Stars Descend on the 2015 TV Drama Awards Honoring the Best of Mainland Chinese Dramas

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• The most of them really deserve, almost all of the winners are from dramas that were really popular so its normal this looks like popular awards but love me if he dare , nirvana in fire and the disguiser are amazing dramas.
  i only have a problem with Fang Bing Bing i like her but i dont think she deserve it.
  I only hope the dont follow the trend of koreans awards were the give award only for attendance or because the actor are popular but not because his talent

  • I would whole heartedly agree, but I haven't seen her drama this year, as I was never impressed by her acting. For me, the top actress this year should be Liu Min Tao (Disguiser, Nirvana in Fire). She has a strong unique style, but is able act a wide range of roles with depth. Chen Qiao En (Cruel Romance), Jiang Xin (Hua Xu Yin), and Liu Tao (Nirvana in Fire) are skilled (first or second tier) actresses, but have plateaued a few years ago. I haven't watched Sun Li's Legend of MiYue yet so can't comment, but they said it's not as good as Zhen Huan, so not sure if I want to sit through 95 episodes. (But Liu Tao's character looks more appealing in the trailer).

    Zhao Li Ying and Tang Yan are servicible lead actresses, but talent wise is mediocre for now.

  • Gimme a little spoiler here.. I haven't seen the disguiser, what do you think about the ending? Is Hu Ge's character died? Are there any major characters died? Just wanna know those before I start watching..lol.. Sorry, I am a bit traumatized with cdrama ending though. They have good storyline but crappy ending.

    • Don't worry. The Disguiser is solid from the beginning to the end. It is a drama that will make you want to watch over and over again. However, it requires some brain power from the audience, so you might be a little confused in the process. Nevertheless, everything resolves very logically, and is a very tightly written script. I don't really want to spoil this for you and anyone who haven't watch it yet, but there is a death of a major character. I will not say who, but it is a satisfying ending.

      The only weakness in this drama is the HuGe's main love interest. I skipped over some parts of their romance, but she doesn't play a huge role in this drama, so it wasn't a huge problem. (I also convinced myself that she has some features that looks a little like Park Shin Hye).

  • Fan Bing Bing is gorgeous, but after watching a bit of Empress in China I didn't think her acting was great enough to deserve Best Actress. That said, I do harbor lots of bias for Zhao Li Ying.

    Also, what the heck? There's a Best Actress award and then a Most Skilled at Acting Actress award?!!

• Hu Ge, Jin Dong, and Wang Kai totally deserve this, as the Disguiser and Nirvana in Fire are probably one of the best dramas of all times. Unfortunately Wallace Huo didn't get that many recognitions. Just finished Love Him If You Dare, and his acting is just superb. The last few episodes were absolutely thrilling, and it's definitely the first Asian drama filmed right in an overseas setting. I definitely became a fan of the production team behind Nirvana in Fire and Love Him If You Dare, and hope that they'll continue to challenge and surpass themselves. Hopefully Wallace Huo will have an even better project next year. Though I doubt it will happen again, it will be interesting if Hu Ge and Wallace can collaborate again, with Hu Ge as the main protagonist and Wallace as the antagonist!!

  • Nope! That's too much a waste of both talents. Hu Ge and Wallace should never be in the same drama at the same time. They should be given a lot a lot of space for utilizing their gifts to the maximum. Also double hotness overloads would be too much to handle, poor for my heart. LOL

    • No actually it would be great, especially if they wrote it like The Disguiser. I mean I went to watch it for Hu Ge because of Nirvana in Fire but I fell for Jin Dong and Wang Kai (i didn't like him as Prince in NIF I know I was too biased) But the 3 did such a great job playing off each other plus their sister and Jin Dong crazy ex were amazing i'm surprised they didn't win anything major. I mean I was watching this and completely forgetting that they are just acting and was totally immersed in their story. Wallace and Huge can work as long as they have a great writer and production team.

  • I don't mind if they collab when they get to the age of 55+ years old though. LOL

    • Well that is true, and it was absolutely thrilling to watch them duke it out this year. I think Wallace has slightly the upper hand in terms of skill and Hu Ge had the better projects. Both still have huge room to grow despite having so many projects under their belts already. The happiest thing is that both are still able to remain the best of friends, unlike the unfortunate Vic Zhou and Mark Zhao pairing. I hope they'll continue this friendly competition and light up the next decade of Cdrama growth!

    • @ Ivana. I still can't weigh who's got better acting skills between these two. Actually Hu Ge didn't really get good scripts all the time. After his huge success with NIF and The Disguisers, he's handed down a crappy project, Good Times, even this drama also raked good ratings in China. This last drama, in all my honesty, is very boring and I yawned through most of the episodes. LOL.

      It's odd why Vic Zhou didn't get the best actor for his role in Black and White, but Mark Zhao as the 2nd lead (I assume)did. Is this the reason why they alienate from each other?

    • @Drama2016 yes, I saw the reviews for Good Times, so I didn't watch it. However, I was referring to Nirvana in Fire and The Disguiser being better and more solid projects than Journey of Flower, based on the skill and devotion of the production team. The reason why I feel that Wallace is a slightly a better actor at this point is because I feel he can play a wider range of characters. Mei Chang Shu is a perfected/more evolved version of Jiu Ye from Sound of desert. Ming Tai requires more skill to act out the multi layered disguise, but Wallace's Simon and Allen are completely mind blowing. (Though this is just personal opinion)

      Vic Zhou and Mark Zhao did fall out after the award ceremony. Some people might attribute it to Mark's father or some other connections behind the scenes, but when I rewatched the series I feel that their skills are comparable, despite the fact that Mark was a beginner.

    • @Drama2016 Ming Tai was probably HuGe's most difficult character played to date, as the range is wide and I feel that HuGe's performance is very detailed and nuanced. Unfortunately, he was acting along side Jin Dong, whose maturity and charisma overshadowed him. Nevertheless, HuGe made huge leaps in his acting this year, and I am excited to see his acting mature even more in the next!

    • @Ivana, I think Hu Ge's acting in Good Times is amazing. He portrayed a career-wise successful small business man but very indecisive and emotionally fragile in all his relationship. Usually we saw more heroines of similar character in Asian dramas, but not heroes (as I know so far). His acting as a modern young man going through ups and downs is really comparable to his signature roles as period heroes. I liked him after watching Nirvana in Fire, but respect him as a serious actor after watching Good Times. It's just the plot of GT is draggy and I flinched at some conversations. Hu Ge and Wallace are buddies and I think their acting skills are just parallel to each other to make them really compelling pals. Wallace is great in Love Him If You Dare. I didn't like his styles in period dramas. He has that modern looks. But I'm looking forward to his new period drama in 2016 with Liu Shi Shi as the leading lady. (I don't remember the drama title.)

    • @Drama2016 Yes! I'm waiting for his drama with Liu Shi Shi too. It's The Imperial Doctress, which airs in Febuary. When you said you don't like his style in period dramas, are you referring to his Battle of Changsha? I found him absolutely stunning in that one. Unfortunately, i didn't like the main actress as much, and she took up the majority of the screen time.
      I personally don't like modern day dramas as much, but just recently finished HuGe's Unbeatable, which was amazing!! I've watched many HuGe dramas throughout the past decade, and just became a fan this year, so I'm going back to his modern dramas that I missed. Is there anyone you would recommend?

    • @Ivana, nope, not Battle of Changsha but the popular drama the Journey of Flower. I haven't watched Battle of Changsha yet. I think I tried 1 or 2 ep before but the setting of BoC kinda confused me. I may give a shot again since many fans raved about the drama. I actually did not watch many of Hu Ge's dramas, only the Ballad in Desert, Nirvana in Fire, Good Times, a bit of the Legend of Condor Heroes (did not finish since I'm not really a Wuxia fan), and a bit of the Disguiser. I tend to end up liking or hating an actor/actress very quickly by just following one or two very impressive (or crappy) works of their projects. (This is obviously my personal bias LOL.) I actually just started to avidly watch C dramas around this September, starting with Nirvana in Fire. I'm supposed to be the one asking ppl any good recommendation. So far, I like My Sunshine, Just You (T drama), Boss and Me, and Tornado Girl. Now I'm closely following my new crush Yang Yang for his new dramas and movie in 2016. LOL...

    • @Drama2016 I can see why you won't like the ancient Chinese dramas, as you started with the cream of the crop: Nirvana in Fire. Even those who followed C dramas for a long time have a difficult time picking the next drama to watch after this one. If you didn't finish the Disguiser though, I don't think Battle of Changsha would be your thing. I don't watch that many modern day dramas other than popular TW dramas up to In Time With You, so I can't give that many recommendations. However, some quality ancient period dramas include Ruby Lin's The Glamorous Imperial Princess and Mei Ren Xin Ji. The Legend of Zhen Huan was also worth the popularity it got. I would also recommend watching the C version of Bu Bu Jing Xin if you haven't seen it yet.

    • For 2015 C-period drama, Wuxin The Monster Killer is actually reasonably entertaining and has good production values with beautiful cinematography and music. It features a number of young newbies in lead roles. The problem is the comic supporting actor is sometimes annoying.

      Though we may have very different tastes in TV. Battle of Changsha has great production values, but I find some of the actors/characters quite annoying. The lead girl is a bit lame and useless; her twin brother is super-annoying and pathetic. There are other characters and subplots that I failed to appreciate too.

    • FYI, I find Ruby Lin's Glamorous Imperial Concubine ("Everyone loves Ruby") is a bit overrated. The plot is about how many great men of the time are in love with Ruby Lin. The plot even included a royal family where the Emperor (Royal Father) and ALL his 3 sons are in love with Ruby Lin. One of these 3 sons is Ruby's love. I wish I were exaggerating. Additionally, her extended fan club still has Wallace Huo etc. W Huo did a good job with his role, but ...

  • I also want to see Hu Ge and Wallace Huo together in drama, specifically in Lost You Forever drama adaption as Jing and Zhuan Xu. Still could not figure out which actor should be cast as Xiang Liu. Because he is describe so perfectly gorgeous demon.

  • They won't, at least not in the near forseeable future. Hu Ge has spoken of taking a break from acting this year. A bit unusual to stop when you are at the top but I think he feels trapped by celebrityhood. Said he wanted time for himself. Hope he doesn't stay away too long.

  • Love Me If You Dare - I think it started off well and started faltering early on. The gf was initially astute but ended up a common weak, flower pot. Wallace started off eccentric and less than mid-way through, dumped that personality and became a regular joe. If Wallace wasn't so good looking, I would have given up on the show long ago. Good Times - Hu Ge should stay away from romantic, soppy shows like these - ending was predictable and I wanted to throw my slippers at him for 3/4 of the show with his poor choice of gfs. I only finished it because of the last gf. Imo, Hu Ge is a more versatile actor than Wallace - he can do comedy, hearthrob, serious while Wallace has mainly a blank face but Wallace has had much better roles in better dramas. Love them both to bits though.

    • I think the script is more at fault. Wang Liping, the scriptwriter, did a better job with ShengHuo QiShiLu. But that series is not watched much outside of China bc the female lead, Yan Ni doesn't look like a beautiful waif. A lot of Western audience member complained about how she doesn't pair well with Hu Ge.

      Wallace is a great actor, but he is type-cast with a lot of quiet/introvert/cold-but-smart roles. Strange Hero Yi Zhi Mei, Glamorous Imperial Concubine, World's Finest/Tian Xia Di Yi, Chn Paladin 3, Journey of Flower, Love Me,.. All of them are in the "cold-but-smart" category.

  • @Ivana: About your comment on which are good Hu Ge's contemporary drama; I find ShengHuo QiShiLu with older lead actress Yan Ni is pretty good, though Yan Ni's character has a very annoying ex-mother in law. A lot of people didn't watch it bc YN is not a cute leading lady.

    Hu Ge and costars did a good job in Unbeatable, but unfortunately the script is flawed. The script doesn't know how to deal with corporate twists at all, which makes one wonder perhaps the scriptwriter never had a corporate job at all. The business plot actually came out very messy.

• C drama awards make more sense to me than K drama awards based on how they evaluate actors/actresses and production. Nirvana in Fire, Love him if you dare, My Sunshine, and Whirlwind Girl are really fun to watch.

  Nirvana in Fire deserves everything best including Hu Ge, Wang Kai, the rest of the cast, script writing, directing, and artistry directing. I really love this drama, the best among all the Asian dramas I've watched so far. He Ge and Wang Kai are awesome as the main cast.

  Also Kudos to Yang Yang, my new crush. (I can't help putting on smiles when mentioning him. LOL...) Unfortunately the Lost Tomb started on high notes but ended up with a mess. The scenes of the pivotal role in the novel, Zhang Kyling played by Yang Yang, were randomly cut to merely 15+ minutes throughout the whole 12 episodes due to his termination of the contract with the old agency and there's a rumor that they did this to prevent fans from being attached to Yang Yang so that they could get someone else to take his role in the sequels. Instead, they created nonsense garbage characters (that were not in the original novel) as fillers to ass kiss the drama sponsors. As a result, 12 episodes were dominated by crappy fillers with trivial chitchat between these added minor roles. The script writing (or editing) of the Lost Tomb is a huge flop. The pace was extremely slow without any excitement usually you could expect of an adventurous story. There's much disconnection between each scene that's clueless to follow and the end results are illogical. Still, Yang Yang portrays the mysterious figure, Zhang Kyling, really well. He literally made Kyling alive again in the drama series, as he did equally impressive interpretation of Roubai in the Whirlwind Girl. Fans have already taken him for Kyling Xia Ge even with that limited screen time. I hope the production team gets smart and won't replace someone else for his role in the sequel this year. Also, he deserves more screen time. Without him, I won't watch the drama. Other than Yang Yang, there's really nothing else much interesting to rave about in the Lost Tomb 1. Li Yi Feng well suits the main character. But it's just the storyline was extremely bland and that might have had a negative impact on how he looked in the whole series.

  Finally, congrats on Ji Chang Wook's award for his hot outbreak performance in Healer. I guess all his hard work and investment in China finally paid off. Now antis can shut up saying he's not popular at all in the Chinese market. At least, he's the sole K actors who's got recognition here.

  • Typo - sole K *actor.

  • that doesn't make him as popular as ksh, lmh, ljs as his fans claimed either...
    KSH is busy with his movie. LJS and LMH didn't have a drama last year.

    • LOL...here comes antis + troll. Jealous much????? Hahahahahaha..I'm also a fan of those actors you mentioned. Why compare???? Did I compare him with other K actors? Just accept the fact JCW IS THE ONE WHO GOT AWARD HERE. Congrats again!

    • @lolol hehe JCW hater eh,lol. JCW is an underrated K-idol, when his popularity already started to make waves in "Empress Ki", his impressive bipolar acting already put him in the map, even better than the ones made by the K-idols you mentioned. Lucky for him his next Drama action-romance "Healer" even made him a credible actor comfortable in action sequences compared to your idols. For a big Asian market like China, that says a lot, JCW cant be typecasted just as a Drama King loverboy idol, but he's got the backbone to make it into action movie market. JCW future is big. Good luck to Ji Chang Wook, aja aja hwaiting!

    • @drama2016 I'm not against JCW. In fact I like him. But it's his fans are ones that put other actors/projects and made a huge deal his popularity in China when it's really very little compared to the other guys.
      They are the one that made many dislike Healer and JCW. She just said he isn't as popular in China as his fans claimed, which is true.

    • @haha lmao to you, so now you underestimate JCW popularity in China when he just got a popularity award in China! so are you questioning now the credibility of all those actors awarded in this Chinese award giving body??? like wtf are you, how stupid can your comment get when JCW got the award, butthurt dumbass hater!

    • @haha, these Chinese awards were conferred to those who made a statement in 2015. To me, this award list is more reasonable than most of the K drama awards. I believe the judge panel handed out the award to JCW based on their assessment of the market impacts of all the visible K actors/actresses have made on Chinese fans during 2015. So we're talking about 2015 performance here. If other "popular" K actors were absent from the Chinese market in 2015, then there're no reasons to defend them if the popularity award is given to someone else. We're talking about pop culture here in the sense being presence at scenes is the basic element to define "popularity". LJS and LMH's presence in the Chinese market may not be as noticeable as JCW in 2015 even they made their ways into the Chinese market earlier. That's the plain fact.

• Wow...
  I'm so happy for Ji Chang Wook!

  He got completely ignored in all awards events in Korea and I'm happy that China recognized his amazing performance in healer and the popularity that ensued out of it.

  When you are recognized as a popular actor in China, it means that you are really popular as China is the biggest country in the world?

  Ji Chang Wook has arrived ladies and gentlemen!

  Not only did he get the award, he also got to perform in such an exclusive and most watched platform .

  Comparing to LMH's role in City Hunter which are of similar genre, I felt JCW's Impact more in the international front.

  I'm really proud of him!

  • If I'm not mistaken, there was a nod to the Healer during last year's Korean Awards. Maybe that's why they didn't mention him again this year.

  • He won popular award for healer at KBS awards in 2014 and 2015 APAN (Asia Pacific Actors Network) Awards for an Excellence Actor for Healer too

    • sorry nominated for APAN 2015

  • Same here, so happy for Ji Chang Wook! He got to be recognized in the biggest market in the World, China. Now that's really overwhelming for him. Proud of baby boy JCW. He's my favorite Korean actor and yet he seems invisible in Korea, like wtf was that!?! H'ell yah, who cares, the World outside is bigger than Korea.

• Well, just learned that the directors of Nivana in Fire, The Disguisers, and Love Him if You Dare are the same duo. They are really great. I will definitely watch their works again next time.

• Surprisingly, I watched more Chinese series, new and old, than Korean this year, so it's great to be able to recognize everyone on stage. All the dresses are so colorful with pretty patterns and designs. Definitely a treat for the eyes. Although these are popularity awards, I'm glad to see Nirvana and Disguisers getting lots of recognition. I want to send out my love to the production team behind these series. They also produced Battle of Changsha, which was a stellar series. I'll definitely continue to follow their dramas.

  • Me too, I feel that many Korean dramas are losing their touch. I watched less and less of them each year and more China productions nowadays. Koreans are doing too many remakes and really making a mess of them.

    Congrats to all the winners, so happy for Hu Ge( I just adore him).

  • +1

    My 1st year watching chinese dramas and it felt good to recognize almost everyone on stage.

    My crush is Wallace Huo...

    That man is beautiful beyond words!

  • +1. C dramas save me from getting bored of K dramas this year. While I yawned through most of the K dramas I tried to watch through last year, I couldn't stop watching C dramas one after one. In particular, Chinese period dramas really outperform most of the Sageuk I've watched. Chinese history is so rich to provide plenty of topics to make up stories and the filming settings are so fabulous. Besides amazing cinematography that's often seen in movies only, C actors also look less plastic but still hot to make your heart flutter. LOL

• wow Ji Chang Wook, glad that he made it and I think he deserved it. He can act, sing and good looking. well packaged. I like him better than joo won.

• i seriously dont get it. My Sunshine's power was Wallace Chung yet Tang Yan won the award. sigh. sorry not sorry.

  but NIF and the disguiser deserved all those awards. chukae my Nick Wang Kai <3

• I don't follow C-dramas so I'll have to defer to your opinions as to whether or not these stars deserve their win. But, how much to I love Chen Qiao En's dress??? It's gorgeous!!!

  • They are quite a few to recommend. For period drama, definitely Nirvana in Fire. You can also try Bu Bu Jin Xin. Also I like the romance in Legend of Lu Zen. There should be more interesting ones coming out in 2016. For contemporary drama, I recommend Love Him if You dare in terms of production. Personally I also love My Sunshine, Boss and Me, and the Whirlwind Girl (Tornado Girl) that are adaptations of web novels.

• Hi koala,I read somewhere that a content power index list is out which has ranked the most buzzed china stars in 2015, as far as it seems a legit ranking would you please write about it in one of your post! I'm really curious about this one!