Zhang Ling He Finally Gets the Strong Reviews of His Performance with Story of Kunning Palace But Sadly Industry Gossip Says He and Bai Lu are Now Broken Up

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• I'm tired of seeing the both of them... new (or older!) faces please.

  • Right? Feel like they + Dylan were overexposed this year with their multiple dramas, promos, variety, events. It's getting tiring seeing them. I'm ready for some fresh rookies or established stars with skills like Liu Shi Shi to shine.

  • I understand the feeling...

• Yes, he's definitely shining in this.
  As for their affair, the fact that they were physically attracted while shooting was a blessing for the audience, chemistry-wise. If they did broke up, well, I hope noone got hurt and anyway they are both young, I expect them to not stay heartbroken for too long! 😄😄

• I kept laughing at Zhang Ling He's vein popping ugly jealous face on episode 30, I wanted to screenshot that. Now that I have finished the drama, I can say that his acting chops were much better than Bai Lu. Bai Lu is good at certain scenes but when it comes to intensity she seems to be frozen and expressionless (especially in episodes 32 and 36, wink wink).

• He’s GREAT. His characters have ranged from goofy to intense. And though she’s always consistently good, she’s mostly played all her characters the same. Hopefully he’ll star in a production that has a compelling woman character one day to elevate his performance.

• I'm on the side where I like them both as actors but not heartbroken over whether they broke up. Also, I thought I saw them interact with eachother for the recent IQIYI Scream 2023. I thought ZLH always had potential so I hope he gets an even better character than Xie Wei in the future.

• Strong writing really helped the drama. Im still in d middle and really enjoying the intrique and how d story flows. Strong performances from the cast too. Theres no blank, overacting or underacting from Bai Lu's part imo. ZLH was great in d earlier school drama. This one is his best historical drama. Hope he chooses characters like this.

  • Also the news that they broke up was from awhile ago. New melons are saying they are together still but keeping it lowkey. Like Bai Jing Ting and Song Yi who didnot promote together so as not to distract the focus on the drama instead.

• I didn't feel their chemistry in SOKP, but that may be due to the storyline and less themselves. It wasn't a very convincing couple based on the plot.

  With that said, I thought that individually ZLH did excellent. There were some parts that surprised me in his acting (like that last part when he offed himself - the expression looked real.) And where he's supposed to be dark and gritty, he looked the part. But there's room for improvement. I certainly don't want to be terrified of my MLs, but there are some mighty terrifying characters that can look threatening, and yet be magnetic. ZLH could be that, but he doesn't need to be that, so I suppose it's more of a bonus if he was.

  BL was serviceable, but there were less chances of her shining with the way the plot was established at the end. The first half the drama focused on her, but the latter half focused on ZLH. She was just there as romantic interest at the end, fizzling out. In the beginning though, at least her parts were interesting. There are still things she could've done to help more IMO, but she didn't do them, e.g. help her older sister win the main wife role, or helping Yan Lin more during their buddy days. But she does what she feels is enough to redeem herself and that's enough for her, I guess.

  All in all, a decent drama. I give it 7.5.

• I like him. He remind me of a younger lee min Ho when he was all up and coming with great potential. He should be careful about over exposure though - it seems his agency is keen to do as much to minimise risk of project cancellation but too much is just as bad as too little

• Should I pick it up again? I dropped after a few eps. The tropes were not fresh and Bai Lu was really tepid at the get-go to watch. I don't recall there were many ZLH's scenes in the first few eps though. I'm indifferent to secondary leads' stories even some ppl gave so much attention to Wang Xingyue who? LOL

  • @Somebody I am at ep. 31 and loving it; I'd say try a couple more episodes but if it's not up your alley just drop it, I mean we cannot all like the same things, can we.
    It's more of a revenge show, fiy, and the FL dies spend quite a lot of time being focused on the SML, mostly out of remorse for what she's done in her precious life. It's only at around ep. 30 that she pays attention to a ridiculously hot (in this drama at least) ZLH, who is out to serve her in any way his kind of unhinged character can. At times it reminds me of Love like the galaxy, though the ML is not a military but a court man and it feels to me that he's much more the devious/lurking type. He also has a much better styling what with the flowing hair and robes.
    Also, what I find good about this drama is that there are 0 fillers, everything is related to the plot.
    But as I said, no need to force yourself either.

    • Wow ZLH's character piques my interest per your description. I love messy wild hot crazy bewildered dark antient fantasy antihero ! LOL. Ok, time to check it again.

      Thanks gals.

  • Definitely pick it up! Xie Wei's character is written almost to perfection; he's smart and calculating. To me, Wang Xingyue's character arc was boring, he had less impact than the 3rd lead who acted as Yan Lin, who I felt had a better characterization for a 2nd lead.

• Wang Xing Yue for me. Boy got huge potentials. ZLH was overacting at times imo but he was still fine overall.