Huang Xiaoming and Victoria Song are the Leads in the C-drama Adaptation of Once Promised

It’s rare for me to be totally caught off guard but this C-drama news is a major out of nowhere announcement. Tong Hua’s period fantasy wuxia novel Once Promised (Ceng Shu Nuo) is getting a C-drama adaptation starring Huang Xiaoming and Victoria Song (Song Qian). It’s the story of the parents generation before the sequel novel Lost You Forever that I’ve been translating, with Huang Xiaoming and Victoria playing the leads Qi Yo and Xi Ling Heng, who are the parents of LYF’s female lead Xiao Yao. They are not the ones I would have picked in a million years to play the leads but for some reason it’s actually not sounding bad to me. Huang Xiaoming does the bold brash arrogance really well and that’s exactly the character of Qi Yi, while I like that Victoria isn’t one of those dainty slight female leads and if her acting has improved she isn’t a bad pick as the resourceful and impetuous Ah Heng.


Comments

Huang Xiaoming and Victoria Song are the Leads in the C-drama Adaptation of Once Promised — 27 Comments

  1. How can such a wonderful ethereal novel be adapted into a silver screen? Every readers have this world in their heads already and recreating that world is one big challenge for the production. I trust that the actors can do justice with characters but the fantasy/mythology part of this world, not so sure. Anyway, I love the poster.

    Ms. Koala, let’s finish Lost You Forever. Give us the happy ending XY deserves. Give us, the readers, the closure we long for since starting this journey with you.

  2. I know she has her dedicated fans who jump on any comment not fawning over her, but I still don’t think she has the “It” factor has an actress, and her acting while slightly better, isn’t something I would bank an entire drama on. Luckily for her, since it is a C-drama, she will most likely be dubbed, and the voice actress will do most of the emoting work, and also mute the lisp that can be heard when she speaks at times.

    • Even dubbed with others’ voices, she is still not interesting to watch..a bit overacting, over hyped sometimes…Not hating on her. I watched her variety show “Sisters over flower” something like that. She made me cringe. Perhaps the variety show is entirely scripted. But her in the show is not likable anyway.

      • I think you watched like first episode of that variety show.
        http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sl5h0f This is what happened to prior to airing the show and actually they found out the first ep was scripted. One of the producers even ratted out on his weibo that she was given that “role.” After that controversial episode aired, a lot of other TV station weibos, Entertainment weibos, and gossip weibos all took Victoria’s side and defended her. Hashtag asking Dragon TV to apologize to Victoria was even trending that time.

      • She does overact in variety, I still remember her run in We Got Married, and the persona she displayed. I know many find that endearing, but something about it screamed fake (not the coupling, because that goes with the territory), but the constant aegyo was very off putting.

      • @qiaane you might think she is overrating but guess what? that WGM show is what started her popularity in Korea and China, even with her careen in China right now… So I guess there are million people disagree with you

  3. I don’t want to pre-judge the casting but Once Promised is quite literally my favourite C-novel ever and I just have doubts as to whether HXM and Victoria can bring to life the wonderfully deep and tragic characters of Chi You and Ah Heng. Crossing my fingers that Vic ups her acting game and HXM doesn’t try to overact his pants off in this role…

  4. Omg Huang xiaoming is my dream casting for Chi you! I thought it can never happen since he’s more of a movie actor/producer now. So excited! *goes off to hyperventilate*

  5. Wow, Victoria as leading lady in so many high profile projects…

    I haven’t seen her act, but isn’t it odd that she’s being cast to act opposite leading men such as FSF and HXM?

    • Entertainment is a business, as you know. It sells a product. Yes, movie or drama is a product. Nowadays, producers, directors and movie makers prioritize profits and incomes first. And nothing wrong with that, it’s capitalism. HXM is a well known top star. As for Victoria, she is a newcomer to c-entertainment but she was already a star of her own with a big fanbase which is willing to spend all their money on her (same as Luhan or Kris aka other chinese kpop stars). And that fanbase is constantly growing bigger. That means she is marketable. Not to mention, it seems people love to work with her, according to all possible accounts she is one of the nicest person to work and interact with. Also, people tend to forget that she’s teamed up with one of the industry’s biggest sharks Jia Shikai. He is doing his job very well, I must say.

    • She had 2 dramas aired only and both did super well with rating even small production.
      People can say she has no IT factor but rating and statistics don’t seem to agree.
      She is and will continue to get all the great offers as long as her projects keep doing well

  6. I think whenever a novel is adapted, every reader has their own imagination for casting and everyone’s opinion will vary. Whoever is casted as leads, it’s not gonna be someone you thought in one way or other. I just hope they adapt the story well for the drama. I saw her in Beautiful Secret. She improved from her first drama for sure. To be honest, there are other actresses who debut more than 10 years and don’t improve…so at least that’s a good sign.

    It’s true she is up and coming rising star right now with a big fandom. These production companies are doing their business, not doing some charity. When she’s getting so many offers here and there, it means at least the production companies like her and would like to cast her in their productions.

  7. The cgi are gonna break this drama…once promised has way too many fantastical elements to be properly translated onscreen esp a drama….and i so love this book that it will hurt if it sucks. I will just wait for reviews and watch if its truly watchable and cut my losses like a did with LYF

  8. OMG,this news really make me happy. I hope, they will also adapt Lost You Forever into drama soon. Btw, did anyone know which production house will produce this drama ?

    • There’s 2 main companies written on the poster. They said it’s same team who made My Sunshine(Wallace Chung, TangYan) and Boss&Me (ZhangHan, ZhaoLiYing)

      • Thanks, Reverie.
        I haven’t watched both dramas you mentioned. Just hope that they will have decent CGI and FX for this one. Because this story deserved to be produce as good as illustrated in the book.

    • Yep, the cliff shaped like female face. I forgot to mention the poster also really work of art. Really capture true essence of the story.

  9. It doesn’t sound so bad – I just hope it won’t be like Yun Zhong Ge, which I couldn’t make myself watch for fear that it would ruin the story for me.

    • I am watching Yun Zhong Ge right now out of obligation,
      I just want to know how long I can take it cause I already finished Da Mo Yao,

  10. I cried buckets when reading once promised. Literally sat in a bathtub with a laptop. This movie’s gonna rip my heart out and play soccer with it.

    Currently writing my own novel. I can’t even imagine how Tong Hua has the emotional strength to write everything the way she does.

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