This is certainly happy news for some people, who I’ll venture to guess are the sliver of drama fans who liked the latest widely panned adaptation of wuxia novel Return of the Condor Heroes. This drama version was called Romance of the Condor Heroes 2014 and starred the perfectly cast C-actor Chen Xiao as the male lead with the near universally derided and panned TW-actress Michelle Chen as the female lead, with audience snarky feedback way more interesting than sitting through the terrible drama itself. The real life excitement continues now in what might be the biggest out-of-left-field romance in C-ent this year as the two have been confirmed to be dating after a tabloid followed them for three months and caught them in various hotel rendezvous.
What? Yang Guo is dating his Gu Gu (Auntie) in real life? Who woulda thunk it. At least not this particular Guo Er and Xiaolongnu pairing, as many previous such drama leads in Condor Heroes adaptations have spawned intense shipping from drama fans. So far Chen Xiao and Michelle are only the second Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu to become a couple – the Singapore drama version aired in 1998 led to leads Christopher Lee and Fann Wong to fall in love and eventually get married. Only time will tell if this latest Condor Heroes couple will go all the way, with Chen Xiao at 28 years old a mere four years younger than Michelle so it also fits the noona-dongsaeng romance factor.
I find Chen Xiao adorable to watch onscreen, he’s got so much charm it oozes from his pores and his acting continues to get better with each project. Michelle I’m lukewarm towards on most any acting project of her, and absolutely unequivocally hated in her casting as Xiaolongnu. With respect to this dating news, I’m happy they’re happy together since star love is so beyond my opinion or business. All I know are some Zhao Li Ying-Chen Xiao shippers from their dramas together are likely shedding tears but it’ll pass like all other reel shipping implisions, and probably pass a whole lot quicker if news broke that pretty Li Ying also found her real life romeo.
I’m happy for them…especially when viewers wrote so many negative comments on how she looks….which is so mean and shallow…I’m not talking about whether she fitted the role or not…I think in general people wrote demeaning things…which is so sad.
I didn’t think looks wise was suitable for the role but I certainly didn’t think badly of her or said anything mean about her.
Somehow I like this pairing in real life than in the condor heroes. I hope for the best in the love life and career path. Congrats,
okay she definitely did not match the role. I never thought that looks really matter and even with looks aside, Michelle Chen’s Xiaolongnu was weird. In the pictures, she looks naturally pretty.
Well, happy for both.
No!!!!! Forever ship Zhao Li Ying-Chen Xiao!!!
Lawd, Michelle Chen is so plain. Talk about left field.
Dont usually comment on these things, but Michelle Chen was actually offensive to watch onscreen, at least for ROCH. Her acting is so awful, and I wont go into it about her looks… but seriously, she honestly cant compare to any of the past Xiaolongnu’s. And really? Chen Xiao went from Zhao Liying to her…. I have no words
LMBO you people are so shallow. Seriously? Going off on her looks like that? She looks perfectly fine. Do you think that just because he’s a celebrity he should be dating someone equally beautiful? See, that’s the problem. Girls always complain about how guys should like a girl for more than her looks, but then people go and say crap like this. You set your own standards for guys and then stomp your feet when guys follow it. Girls always going off on other girls’ looks. Sad.
I think she is a cute, original face type of good looking in her modern look. In ROCH she looked an elven beauty. She is not the typical plastic looking leading lady, traditional good looking leads that people are use too. Those girls all look the same.
Im more troubled by how Chen Xio looks in those pictures above. He looks skinny like a bulimic girl compared to the tall, powerful body he has in Legend of Lu Zhen and ROCH. I dont like even the male stars have to be too skinny to do model,lead romantic roles in Chinese/TW,Korean tv shows….
I have this feeling that it was the constant criticism of her that lead to this romance. I would fall in love with any guy too if he was constantly looking out for me and trying to make me happy at a low point in my life.
And I think she’s cute. Regardless of what people say. She was not right for the role and the clothes and script was horrid.
She is quite pretty and cute, just not super beautiful like the fictional Xiao long nu.
In modern pictures I think they look fine for each other and perhsps they connect on many topics and interests. That’s more important….
It’s double standards for the shallow folks. Obviously he sees something in her that he likes. Not sure why this is so hard for folks to understand. I mean, that’s why we like things that some people don’t, and vice versa. But hey, I guess for some people, this is rocket science.
It’s not her looks that makes it painful to watch her onscreen. Its her acting. And the combo of the two is just. Xiaolongnu in ROCH is an ethereal beauty who is cold, strong, and intelligent. Michelle Chen was a giggling teenager who couldnt stop smiling no matter what was happening. This all brings back nightmarish memories of such a highly anticipated, but deeply disappointing remake of the ROCH
Love her shoes though…
At least something happy came out of this adaptation. And dating news always makes me happy too so congrats to this couple! ^^
Her looks doesn’t matter ( she is cute) she proabably a good partner with conversation, he can be himself around her, their personally fits one another and perhaps she is very good in bed! Or…. she is a very good cook and won his heart muahahahaha!!
They only got caught in hotel rendezvous?? So is it a serious relationship or just a fling?? Although sometimes something serious can come out of it from a fling. Mine did. LOL
I’m actually surprised at how attractive she looks in these photos. Perhaps the period garb does not suit her. Also saw an interview she did regarding a commercial set in France and she was pretty cute there too. Haven’t seen her act so can’t comment on that.
her acting was pretty bad in retrun of the condor hero. she was also the ugliest Xiaolongnu in the series.
I didn’t watch ROCH. From what I saw, she didn’t fit the part. Yet, she is a very pretty woman. They look happy together. Good luck to the both of them.
I saw this coming for a while- Chen Xiao’s weibo is constantly rambling about her character from ROCH. He recently admitted that he was told to “fry” their Legend of Lu Zhen CP so all the hand holding and saying he had good feelings for LY was just propaganda. I blame Yu Zheng (afterall that guy did it with Feng Shao Feng and Yang Mi back then). I could tell it was fake since LY denied/refused to cooperate but fans probs thought she was shy or being coy lol. A lot of people on weibo are angry at Chen Xiao for playing with LY but it wasn’t a real relationship anyway.
I just finished watching Lu Zen and was really charmed by Chen Xiao’s character in the drama. So I started to google him (LOL, am a typical fangirl). Then I came across an one-hour long interview of him on a C talk show focusing on the topics such as dating, relationship, and other more serious personal values. He spent quite a span of time bluntly talking about how frustrating it was for him to film CP, specifically with those female leads in previous dramas including Lu Zen, to a point that he said he actually hated it and begged the PD not to do it.
Acting is just actors’ job. I can never get it how fans are so obsessed with on screen shipping and would seriously translate it into real life pairing. It just happened Chen Xiao fell for Michelle Chen off screen mostly bcos they may share the same values in real life about relationship, marriage, and family, etc., and perhaps same interest, hobbies, and life goals. Based on the interview, Chen Xiao said that he only likes the kind of girl who is adherent and loyal to relationship bcos he himself holds that principle dearly and got all the traditional values about relationship from his mom’s teaching. He’s also an amateur artist and draws a lot. And I know Michelle Chen has certain training in art or design too. I do think their relationship blossomed very naturally out of attraction to each other through a lot of things they can share with each other. So how is on screen chemistry to do with real life romance? I’m scratching my head how drama fans could take make believe faking play for real. I do think they look good together. Chen Xiao is smart to get a sweet girl like Michelle Chen whom I really like how she acted in her movies “Hear Me” and the breakout role as the dream girl of many high school boys’ first love in “You Are the Apple of My Eye”. I like how she interpreted those roles. I usually hate overacting very much and I found many popular Asian actresses such as Raine Yang have that tendency to be exaggerating. But Michelle Chen has an aura being modest and natural. There’re reasons why serious Taiwanese movie directors picked her as the main leads. I really like this real-life OTP Chen Xiao and Michelle Chen. BTW, I don’t get it why Chen Xiao was dubbed a big player in C entertainment. Based on his interview, his values are pretty conservative and he was very blunt about how he viewed relationship, celebrity scandals, and drama marketing gimmicks, etc. Wish them a happy ending in real life.
Liying can do much better anyway. She never seemed to be into Chen Xiao
Asians are often unfairly harsh to women about their looks. Actors like Huang Bo, Wang Baoqiang, Moses Chan, Eric Tsang, Cash/Kaiser Zhuang Kai Xun 莊凱勛, Bowie Lam, Eason Chan can be given mainstream movies and/or TV series without massive nasty comments about their looks and weight. But actresses are expected to look like Tong Liya, Brigitte Lin, etc. In many Asian (C-) movies, the actresses tend to look a lot better than the actors. Michelle Chen can look good or bad, partly depending on the costumes and make up, but she certainly looks better than many of the mainstream actors named above. Certainly, many of the above actors are pretty decent. In fact, all of them are probably better in acting than Mich C, but the audience also seemed a lot more willing to give them a chance. Even Vicki Zhao Wei was criticized for being fleshy.
I only caught 1 random episode of ROCH 2014. I saw a long scene with Chen Xiao, the actor for North Beggar and another actor. That long scene didn’t have Mich C in it and was still atrocious. Poor set decoration, costume, make up, direction, and nonsensical script lines. IMO, even Chen Xiao wasn’t able to captivate the audience in that nasty, nonsensical, drawn-out ROCH 2014 scene.
I’m partial for this couple but the drama was horrible, like they could have done a lot of things to fix it like the hair and I just didn’t like her acting in that drama, it was really bland and didn’t fit. She looked nice in the ending of the drama; plus didn’t really see much chemistry between the two leads so this was a bit of a surprise to me since the drama that they filmed together was about a year ago.
I just stared to watch RoCH but already feel like quitting after ep 1. The adult OTP haven’t even shown up yet. The drama doesn’t have the feel in sync with the novel I read. But I really want to see how Chen Xiao and Michelle Chen did in this adaptation.