Tang Yan Breaks from Candy Roles and Headlines Revenge Period Drama The Princess Weiyoung
It’s no exaggeration to say that C-actress Tang Yan is basically over-exposed at this point. And it’s not just the international drama audiences thinking that, C-netizens have also gotten fed up with her being in every other drama or movie, and always playing the same “dense, pale, sweet” (傻白甜) character. The slang “dense, pale, sweet” for a drama female lead is a play on how leading man in drama are always “tall, rich, handsome” (高富帅). Tang Tang has especially been playing only a steady stream of “dense, pale, sweet” types in recent years.
That’s finally going to change as she’s just been confirmed as the female lead of the upcoming C-drama adaptation of hugely popular period novel Jin Xiu Wei Yang (锦绣未央, which also has an alternative novel title of 庶女有毒 The Bastard Daughter is Poisonous). The drama will be called The Princess Weiyoung and chronicles the fictional life, betrayal, and revenge of the titular Wei Young, a bastard daughter who tries her hardest to do what is requested of her but keeps getting stepped on and betrayed by her family and even her husband, who divorces her to marry her own older sister. In the end she gets a second chance at life and proceeds to enact epic revenge on everyone who messed with her. This is definitely not a “dense, pale, sweet” female lead to say the least.
Yay! I’m looking forward to this.
I never understood why Tang Yan always played such candy girls.
Despite people hating on her acting skills… she can actually deliver when it’s NOT candy girls.
The 2 roles that I really liked her in was Chinese Paladin 3 and Xuan Yuan Sword. Especially in Xuan Yuan Sword where she played the powerful demon princess (no candy there!). And yes, she’s not the best actress, but I was hooked on that disaster of a drama JUST because of her and Hu Ge’s tragic love line!
So I hope she really delivers in this drama, and that the plot itself doesn’t go down the sewer.
Exactly!!! I loved her in CP3 and XYZ, but that was three years ago now and since then she’s really just stuck to the Candy types which rly frustrates me. Hopefully she can bring back that intensity and power she had in XYZ, this seems like the sort of role which would need it.
The drama is changing Weiyoung (Tang Yan’s role) to the same type of girl Tang Yan has been portraying lately guys. She’s not gonna be the revengeful, strong, powerful character that she’s supposed to be in the book. She’s going to have men who will protect her, like every other drama she’s been in lately.
I thought I wrote that. Exactly how I feel girl! I love her when she kicks ass and yes Ning Ke and Yuwen Tou’s story broke my heart and made me cry in XYS. And her stunts in Agent X were nothing short of amazing. Its probbly why she got the role for the LMH-WC movie collab. This is definitely something to look forward to. I wonder how she manages her time thou. She’s making 3 movies (that I know of) coming out next year. Jia you Tang Tang!
P.S. I don’t get why some ppl bring up names not even closely related to this article. I mean..duh!
Storyline sounds interesting. This will probably take forever to get subbed too.
I saw her a bit in Agent X and must say she’s really good in badass roles. Her character is some kind of spy and she’s shown Actions move there. I think it suit her more. Isn’t she also play action role in Lost Tomb? I think it’s not that she’s always play candy roles but the one that got popular is her dramas when she played candy’s role.
I find Zhao li ying who was the one who always play the exact same candy roles everytime. She’s adorbs but the noble stupidity of her characters really annoys me. Really hate her character in Journey of FLower
Actually, C-netizens and netizens respond better to Zhao Liying’s acting than Tang Yan’s… especially in candy roles. In Journey of Flower, ZLY goes through quite a transformation and isn’t the same character throughout. Even the producers/directors/writer praised her ability to almost become Hua Qian Gu. And in fact, she’s the only actor to have read the entire novel beforehand. ZLY reads the novels of every novel-to-drama adaptation she’s ever been in, and I think her characters aren’t that easy to play. HQG isn’t a simple character neither was Shan Shan imo. They both become strong individuals in the end, and ZLY acts very well to make it seem easy… but, many actresses who have acted the same types of roles aren’t so well-received. Like Tang Yan, she can’t even do candy roles well.
I agree that ZLY acting is better than TY. I dislike TY’s character in my sunshine. I like ZLY and think she’s a good actress. She can play stupid character but somehow still likable but I don’t think she ever play different roles? I don’t mean to say that her acting is the problem but all the character she played so far are candy roles. Candy roles do get strong in the end that’s kind of the typical roles. I especially hate HQG character because it’s so stupid and illogical, I love other character like Sha Jie Jie, Dong Fang, etc. But not HQG. Though we can agree to disagree.
Yupp, we can agree to disagree. Although I still think ZLY’s characters aren’t the same… while Tang Yan’s are exact carbon copies. Even the settings, male characters, and dialogue is weirdly alike LOL. I just don’t get why Tang Yan keeps choosing to play the same exact characters, even with this drama, the character was changed to be the exact same… so strange. Doesn’t she read about fans’ response? Lots of people who were her fans are frustrated
At least Tiffany Tang is visually more eye pleasing and looks hotter than ZLY. So I wouldn’t mind of her being overexposed lol
Don’t think Tang Yan is more pleasing to the eye. She looks old and plain compared to ZLY. I kinda prefer youthful beauty. Plus, Tang Yan’s never won any awards for being a goddess, ZLY’s already won two (Golden Eagle Goddess 2014, Asian Goddess 2015). She has the kind of beauty that appeals to most people I think
wasnt zhao liying voted by the public as the golden eagle goddess and goddess of asia too? I voted for her, the person in this poster is photoshopped to the max. Shes not hot in person, zhao liying is even better looking in person
ZLY looks like a uglier and tragic face version of Lee Young Ae, korean actress. Her V chin is too pointy and looks like Dr.Kim’s production. She herself looks like pantomimo character. No sexual appeal whatsoever.
That Goddess of Asia thing is irrelevant. Chinese Song Qian, and even korean Yoona won it previous years. Only delulu fangirls with no life spend their time on that.
ZLY’s roles are better though and aren’t completely the same every single time. Eg with Shan Shan she matured at the end and didn’t rely on the male lead (ZH) every time- and became an independent woman. JoF I thought was okay but I saw most of that in Shan Shan already but then the transformation was amazing and her acting was really good. Plus ZLY doesn’t have 5 dramas continuously with stupid and annoying characters. I really like TY and her acting is good but her recent roles are literally the same and really annoying. She’s being yelled at on weibo for anything she does even when she took his drama (which isn’t candy) but people think she can’t act because of her past roles.
Have you watched Cuo Dian Yuan Yang? Best Get Going? I even think Lu Zhen is different from Shan Shan and Shan Shan is different from Hua Qian Gu… What I think it is is that these female characters all start young and act similar, but their character all changes. They all have their personalities, own ambitions, and stories. Her character is Cuo Dian Yuan Yang is really different from all of the rest. I don’t know why, but she’s one of the only actresses who I don’t find annoying. Like Sun Li, she immerses herself in these characters, become them, and so maybe that’s why you feel that these characters all become familiar cause she’s playing them. It’s not that I dislike Tang Yan, but I can never finish her dramas because she’s not unbelievable at all.
Nice!!!
She was fine in MY Sunshine, but I hated her in ‘diamond lover’ to the bones. I need to erase her character from my head asap!!!
Started to read the book. Reviews for this book wasn’t all that great but I am def interested in seeing how this drama production goes.
Thats why Raymond wong chose her to play Lee Min Ho’s love interest by dropping wang mi.. Tiffany tang is extremely popular in China at the moment
Bcos Tiffany is still single whilst Yangmi is married? Hehe the OTP need shipping for the film to achieve greater popularity?
No, because Yang Mi had filming conflicts. Angelababy was the first choice, but she turned it down for another movie offer. So, Tang Yan was chosen.
Yes… She is single, no boyfriend, popular that’s why she is chosen. Good luck!
There’s no ship to begin with. Lee Min Ho has a gf, Suzy of Miss A. They’re a solid couple and Koreans love them. They’re not gonna promote Lee Min Ho-Tang Yan ship since that would mean Lee Min Ho cheating on Suzy with Tang Yan. They just chose who was available. In China, there are more popular actresses, Tang Yan just takes a lot of projects and film projects together. Other actresses don’t do that so they aren’t always available. Yang Mi is currently filming a drama, the Translator, and so she didn’t accept.
I heard Luo Jin, the best friend she ended up with in diamond lovers will be the male lead.
Really? Yay!!!!
FINALLY! I LOVE TANG TANG! But I need her to stop the Candy roles like, you can tell she is not a Candy girl in real life. The only “non candy” role she has played this drama season (kind of) would probably Perfect Couple uggh THANK YOU!!! She can play strong women I am glad they broke her out of that type casting role 🙂 Tang Tang I’M ROOTING FOR YOU!
She’s like Chinese Ha Ji Won. Nobody wants her in candy roles.
LOL. I literally laughed out loud when I read this. At work.
Even as a HJW fan, I was very against her ever taking on any Candy role.
Tang Yan has always looked like she was made of sturdier stuff to be taking Candy roles. So finally, she takes something else. I had sworn off her after Diamond Lovers but I might give this a go.
LMAO, could not make it past episode 4 of ‘The Time Before we Fell in Love’.
Chinese period literature is always (way) more interesting. The plots are more thought-provoking and colourful than recent contemporary reads. I wonder if this (Jin Xiu Wei Yang) is available in English.
Oh that novel sounds like my kind of cup of tea! Anyone aware of any online translation?
Heard that the drama is going to be quite different from the novel in that Weiyoung will be meek and dense unlike the Weiyoung that’s in the book. Think Tang Yan will probably be playing the same type of character again… so don’t get your hopes up, guys.
great to see tang take on different role.
liu shi shi need to stop doing cute role. it kind get old see her doing cute role all the time.
if liu yi fei ever do drama again. hope she will pick a diffrent role/not cute role. her acting is better now. so she should do drama were she kick ass not looking pretty for the camra.
I agree. Liu Shi Shi is best with melodramatic roles (like in BBJX). I usually find her cutsey roles kind of fake.
But it seems that the drama will be completely different from the book though. According to the image drama introduction up there, the main character is a pale, dense, sweet princess of a clan who lost her family so she fled to the countryside where she met Wei Young. Wei Young then died proctecting her so she assumed Wei Young’s identity instead. Not the epic revenge tale that I have read. I got so excited reading this post until I saw the image. Sigh
same, pretty disappointed. Why did the drama completely change the character? For Tang Yan?? Tang Yan has trouble playing these roles so don’t know she’s doing this one
I think the character is probably going to be annoyingly sweet and cute at first then after series of tragedies then (hopefully) will become “evil”. I’m a TY fan but her recent dramas are terrible (everyone knows which one I’m talking about). She can actually do badass roles really well e.g. ZX and Ning Ke was super cool. Perfect Couple was okay because her character could fight and her chemistry with Wallace was super good.But 2015 dramas made me facepalm every time -_- She and her staff need to pick better roles and tone down on the filming dramas. She can handle other roles other than stupid sweet ones.
Lol in that second picture in white, she looks like Yoona.
I think Mainland C and HK have already made enough series of this theme: War and Beauty I and II with Sheren Teng etc, Schemes of a Beauty with Ruby Lin, Zhen Huan Biography / Empresses in the Palace with Betty Sun Li and Ada Choi, War of Beauties with Jessica Hsuan, Beyond the Realm of Conscience, and a number of other series with “Beauty” or “Beauties” in their titles. Various TV producers and directors haven’t come up with anything resembling a breakthrough in this category after Zhen Huan. TY is OK as an actress, but it may be hard for her to outdo the former list of actresses.
As for ZLY, her acting as an antagonist towards the end of JoF wasn’t that convincing. Though she is great at playing a waif. The direction for the entire last JoF episode was bizarre.
I’ve not read any news about this drama (apart from this post), but I think it suits the drama format to tone down the gore and the character a little – the book has certain extreme, graphic scenes which would probably be too much for the television format.
Also, the character herself does start out as a nice, sweet character and in the book this is dealt with very quickly in the first chapter (there are nearly 300 chapters and the book skips to revenge in the second). For television, they’ll probably want (and need) to build up how nice and good she was originally to justify her later epic revenge.
I’m excited to see Tang Yan in a palace drama her acting skills for more serious and bad ass roles are so much better than her candy roles. Firstly I would like to state that Tang Yan is a good actress not the best but she is still good most notably for her roles in CP3, XYZ, the lost tomb, agent x and she did well in Perfect Couple. The problem is how the writers characterize her role which is why some people especially foreign viewers don’t prefer it. If we compare ZLY to TY, ZLY would suit candy roles more because of her baby face since TY has a more mature and sexy appearance as opposed to ZLY who is more cute and innocent like. I believe their acting skills in candy roles are around the same because in my honest opinion they all act the same way in candy roles. Which is why I’m looking forward to TY in a palace revenge drama where she can show case her skills.
In my opinion, ZLY’s role in journey flower look stupid & boring.I can’t continue to see any more.
For TY character, she can play many roles. sometimes candy role feel lovely not boring. I can see at the end of series without feeling turn off T.V. suddenly.