January 2024 is still the year of the rabbit as lunar new year is not until February 10th so maybe with the turn of the lunar year the lucks with change with C-dramas. The premieres of three high profile dramas are all considered flops within the industry and for varying side reasons but the same core principle – casting pretty and famous stars cannot overcome a lackluster script. There were two Chinese Paladin game adaptations that premiered within a day of each other with Sword and Fairy 4 (CP4) with Ju Jing Yi and Chen Zhe Yuan. The two leads fandoms hate each other due to the billing fight so the stars have done no promos and there is no CP to even ship so the drama has no hook, plus the story line is from an older game and feels dated. Sword and Fairy (CP6) with Xu Kai and Yu Shu Xin got smacked with complaints for her once again annoying baby voice and also a story line that focuses on the CP romance but has nothing else interesting going on. Love Endures with Yang Zi and Fan Cheng Cheng is coasting on her star power and it’s not enough to hard carry, his camp’s hope for an elevation is not happening but her side is fine as she’s still getting good reviews for her portion and the overall lack of ratings and buzz for this drama won’t be an impact to her. And to explain the level of flop of these three dramas – last year’s flop Love You Seven Times had more buzz and viewership than each of these three.
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When can we stop talking about sword and fairy? I think everyone who goes to this site already know they’re flops.
I've blacklisted Esther for her annoying baby voice. I refuse to watch anything she's in
Her voice is decent in My Journey to You (at least I think it was, since I dropped that drama only a few eps in). The problem with her voice is when she portrays cute characters. But then again, most of her roles are cute characters so...
Ur choice ur preference but others' thinkking may differ
Ur choice ur preference but others' thinking may differ
Even when there’s buzz of her drama, as soon as I tuned in, I just can’t because of the annoying baby talking that’s very pretentious. After Journey to you, knowing she can talk normal, I just turn everything off if I see her babytalking.
Wow if even love you seven times was more popular than them, then it’s really that bad
Why is it that Yang Chaoyue received bigger flack than the leads of bothSword and Fairy series if Love You Seven Times actually did decently? I don't see Ju Jingyi or Esther getting almost cancelled like YCY
LYST had higher expectations being the follow up to LBFAD. And personally JJY and Esther’s acting are more watchable than YCY. There’s a lot of reasons why a drama fails. If JJY or Esther continue to have a series of flops, they will probably get downgraded too.
Love you seven times is sister drama of love between fairy and devil,they have the same author,scriptwriter,producer etc,they have even bigger budget.
I think it's pretty simple, maybe she has worse acting skill than them, and the fact she never has success under her belt so people can't really defend her
YCY is definitely a worse actress (one of the worst in my opinion), and continues getting lead roles. LYST was also a beloved IP for many. I honestly tuned in from time to time just to see how bad she was, and she did not disappoint. She's cute, and I'm sure she's nice and likeable in real life, but she really has no talent. Baby voice aside for Esther, these other two actresses might not be oscar-worthy, but they're both serviceable.
Hmmm? Yang Zi received flack for her bad acting in Love Endures though. C-netz are also calling her the water queen again because she has been faring badly for dramas on TV broadcast ever since CVB ratings (which cannot be bought, unlike web views) came into existence.
The funny thing is that Yang Zi fans are now suddenly reminded that TOOL exists. Yet when the show aired they dismissed it, attacked the ML because at the time they thought that the Hairpin with Kris Wu was coming and she would score big with that. They couldn't have been more awful.
Ah the irony. The show they denied is the one show she has left now, with real ratings. Of course it's too late to claim it as everyone saw how they behaved years ago.
TOOL would have had higher ratings if not for her ahjumma face (is anyone really convinced she looks 10 years younger than Xiao Zhan?) and unbelievable portrayal of the female lead. If they stuck to Song Zuer, maybe the female lead's characterization would have stuck closer to the novel than being changed to another loud wailing character like all Yang Zi's characters are.
About the water queen. I’m also confused by the disparity, is it possible to inflate the number of views that much? I mean like her drama last year, it reach 100 mil view for the day.
I don’t wanna say this, but even yang yang with fomh did better in ratings even with the backlash from the public. But for webcast it reached 50 mil view per day, half of yang zi. So I’m confused, why so different?
Correct me if I'm wrong, from what I've heard, the most ridiculous one was her Psychologist drama where the web views had increased from 240m to 1b/1000m in over 8 hours from 10am to 8pm on a normal work/school day. Considering that China's population is 1.4b/1400m...
She has two nicknames in China. The 0.1 queen because her dramas keep landing on 0.1 but the second is 800 million queen.
That comes from the time the Psychologist was broadcasting and it was going badly. We could still see views on Tencent though and during just one night she dropped 800 million. So absolutely yes, you can inject huge amounts, as long as you are willing to pay the money.
It's more difficult to follow these days but we still can. The views usually cluster up north (in small towns) and they are injected during the night, so it's easy to recognise when the water armies are in motion.
She also injects Weibo numbers. For this drama the discussions jumped in one day by 19 billion. Not million, billion.
As I said though she is hardly the only one, though she is among the worst. But Cheng Yi is buying super likes, Deng Wei is shopping everything like there is no tomorrow, Gong Jun is right behind him. This is why people are very sensitive when you mention real data, in cent, only very few people actually have it.
For this drama, she’s been caught manipulating data on Yunhe. Yunhe reports web broadcasts figures while Kuyun aggregates both web and tv broadcasts levels. The show’s Yunhe number was higher than its Kuyun figure (on one of the days? I’m not sure how often it happened since I don’t follow the data myself) which doesn’t make sense because a=b+c but now b>a. However this gives her fans ammunition to go around bragging about topping the Yunhe chart while other figures are showing a different story.
@Lilith
Psychologist aired when I was on hiatus from dramaland so I know nothing about it but it is ridiculous.. 1 billion view in one day...
@You
Is the money paid to the platform or to external contractors? Wow to think it can be injected like that. The weibo discussions jumping by billions... damn I know nothing about this. And to think other people also doing this. It's hard to see what's organic these days.
For webcast, since popularity and views can't be counted on, does it more accurate to base the success on the number of ads? I have seen that a few times
@Guest
Seems like it wasn't a clean job from her side. I didn't know about the kuyun and yunhe and their relation. Can't trust anything nowadays
Her acting is terrible, it's always the same characterization. and her yelling? please my ears. All of those memes/gifs of her "bad acting" went viral on chinese socials. but once no one watched LE, her team started to buy all data charts so it looked like a hit when the ratings are below 0.1 = flop (which was set by herself from last year with the psychologist, JSTV ratings are 0.3+) theres almost 0 discussion on Love endures even her own fans don't bother watching it.
I agree that the dramas mentioned are very meh and the even if I really like the leads I just can't. The only cdrama I am watching right now is My Boss and although the trope has been used before the lead couple is very cute together. My first time seeing the lead actress in a drama and she is adorable. I even find myself humming the ost every now and then.
chen xingxu and zhang ruonan? Oh haven't check that one. But the snippet oneline does seems funny
Frankly, Yang Zi should stop acting young cos she isn't nor does she look like at all. I checked her new drama cos I don't dislike FCC and I'm curious about his acting. But pairing such a young guy with YZ does look awkward and cringy, specifically when YZ was in school uniform.
Im suprise the ratings were lower then Love you seven times. Love endures I thought had a good beginning but somehow it never gain traction. I like Zhu Yan Man Zhi, havnt watch her in quite awhile.somehow aft playing the first episode, I never did go continue watching. All 3 dramas no longer on my watchlist. I was watching Divas hit the road and related clips. Hoping for an intefesting drama to drop soon.
I don’t understand the hype about Yang Zi. I really can’t be the only one. Is this build up good will from Ashes of love because I watched that show and really the only good thing about that show was the ML. She acts like a teenager in her characters and that’s really off putting.
I don't hate her but she doesn't do it for me either. I didn't finish Ashes of Love and haven't watch a drama of hers since.
Thank goodness I read the novel before and really liked it. That was why I attempted the drama.
Spot on your reviews on both the sword & fairy dramas. I stopped watching 6 after just 2 episodes because of her voice and weak nothing else to offer plot. I continue watching 4 bec the story line with better supporting cast is more appealing. Yangzi's Love Endures is really in my opinion very good friendship drama. Especially with regards to Huang Yingzi n her father both leaders of their childhood friends gang, some one always have to give in more and even sacrifice to hold the group together. Go the extra mile. Yangzi looks very young and matching with those younger than her. It is the audience psychological mental blocking themselves because they are aware of their actual age gap difference. As usual she acted naturally and so satisfying to follow and see how the friendship ends for everyone. Wish I had a friend like Huang Yingzi when I was young
I'm actually loving love endures though I know this is Yang zi's very least drama for 2024 but I'm really enjoying it, I never thought I'd love it as I am keeping my expectations low. Still waiting for her other dramas Lost you forever season 2, the Golden hairpin and Best choice ever. Also looking forward to Flourished peony which I know will be broadcast in 2025.