C-drama The Story of Mystics Kicks Off Filming with Hou Ming Hao, Chen Du Ling, Cheng Xiao, and Tian Jia Rui
Filming has kicked off for period C-drama The Story of Mystics, which Chinese title went from Bai Zhe Ling 白泽令 to Da Meng Gui Li 大梦归离. The producer and director remains Guo Jing Ming following up from My Journey to You as he returns to period drama land. The leads are Hou Ming Hao and Chen Du Ling with second leads Cheng Xiao and Tian Jia Rui. There is some leveling up and down and promotion going on here but overall a decent cast in the right places. Casting gossip says Chen Du Ling is upset she doesn’t have as cool a styling as second lead Cheng Xiao and may get upstaged, while Hou Ming Hao is happy with his first lead top billing status and doesn’t care that this drama may be used to promote relative newbie Tian Jia Rui.
C-ent may lack in its quantity of quality drama scripts, but it makes up for it with all its juicy gossip and melons.
Cdrama is generally on an upward trend – it’s huge and lucrative so of course there’s going to a lot of low quality stuff to sift through whereas Kdramas are pretty limited by the small number of broadcasters. I find myself caring less and less about Kdramas with each passing year. I wonder if others feel the same given how much this blog has increased its Cdrama coverage over the past few months.
I’m here for the gossip though.nah,I always prefer quality over quantity. I have watched Korean,chinese,thai,japanese,indian but I have mostly watched kdramas this year.
@Niki… I find most Kdramas past the heydey of Hallyu boring as hell. Cookie cutter low budget fusion sageuk, crime thrillers, run of the mill rom coms. The magic is gone for me and a lot of the people I know who used to avidly watch Kdramas.
Cdramas don’t always hit but their historical dramas >>>> sageuk and it’s not even close. I also love the sheer variety.
Nowadays I tend to only watch K-dramas where the genre is banned for C-dramas and interests me. Haven’t watch many this year though.
Most of the quality C-dramas aren’t popular among international audience as a lot of nuances in those dramas can be difficult to understand if you don’t know Chinese, English subs are also not that well-done. Those dramas are also mostly acted by senior Chinese actors and actresses who aren’t well-known to international audience. For example, I like The Ideal City, Imperfect Victim, Three-Body and the Candle in the Tomb series but they don’t get much coverage or discussion about them internationally compared to dramas like LBFD, LLTG, TTEOTM, TLP etc.
@rina I love historical cdrama’s costumes,aesthetics but the long episodes are huge turn off. I mostly prefer 8 or 12 episodes dramas. I don’t like Korean fusion saeguk either.
I have finished modern kdramas like my liberation notes, revenant,the good bad mother,moving,the glory,
Summer strike,bloodhound this year.
@lilith can you tell more about those cdramas you have mentioned?
I’m taking the synopsis from MyDramaList.
The Ideal City:
The story revolves around a cost engineer in an architecture firm and her growth journey in a male dominated Architecture industry in China. At the peak of her career Su Xiao found love with Xia Ming but an incident occurred causing her to be suppressed and demoted. With the encouragement of her father, she regains confidence, withstand enormous pressure and fight for her career.
Imperfect Victim:
This story is about a sexual harassment case that leads to a rape case, which further leads up to a big corporation and its employees and different people like lawyers/prosecutors.
Three-Body:
A nanomaterials expert sees a mysterious countdown superimposed in his field of vision and finds himself under military investigation. To unravel the mystery, he enters the VR game “Three-Body” developed by a secret organization ETO and discovers the truth behind the deaths of dozens of scientists and a tragedy from the days of the Cultural Revolution.
Candle in the Tomb (this drama series has several seasons, look for the versions with Jin Dong and/or Pan Yueming):
There is an old Chinese saying, “A human lights the candle and the ghosts blow it out.” Hu Ba Yi is well versed in Feng Shui with specialization in tomb configuration, which he learned from an antique book he inherited from his family. The knowledge saved him when he fell into a ditch in a snow avalanche in Tibet. And again when he and his friends joined an archaeology team to explore the “ghost cave” located in Taklamakan Desert. As he helped the team navigate through the dangers, he couldn’t help feeling that someone had predicted their every move and designed the traps and hidden passages accordingly.
@lilith can you talk more about those cdramas you have mentioned?
I’m a fan of MJTY. I’m not one to pay attention to directors, but then this guy seems to generate more news than stars.
Can see that he is going for the right cast rather than big names, it is a promising start.
Chen Du Ling seems to pop up in every drama, it will be interesting to see her move to FL.
I thought the sentiment around Cheng Xiao was that she can’t act?
Yeah she can’t act, and her lips always stays puckered (?) somehow
Idk her lips give me that impression
totally agree. she’s a pretty girl and a very talented dancer, but trying to watch her in Falling Into Your Smile, did not make me smile at all.
I’ll keep away from any dramas with Cheng Xiao and anyone from her agency as the lead actors. Her agency is famous for training dancers copying Kpop idols but they don’t know how to act. That being said, these dancers by training still got many lead roles of heavily marketed dramas due to capital behind the agency. The agency is notorious in the C-ent for power playing. I don’t have high regards for her agency or anyone from there taking lead roles in dramas.
Nonetheless, she’s a 2nd lead here. And I personally have positive reviews about Hou Ming Hao’s acting. Not sure about Cheng Du Ling though. I don’t know her much.
@Somebody – I just checked YueHua which is where she’s currently signed to…and yes, you’re correct. Welp, I guess when they said Guo Jing Ming doesn’t care about acting, it’s true.
From the looks of this poster, Guo Jing Ming is definitely going to get more complaints about Japanese aesthetics. It looks like a ukiyo-e print.
Not Chen Du Ling!!! Why does Hou Ming Hao keep choosing projects beneath his acting ability and/or with mediocre actresses? Sigh!
I predict that we will hate the female leads in this one.
Guo Jingming has never cared too much about good acting. Even in Everybody Standby (acting competition), he blatantly said he doesn’t use actors with the best acting skills. In that competition, everybody critiqued this guy’s bad acting, and he gave the guy the “S” card, which is supposed to be a special card as a form of highest praise. Even the other contestants were shocked.
Aw I still remember that acting competition episode. I don’t remember at all who the actor was getting a “S” card from GJM, nor do I remember the reason GJM explained for his decision. But I do remember everyone, not only the other contestants, but also other judges, was shocked. He prolly did that on purpose to add drama to the show. LOL. GJB’s directing style isn’t my cup of tea. But I like the ML enough to perhaps give this drama a shot although some of the leading ladies of his past dramas did turn me off.
It was He Changxi, who was part of UNINE (Survival Show group). I only remember because I was really into survival shows for a time. He said something about the S card being for “special” “student” and something else. I recall one of the judges said he thought the “S” was for Surprise because he was surprised by Guo Jingming’s choice LOL. Guo Jingming also cried a lot on the show. I overall found him very annoying and pretentious. I have yet to be impressed by any of his works.
@Somebody, I also like Hou Minghao, so I will also check it out! Hopefully Cheng Xiao’s bad acting doesn’t distract me too much.
I remember who the kid was with the S card. In fact, I saw many photos of them together after the show. No implying they are dating, but it could be just working relations. The kid really could not act..and not great looking by normal Chinese standards. But Gou Jingming just liked him alot.
After watching TTEOTM, I can’t see Chen Du Ling as a FL anymore. It also doesn’t help that her character in MLC was very irrelevant to the story in comparison to the red villian girl who surprisingly had more screen time, yet did so well. Also, there’s just something about CDL’s face that screams out to me that she’s a villian without trying.
Let’s be fair. The red devil girl in MLC had a lot of screentime and her character was written in a fun way; doesn’t hurt that she was a great actress in it – perfect for the role. Her character wasn’t written to be hated; pitied and sympathized maybe.
CDL was a wasted role in MLC. I felt bad for her. She cried in basically every scene and also in MJTY lol. There’s not much room to showcase acting skills there. And in TTEOTM, she was supposed to be a hated character. She hasn’t been given a fair chance yet.
Chen du ling needs to be paired up with more mature looking men, she has this mature big sister, young aunt look. Chen Xiao I think she is pretty but she got that RBF.
Cheng Xiao is the main reason I’ll watch this. She is beautiful and I love her acting. She’s somehow strong, yet adorable. She reminds me a bit of Audrey Hepburn
Im gonna watch because of Cheng Xiao
Why so negative on xiao. Shes cute and learning. Give the show a chance
Only for cheng xiao i will watch this drama 🥺❤
Only for cheng xiao i will watch this drama ❤🥺