Talk about a temper tantrum so loud when it started ending in a whimper. Zhao Lu Si will start filming soon for S+ level period C-drama The Legend of Jewelry where she gets the budget and first billing in a female lead centric story, all good for her career. Except her fans got all snitty that the drama had a hard time finding a male lead, they don’t like the PD, they dislike the costume designer, they think the script will get rewritten to increase the male lead, and they hate the reunion of Zhao Lu Si with her The Long Ballad OTP Liu Yu Ning. They launch a public boycott of the drama and demanded her agency not accept the role. Unfortunately for them, Zhao Lu Si actually wanted the role, the drama, and likes her male lead, so the drama got confirmed earlier this week and after a few days of silence the fandom has lifted its boycott and now changed its tune to supporting the drama. Fan mock ups of the posters have been released and things are back to normal. But talk about a really immature and pointless thing to do.
Well, there are bad eggs in every good basket… just because some fans create issue of disapproval, I will not judge the rest as such. I believe her real fans wu=ill continue to support her choice…even if her choice may not all be great, they will still stand by her.
She had a tough time finding a male lead…now is the time to support her. Give her positive energy. Any negative energy should be ignore…who knows what the future brings. She will live, learn and be wiser as she grows. That is life, isn’ it?
Well done to her true fans who are mature enough to understand these…Happy for her.
Idk, there are tons of actors with toxic fans, and their costars get attacked at times (not gonna name names), but they don’t really have problems with finding co-leads. It’s interesting that when it comes to ZLS, she would have this issue. If it’s really due to fear of toxic fandom, then the MLs are a bit wussy.
Lol..some may be wussy…I also think those top actors who have lots of choices may just not want to step into hot water… Similar to those female actress that will not touch Xiao Zhan if they have other good choices. Toxic fans can create just too many headache, problems and waste company resources to fight the water army or toxic fans. Not worth the investment.
The point is, is Zhou Lusi’s fandom worth the risk for these A-list drama actors?
@HL
It seemed to me that all fandoms have crazy fans and why people often called out Xiao Zhan’s fandom? It seems so unfair! Also I think it’s so unfair to him. He is just trying to focus on his works. He endured more than enough bad things for the last couple years already.
@XZF, definitely unfair…he has lots of very supportive and mature minded fans…but it is the crazy ones that speaks the loudest…
I hope he can continue doing what he enjoys, singing and acting…both of his love.
Nah it’s Wang Yibo that’s avoided by female actresses. Xiao Zhan has no issues getting female leads.
Hey, pair up Xiao Zhan and LuSi then since they have the same predicament. Co-star finding problem solved! Heh.
@HL LOL actresses practically fight for the chance to co-star with Xiao Zhan. Zhou Ye had tried so hard to join his Legend of the Condor Heroes movie, but lost to Zhuang Dafei
The point goes for a lot of MLs, but the FLs still strive to win the role of costars. When it was XZ, for example, HE selected his costar in The Longest Promise, and there was a feeling that he had choices. Yet, when the situation was reversed on ZLS, who also selected LYN, the story got twisted that she doesn’t have much to choose from. I mean, isn’t the narrative rather biased?
Also, for XZ (just as an example, not picking on him to be mean ), if he had trouble finding costars, his fandom will immediately sympathize because of course he’ll have issues – his co-leads get crapped on so much because of him. It is a supportive, empathetic tone. But on ZLS, it becomes she’s a wannabe hotshot, she is not helping her male leads, her fandom is toxic, etc. See the boss?
*see the bias?
@Coralie, very true…it is the female that get less empathy then male. Female do get more the shorter straw in many situations. To be honest, many celebs have toxic fans.. it is about management.
I was watching Draw The Line recently such a good solid drama…you should try to watch. One of the paralegal was commenting, often the floods of water army attacks from toxic fans are managed or steer by the celebs management company. The fans are their online weapons…
@HL, I agreed with the other commenters. Why is Xiao Zhan always called out for costaring issues? LOL. The major casting issue for XZ’s dramas isn’t difficulty to find his costars but nepotism rampant in C-ent. Everyone want’s to milk from XZ and get free rides on his explosive popularity. You can see this pattern of power play in Almost EACH of his recent dramas and the movie. The Youth Memories perhaps is the only drama of XZ that got a very decent cast overall that made TYM the best drama of XZ since The Untamed even though I LOL at the obvious state propaganda. Both The Longest Promise and Sunshine By My Side had marked footprints of nepotism; investors pressured the production teams to cast less than satisfactory actors that undermine the quality of the dramas.
@Coralie, I got it! You don’t have to remind XZ fans you’re not picking on him to be mean but YOU ARE. LOL. I remember you almost have had no positive things to say about XZ. It’s obvious your own fave isn’t up to par with XZ in terms of popularity. So you said things pretty bitter about XZ.
To clarify, XZ did not pick FL for The Longest Promise. He just explained why Ren Min was picked at the end. It’s a decent act to support his leading lady. He did not imply he hand picked her. Don’t read wrong lines! He definitely can have a say about the final determination of his leading ladies regarding whether he’s ok to work with them or not. But he’s not so powerful to recommend or hand pick any. Casting is still the responsibility of casting directors and investors most of time had their own lists in mind that always impact the final casting decision. That’s how it works. The Longest Promise in particular, was a project that XZ was obligated to work on as an official spokesperson for Tencent by contract. It’s a female-centric drama to promote a new actress that Tencent and its investors agreed upon. In this case, Ren Min’s agency is the said investor. TLP also got quite a few rookie actors (also promoted by Tencent back then when the drama was prepared to film, e.g., Wang Churan whose character was not in the novel but given a lot of screen time). XZ wasn’t the one deciding the final cast of his FLs but he was always taken advantage of to promote other actors. The only recent drama I did not see him carrying this kinda twisted mission was The Youth Memories.
@Somebody
I agree with ALL of your comments in this article about Xiao Zhan. I also feel the same way about Coralie. The same vibe I get every time she writes about Xiao Zhan.
@Coralie, I think you’re giving Xiao Zhan way more credit than he deserves. He doesn’t have the resources/backing to be picking his own female leads. If he did, I don’t think he would’ve been stuck with the likes of Meng Meiqi or Wu Xuanyi, who both are pretty terrible actresses. Xiao Zhan is not as invincible as you make him out to be. I thought the whole AO3/227 incident when he was boycotted was completely unfair and outside of his control. People also say that male idols like Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo have toxic fandom. This is not isolated to female stars.
I personally quite like a lot of ZLS’s dramas. I don’t really understand all the green tea/slippery fingers rumors. I also don’t really care. It all sounds so petty. She probably had a tough time finding a lead for this one because she wants top billing, more so than any actual toxic fans.
@Somebody – I actually had someone else in mind, not XZ, when I mentioned toxic fandom, though his recent drama fit the bill for the example I’m thinking of better than the other one. Everyone knows XZ has some ridiculous delusional fans, who tend to be way more outspoken than other fans. Even now you sympathize with his issue with finding costars and not a lick of negative words.
I’m not bitter about XZ, just don’t think any which way of him. He’s just an easy example. Going by your logic, a lot of folks also target ZLS for her ability to raise the ML’s profiles, because she’s had her fair share of MLs who were not top class material. Ryan Ding was someone whose profile she raised. But she got called out for being difficult, wannabe, all kinds of negative names. Yet none of those apply to XZ (his only fault is that his fans are too cray-cray therefore everything is outside of his control). If you don’t see the bias in that because of your xyz reasons, I don’t know what to tell you.
When ppl have qualms about the choices of actors’ leading costars, I don’t see it is favorable to XZ over ZLS. Their names were both called out and attacked always. Both are extremely popular because they have unique charisma on screen that attracts staunch and sometimes obsessed fans. I am trying to say XZ is in no better position than ZLS when it comes to being blamed for costar issues.
XZ has always been the scapegoat when there’s controversy about casting his leading ladies. I’d read very shitty comments about XZ numerous times on Chinese social media whenever he got a new drama premiered, some of which were nasty opinions about his costars and how he had a very bad taste and choices of his FLs etc. His name was always called out when ppl bitched about his FLs. It’s similar to ZLS who was also attacked recklessly. There’s perhaps only one thing different between what I see in XZ fans reactions and Lusi fans reactions. I guess XZ fans had learned hard lessons from 227 and they mostly (if not collectively) stayed pretty resilient and chill about any casting decisions before drama wrapped up the 1st run of airing. They would say we supported whatever had turned out for XZ’s dramas and might criticize later if they disliked something like FLs etc, but not before dramas ended the first run. XZ fans did not make ruckus before his dramas finished airing just to make sure the dramas all got good ratings. I’m not sure why you said XZ was an easy example.
ZLS fandom, however, doesn’t seem to hold the same sanity and many just lashed out trying to leverage casting decision or whatnot. There’re fans and antis making a fuss together at the same time. But I recognized a pattern in XZ’s cases that mostly antis, not his fans, bitched about this and that before drama ended. I investigated those SM influencers who made loudest noise against XZ. They are all huge fans of XZ’s rivals with a lot of following. I guess the way XZ and ZLS were called out to blame is the same. But fans reactions are different between the two fandoms. Perhaps ZLS has got more younger fans?
@Somebody, I agree with you. I’ve also read many negative comments about Xiao Zhan. When he didn’t return for Joy of Life 2, a lot of people were saying things like he thinks he’s too big to do play second fiddle to another actor, he’s too arrogant, he should have better integrity and accept roles that are good/challenging rather than just being lead.
On a side note, I don’t understand all this talk about so and so elevating their costar. I feel like that kind of talk erases the actual actor’s individual hard work and talent.
@abby
I don’t blame Xiao Zhan for not joining Joy of Life 2. That drama milked Xiao Zhan for all his worth while paying him a measley few thousand yuan as cameo. Even until now, it’s still uses his name for attention and marketing.
People love being double standards towards Xiao Zhan. I don’t get this “integrity” thing, it’s not like he had signed a contract with that drama for several seasons. If he isn’t bound by contract, then there isn’t any integrity issue. Take a normal employee for example, if he/she got offered to be a manager at another company while the current company still employs him/her as an assistant, would you say that employee doesn’t have integrity for taking up the manager job? The new roles that Xiao Zhan has taken up so far are good and challenging too.
@abby and 4ever, I’m also puzzled why JOL fans slandered XZ for not returning to the cast of the sequel. Isn’t that no brainer for a highly demanded A-list actor like XZ to turn down a cameo job thanks to his own tight schedule? Nonetheless, it seems a norm for C fans to make a fuss for all the reasons that appear nonsensical to ppl outside China. I gather those are scheming imbeciles’ gimmicks trying to discredit XZ while tapping his immense popularity to gain attention to JOL2 at the same time! Killing two birds with one stone! For my skepticism of the integrity of all this JOL2 PR besides the bad impression of the actor going to replace XZ as YBY in JOL2, I don’t hesitate at all to just skip JOL2.
Liu Yuning is a catch and they have a good chemistry, hope the show is great quality since I think it will be popular
Exactly, there is so much drama around thus casting, yet we forget to mention that Liu Yuning is a perfect match, he looks good, acts well and has proven to have good chemistry with Lusi before, he accepted second billing that is so important to Lusi and her fans, so, what’s all the fuss. I just hope the drama is decent so that we will all enjoy watching it.
I actually wonder if all the ruckus and fuss came from ZLS fans or antis. In C-ent, it’s tricky to be able to tell them apart. Both sides can be loud at the same time for the same complaints. Two sides became comrade by adding fuel to the fire to ablaze social media together. LOL
We know ZLS did not renew her contract with her agency… I can only guess she must be disappointed how she was managed under their care. And wants to move to a better place. Her management company have not treated her properly last 6mths. It would not surprise me they have used her fans to flame all make her name seem toxic… That is such a old game in the industry.
I wonder who else is managed by this company?
She did not renew? That is news. Good thing she realizes this. Hopefully she can silence her fans if they’re being like this now. It does her no good.
@LAC, ya, she did not thus they seem to have frozen her these 6 mths…and there are leaks out that is not in her favour. Good ridden to trash… Hope she career will get back on track.
say what you want about LYN, I personally think he’s a pretty awesome guy. His acting is a bit green, but he did start out as a singer. I was impressed by the way he handled his divorce rumors, and I generally like all the OSTs he sings.
I first came across Liu Yuning when he was a street singer…it was ages ago. As he got popular steadily, I was happy for him. I did use to think with his looks even if he cannot earn enough as a singer, he could learn acting skills. He could be a actor. And now he has become an actor…
Honestly duo, no one is really saying anything bad about LYN , even I can say ZLS fans don’t have issues with LYN has the male lead, the issues that ZLS fans have is with the production team n how they handle the whole male lead casting. Has somebody mentioned before all the negatives that we have heard from suppose ZlS fans, are they really her fans or the haters used this opportunity to make her look bad. This issue is always tricky.
I dont know if anyone said anything bad about Liu Yuning, I have not read about it. But I am happy he is doing well from his uneasy journey in this industry.
As for Zhao Lusi’s fans, I believe she will be go to a agency who will better manage her career and manage her fans. I believe even she does not like to be in the news for the wrong reasons. The last half year has not been easy on her.
I also have not read about them complaining about LYN more so that they don’t agree how it took so long to find a lead and how her agency making her look bad by prolonging and tossing so many names out.