Cheng Yi and Deng Wei are the Winningest C-actor Drama Male Leads of the Summer 2023 Competition Packed Season

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• Deng Wei is sweet in LYF, but Zhang Wan Yi had the most intricate lines and acting to deliver and Tan Jianci’s performance was all about expression at the highest level. Deng Wei had to lie down for most of the last eps. Hahaha. I still have a crush on all 3, so that’s a definite props to the casting director!

• I don’t thinks expected Jing to breakout as it did. Nobody wanted that role because it was not as interesting. I think it has a lot to do with his looks and aura. Deng Wei does fit Jing really well as he has this regal look to him in costume. I didn’t notice him before but I will definitely check out his works in the future.

  Zhang Wan Yi is definitely a talent for sure and he has a bunch of other projects line up even become this. I’m sure he will blow up in no time.

  Yang Zi sure is the golden girl as she always elevated her costars to higher fame.

• To me the breakout stars were Zhang Wan Yi and Tian Jian Ci. For Zhang Wan Yi - Stellar acting from him that simply blew me away. My question is "where have you been all my life and why have I not known you existed prior to this drama?" I personally believe that he, Tian Jian Ci and Zang Yi elevated the acting in their roles in a way that Deng Wei struggled to keep up.

  I have always known Tian Jian Ci existed and have always loved him, 'Under the Skin' made me a fan of his, but he took his acting up a notch in this production and his acting chemistry with Yang Zi is simply fire.

  Glad that all the leads got more exposure with this hit drama. Can't wait for the second season!

  • Deng Wei still managed to make an otherwise unloved character popular . He did a fine job given he's only a rookie (debuted 2 years ago) and has no acting background! Tushan Jing was the least liked character in the novel... branded as bland, boring and spineless by the novel's readers that many popular actors wouldn't even took on that role (truth is many rejected it probably afraid of hurting their image)

    Zhang Wang Yi is a Beijing Film Academy's graduate (Yang Zi is his senior) and Tan Jian Ci has gained experience through his years in the industry (10 years+) Considering their resume, that's a given they would give A+ performances + their characters are more compelling (badass, multi-layered...) so more appealing to viewers/audience.

    All in all, Tushan Jing wasn't supposed to be popular in the first place. Deng Wei
    gave this character life and I'm eternally grateful to the casting director for giving him the chance to play this role. DW's status is already rising thanks to this role. Standing alongside Cheng Yi as most popular male lead this summer is a win in my book. Really happy for him.

    • I will stand to correct that TSJ was definitely not the most unpopular character in the novel. That title would go to Cang Xuan (Zhang Wanyi's character) without a doubt. There was a reason that many readers thought CX was actually the villain in the story until Tonghua came out and clarified that he was actually the male lead. Most of the shipping wars prior to the drama release were between TSJ and XL, with CX sitting in a forgotten corner.

      While I don't think inexperience is an excuse to a poor performance, I do agree that DW brought something to the table, whether it'd be his looks, his height, or even his puppy teary eyes. But it'd be ignorant for fans to disregard what the character of TSJ brought to DW's popularity, as the criticisms surrounding TSJ mostly concerned the latter story arcs of his character, while the appealing aspects of TSJ were prominently displayed in the earliest episodes, when most viewers start to board their preferred ships.

      I personally hope that he keeps working at his acting, since right now I'm seeing a very narrow path ahead of him without significant acting improvement. A pretty face can only get you so far, even in the idol drama genre. Just look at the career of Gong Jun, as noted by many commenters here, who I actually think has a pretty face and better acting than DW.

  • TBH, I've got a feeling Deng Wei is just gonna be another Gong Jun. Despite Deng Wei's constant marketing about resembling Xiao Zhan (he actually resembled Kris Wu instead, but who would want to market themselves as being the second Kris Wu now LOL), his acting range is very similar to Gong Jun and both of them will turn ugly when they make big facial expressions like wide smiles.

  • @ Xoxo

    I think you are not being fair to Deng Wei. He played his role as TSJ very well for a very new/untrained actor. I’m looking forward to see more of his works. 🤙🤙🤙

  • TBH, I feel that Deng Wei is just gonna be another Gong Jun. Although Deng Wei has been marketing himself about resembling Xiao Zhan (he actually resembles Kris Wu more, but let's face it, no one would want to market themselves as resembling Kris Wu now), he actually has more similarities with Gong Jun. Both of them cannot make big facial expressions when they act, they can't do wide smiles either.

    • Deng Wei's acting also reminded me of Gong Jun's acting the same nervous I'm not quite sure what I am supposed to be doing a bit unnatural kinda vibe.
      Lol plus I also think Deng Wei's face looks like Kris Wu which is probably not beneficial right now. But I hear that he is very new to acting maybe he's not reached his acting limit just yet unlike Gong Jun.

    • @Rrrt Hopefully he will improve in the next project. He's a 95er so he still has about 3-5 years before he gets too old for idol dramas, and he won't be able to do serious dramas unless his acting improves.

    • Can’t do wide smiles? Are you seriously bringing up an insult from Weibo that was used by jealous competitors to attack him because they were afraid of his rising popularity. Where did get all these insults from? twitter? I saw some crazy bringing this up, together with KW and XZ stuff - say all you want about that but making fun of his smile is just utterly low. The poor kid was so self conscious on a livestream the day after it went viral he couldn’t smile properly throughout the session.

    • It's the truth though, his facial muscles go haywire whenever he does a wide smile, there's multiple videos around showing it. He also appeared like that on Hello, Saturday. A fact is a fact, fans need to stop deluding themselves.

    • i agree that he might just be another gong jun. saying this as a former junweixian myself.

      deng wei looks weird when he smiles. that screenshot of him smiling on his latest hi6 appearance is so terrifying to look at.

• LYFs1 was terrific, a really fantastic surprise! Yangzi is such a talent and the boys 10/10.

• Also to be noted, Cheng Yi is not starring in a romance. So, good for him.

• XL as a character did not translate well on screen. No fault of TJC though, a large part of the appeal of book XL was because his innermost thoughts, feelings and intentions were to left the interpretation and imagination of the reader based on what his actions insinuated - he was mysterious and complicated. But they made TJC act out XL’s feelings, while it let TJC display his acting chops, XL became an open book and lost his mysterious aura, which was a large part of his appeal.

  The opposite is true for TSJ, you can’t really write tenderness , sweetness, longingness, devotion, stuff like that, in a book but DW brought that out, together with a certain quiet despair and brokenness in the later episodes, with the right nuance and restraint on screen. He’s still patchy in heavier scenes, understandably given his lack of experience and training, but he elevated an otherwise flat 2D character with depth and actual feelings.

  ZWY is just great.

• I love Jing to bits in the drama version compared to being indifferent to him in the novel version. So huge credit must be given to Deng Wei for bringing the character Tu Shan Jing to life and making him so loved by audience. Will keep lookout for his future works although I am generally not a Cdrama fan.

• Lol. Another subjective (at least if not biased) assessment from Koala. I respect Koala for being informative on Kdrama. But as for Cdrama, I beg to disagree with her oftentimes. This is one more example that I have different perspectives.

  Talking about elevated level in terms of popularity, Koala is perhaps not far from reality. The three MLs in LYF got more popular because of their exposure in a popular drama with a popular FL. I have no qualms about that. Cheng Yi's MLC was well received. I don't want to argue about that either. I have no comments on Gung Jun since I'm indifferent to him. As for two top liuliang actors, I have different assessment.

  Yang Yang has been under reckless attacks triggered by his controversial performance in Fireworks of My Heart. To be fair, the rash of criticism was partially motivated by ppl in conflicts of interest with YY, not necessarily objective. C-ent is a cutthroat market with limited sources of lucrative endorsements and drama productions. YY, like other liuliang actors, has taken up a large part of those sources of revenues. It's nothing new that some shady rivals would be taking any advantage to bring him down. That being said, YY has several hit dramas under his belt with a sizable fan base, let alone even FoMH was still very popular this summer, topping many charts during its first run on air. It's too early to project his acting career in the future. Calling him a loser is presumptuous and losing sight. He may stay stagnant with limited acting chops or may have breakthrough out of the bottleneck. Who knows? I wouldn't rush on a bandwagon of his social media fallout to label him a failure!

  Koala once again proved herself so ignorant of XZ. To my understanding, XZ is perhaps the most successful C actor this summer, having two very popular dramas premiered back to back without any promo or public announcement in advance but still attracting large viewership and showcasing his versatile acting range by taking two completely opposite characters in two different genres: serious period drama (aka 正劇) vs idol Xianxia. Very few actors in C-ent so far has this sort of acting range with the whole package including visuals, height, mannerism/aura, popularity, and solid acting. In the older generation, I can only think of Hu Ge who had an equivalent appeal. In the newer generation, Chen Xiao is the only one actor other than XZ who has come up in my list that can carry alone both serious dramas and idol dramas at the same time. XZ had never done any serious dramas as the single ML before TYM. His prior drama costarring with another ML, Ace Troops, though a commercially successful serious drama due to his popularity, isn't as critically acclaimed as The Youth Memories by many pro critics from major Chinese media. This latter drama in the low season of airing Chinese dramas this year, not only has received accolades everywhere in China, but also a huge commercial success (in terms of number of ads sponsorship) with high ratings topping every chart during its first run on air back in June and is still in the top 10 Vlinkage TV drama list as of today. The youth Memories continued to be purchased by other major TV channels because of its excellent reviews and profitability. The Youth Memories in particular along with XZ's 3-year stage experience of critically acclaimed play, A Dream Like A Dream, has gained him the recognition from C showbiz that he's not only a liuliang, but also can carry alone a serious drama with guaranteed success. TYM has opened a wide door for XZ to advance his career into serious drama genres that's considered a breakout accomplishment for any Chinese actor (per unique Chinese drama categorization and sociocultural environment). I came to this conclusion based upon plenty of interviews of XZ with major state media and several mainstream commercial media besides high ratings of his dramas on all the charts. I also read enough pro and scholastic critics inside China to confidently say out loud XZ's huge success this year. I don't think my opinion about XZ is hyperbole. Among all the peer C actors of his age, XZ is the only one who can bring both an idol drama and a serious drama to popularity and receive great reviews at the same time. If he's #2, no one else can be #1.

• Based upon how popular idol dramas premiered in the summer alone to evaluate popularity gains/losses is very short-sighted. As far as I know, even the three MLs has become more visible thanks to LYF, their popularity is still not up to par with existing liuliang stars like XZ, YY, and GJ. There always had been actors with one-hit dramas in one season each yr yet their popularity seemed to die down quickly after that hit drama. The foregoing Liuliang actors, however, has not been taking up hot search spots online as well as the most demanded faves in commercial endorsement without reasons. One drama like The Untamed could have a dramatic impact on actors' career but could also do nothing much. Plenty of examples of the latter. No need to elaborate.

• Cheng Yi's been a consistently good actor, steadfast and undeterred when acting. I'm surprised those negative reviews of his behavior previously didn't follow him. In any case, I can always expect him to deliver when he's in something.

  Tan JianCi is smoldering hot in costume garb, but a bit disappointing in modern wear if I'm being honest lol. However, he really broke out of the generic mold in LYF. Somehow he manages to look smexy and vulnerable so well.

  Zhang Wan Yi - I stopped at like episode 24? I didn't watch how he evolved, just didn't have the patience to weed through how idiotic he is and how much Xiao Liu had to sacrifice for this brother who doesn't have her best interests at heart. But seems people are raving about his performance. Did he get better in later episodes?

  Deng Wei is so tender and gentle in LYF, but convincingly so. However, I don't think the script gave him justice as to why he was so good to XL. But acting wise he WAS Jing.

  For me, breakout star would be Tan JianCi and Ao Ruipeng, definitely stars to look out for in the future. Deng Wei's good too, but I haven't noticed him much previously, unsure if he's still going into higher trajectory