure.
Shi Shi and Yang Mi ranked higher than her hubbies? Why oh why JJH is ranked like that? She’s literally a goddess. This listing seems bullshit.
O_o…
Plus, it’s in China. Why should JJH be higher than their own mainland actress?…
Duh, they are more famous than their husbands.
Yeah and your opinion is that of the Mainland Chinese citizen? How can you call statistics bullshit just because you don’t agree with it?
…are you serious?
is it that hard to grasp that a country may prefer their own artists more?
puhwahahaha
uh, you should check how many followers yang mi has on her weibo, she is insanely popular
So glad to see my no.1 actor Lee Jun Ki in the top 10 non Chinese speaking stars
Just one minor mistake: Jung Soo Jung is Krystal from f(x), not Jessica.
Fixed! My bad heh.
As a fan of f(x) Victoria (Song Qian), I am actually proud of her to be listed quite high. Even though she only has 1 drama aired so far, she’s definitely up and rising. In 2013, Baidu annual keyword for Celebs were 1.YM, 2.LSS, and 3.Vic. These same 3 were also the only actresses among 2014 Baidu 10 popular artists.And they are also the only 3 actresses among all C-actresses to have over 1 million baidu tieba members. Considering she hasn’t launched her acting career full-force in C-ent just yet, I’m curious to know what will happen in the future.
She is my fav in f(x) but I wasn’t impressed by her 1st drama’s acting. But 2015 would be her year with 2 dramas and a movie lined up. She is a wonderful person and I can’t wait to see her improvement and growth as an actress.
More work leads to more experience. Waiting for the moment she leaves SM and fully focuses on Chinese career. Since her 1st ever drama in 2012, she basically wasted 2 years going back and forth between Korea and China. No matter what, SM’s #1 priorities gonna be its ethnic korean artists and it’s obvious SM just wants to use (or already using) chinese artists like her as a stepping stone. She needs to leave SM and return to China.
I’m glad to hear Shinhye is doing well. And Jung Soojung is f(x) Krystal Jung
So this is the list for first half of 2014 ? Then it’s quite obvious lmh n ksh made it to top 5 with the buzz from heirs n YWCFS
I wrote above it’s the list ranking buzz for all of 2014. It just came out this week.
This list doesn`t really reflect how popular or famous some stars are in China it`s just internet buzz, and mostly among younger crowd. A lot of it has to do with kpop fans not only from China but other parts of the world checking out for Korean stars on Chinese portals.
I know LMH and KSH are hugely popular among younger crowd but if you asked person in their 40s or 50s ,i`m not sure how many would know their name tbh.
Exactly. This Vlinkage index is actually officially called new-media index.
Who cares much about persons in their 40s or 50s? Without them as fans, these two hallyu stars’ popularity is undenialble.
Who cares 40s or 50s? Drama production teams do. LOL. This demographic group is the major tier in drama viewership and has much to do with drama rating.
I heard lee Seungi is very popular in china turns out he isn’t even among the top 100. Speechless
Lee Seung Gi is no where near LMH, KSH, LJS, or even PSH in terms of China popularity. He still has A LOT of work to do if he wants to even get halfway there.
Kinda skimmed through the list to look for Michelle Chen. I thought she got a lot of (bad) press from that Condor Heroes drama?
Though I guess if it’s not bad enough to rank in top100 most talked about celebrity’s, it’s good news for her.
Bwahahaaha… I actually did the same =P LOL
I was looking for Wallace Chung and Li Yi Feng and I’m so happy that they are in the top 10 😀
Wallace Chung is always popular with the C-netizens, even though his posts are scarce. He’s forever the no.1 choice for all the TV adaptations of popular online novels.
Oh really? I never knew that. I only recently found out about him from the drama My Sunshine.
i still wonder why Kim woo bin is ranked in the top 4 hallyu stars when is popularity is not up to spar with Park shin hye
If your only looking at males I would probably include KWB, but he’s really far down in terms of LJS, LMH, and KSH. KWB has yet to have a lead drama role, and only got some shine off of Heirs.
PSH has had numerous popular dramas where she is the lead and was imported to China for high prices. Of course she will be a lot more popular than KWB.
Good to see Lee Joon Gi in the top 10 Non Chinese speaking list! He is my favorite!
wow Liu Shishi is ranked really high
wow
I just find it awesome that in the top 10 actresses Tang Yan, Liu Shi Shi, Yang Mi and actor Hu Ge all starred in CP3 and are in the top 10. I wonder how the list will look in 2015 by next year. I really thought that Wallace Huo would rank higher and so would Eddie Peng after “Sound of the Desert”. I’m happy with the rankings on the list Tang Yan and Hu Ge ranked higher than I thought (for only 1 drama in 2014 so I’m happy). So happy that Hu Ge, Wallace Chung, Li Yi Feng, Tang Yan, Liu Shi Shi and Yang Mi made it in the top 10. I think Wallace Huo might rank higher in the 2015 list when his dramas “Imperial Doctress” and “The Journey of Flower” airs. Yang Mi and Liu Shi Shi are amazing though!
If they had added 4 months of 2013 when the heirs aired, Lee min ho would have destroyed Kim soo hyun easily…hahaha..lucky guy that they only counted 2014 when YWCFS was airing.
So did LHM destroy everyone in 2013 when Heirs was airing? Jeez.
2015 will be zhao li ying , william chan, wallace huo and zhang han