So C-drama In Blossom with Ju Jing Yi and Liu Xue Yi has turned into a surprise underdog, doing better in viewership, buzz, and reviews than expected. It’s not a hit just doing better than anyone thought and is just one third through its run so could turn into a smallish hit by the end. Another surprise is supporting actress Zheng Hehuizi who originates the role of the female lead before getting face-swapped by the evil girl who wants to marry Liu Xue Yi’s male lead. But bummer for evil girl who gets murdered on the wedding night with the face of the bride, so the female lead by dint of the forced face swap survives her own intended murder and returns in the face of the evil chick to investigate who wanted her dead. Zheng Hehuizi is only in the drama for the first two episodes before her character puts on Ju Jing Yi’s face so this is totally the Alchemy of Soul’s situation with Zheng Hehuizi getting tons of buzz for her acting, onscreen presence, and chemistry with the male lead and viewers not happy when it switches over to Ju Jing Yi, who is getting her usual complaints about the same limited acting ability. Reportedly Zheng Hehuizi has already parlayed this buzz to a supporting female lead role in the upcoming Tales of Dark River with Gong Jun.
Visually she is just more compatible with the leading man. Her brief time w/ him, show so much more potential and her acting is more natural. JJY is still stuck in her era of looking all pretty & clean and pushing really hard to look mighty and evil (in a word, not natural). I’ve long accepted that as who she is and can’t change.
If this girl picks some good project, she can surprise JJY easily.
The way I paused for a second and thought she looked familiar. It’s coz she’s Tao Zi (Jing Tian’s trusted aide) in Wonderland of Love. Ooooh~
Her visual is so good, even with that scar and trying to make her”ugly”, she still manages to shine, more importantly, she is talented, so many emotions on her face she expresses love and shyness very beautifully, JJY never manages to show a “girl in love” vibe, she is like a wood
Sadly, sometimes promising actors make the switch to lead roles and the magic dies away. Sometimes the potential is realized and they get even better, but also the criticisms and hate get more harsh too. The other way around, if JJY was dropped to 2nd/3rd lead roles she wouldn’t get this much criticism.
But I’m happy for an actress to get this chance to show her promise.
@Guest – So true. I’ve seen this happen many times. A good example is Ahn Jae Hyun, I remember when everyone raved about him in 2014 after watching My Love From Another Star – however subsequent works as a leading man just showed all his weaknesses now he’s reputed to be a mediocre or subpar actor. Just goes to show that not all actors can thrive as leads. Some are better suited to be character/supporting actors where the pressure of the entire drama is not on them.
Too many times. For instance I thought Liu Yuning was widely adored. Then he became male lead and to cnetz his looks and acting is no longer good enough.
I can already tell this actress’ looks is going to be torn apart by netizens once she’s first lead, despite the huge love for her now.
@ Guest c neitzen r just nitpicking at the point, LYN is not the best actor for now but he is decent enough.
In this case ZHHZ was literally the lead in the first two episodes and everyone loved her portrayal. Sometimes, it’s more not receiving the right script or project. She’s been in leads in the past but small projects and nothing with a remarkable story. A good actor can only do so much by themselves.
If JJY was dropped to second or third, she definitely wouldn’t get as much hate or criticism because there would be less screentime for audiences to suffer through and less content to critique.
ZHHZ is exactly the type of actor you mentioned. She has gotten various lead roles after her success in Rush to the Dead Summer, but none of her dramas made an impact and she returned to supporting roles after. Hopefully this time she will be able to maintain her momentum.
JJY, on the other hand, has always gotten criticism. Her acting was never good except in her first few dramas, Novoland and Legend if Yun Xi. But the reason she continues to get lead roles is because her dramas make money. Unless she suddenly loses a ton of fans she won’t be dropping to 2nd/3rd lead roles anytime soon. A tier web dramas will continue to hire her.
She has as amazing. Hopefully she can pick up better projects in the future because when you see how JJY can’t act to save her life after that, uh. It’s a huge gap.
Basically what is happening to Zheng He Huizi is what happened to Wei Da Xun in Fireworks of My Heart.
I watched the clips and comparison and it’s really true… Zheng Hehuizi has this spark in her eyes and spunk about her that really make her character, Yang Cai Wei, comes to life. By extension, the swooning is for how Liu Xue Yi’s Pan Yue looks at/sees her despite the scar. The the acting and chemistry really help. With Ju Jing Yi, she is just so stiff, you really question how Liu Xue Yi will eventually see that she is the same Yang Cai Wei…
I watched just the first ep and barely the second… I was surprised to see the focus on her and thought who was the FL?? But she was compelling and maybe the sentiments of the audience are with her because she was ‘ugly’ yet caught the eyes of the ML who is supposed to be a prize-catch. But when it changes to a normal looking supposedly pretty FL it loses the allure of the story. I couldn’t also get myself to watch further as I think of it now being replaced by another FL. (I also watched a similar short form drama and dropped when they replaced with the real FL as the one before was good.) And LXY gives off a mature vibe while JJY looks very kiddie.
I agree that because that because of the role that she plays here that she is suppose to be ugly with the mark on her face probably add to why the audience love her more. N Yes JJY is lacking but I think she was OK enough not to ruin enjoying the show.
I dropped it after eps 8. The handsome and good acting Male lead can’t hold this drama by himself. The female lead is really bad at leading.
A real shame that she isn’t the FL in this drama, her acting is way better than Liu Xue.
She is not a new actress…just one that never really broke out. I am currently watching her in 无限超越班 第二季. She is very fun to watch…she does talk too much sometimes 🤣.
Yes I think she was already a lead sometime back with Zhang Bin Bin.
She was also the female pair withBai Jing Ting in Rush to the Dead Summer.
@HL: WHHHAAATTT??!! She’s Yan Mo from ‘Rush to the Dead Summer’????? I remember her second lead couple with Bai Jing Ting totally stole the drama from right under boring lead couple Zheng Shuang and Cheney Chen noses
She was so pretty, spirited and loveable in that drama and I was sad her career didn’t take off for whatever reason. I hope her career gets a resurgence after this drama.
@Sunny, Yes she is Yan Mo. She did steal the drama for me too. Very cute character… In real life, she is a cute and talkative actress.. likeable person.
@HL: I’m really happy to see her getting some attention and praise again. It’s scary to think that drama was 7 years ago!
Yes, she always seemed so sweet and chatty. I really like her personality.
Well to be fair,ju jingyi main job is singing and she’ good at it,acting is just a side job. With the exception of sword and fairy 4 and in blossom and legend of white snake all of her acting jobs is small budget web drama, hence good acting is not needed,she only need to look pretty.
To be fair if you’re going to act,it’s for people to judge you in that line of work.
This is the problem I have with a lot of dramas nowadays. Audiences just care about visuals and “good acting is not needed”. Then just watch them in an MV, sing, dance, or variety show. Almost everything is web dramas nowadays. I totally agree she’s good at singing and even dancing. I just wish she’d stop worrying about looking perfect in dramas and I’m sure her acting will improve.
Speaking of Alchemy of Souls that I’m watching now, I don’t get the flak the new FL of the sequel caught. Go Youn-jung had a different style and beauty from Jung So-min, the FL AoS I. IMO, they were both good in the series and had chemistry with Lee Jae-wook. No comparison here.
I’ve watched until Ep 10, but it’s more like I don’t want to give up and I want resolution. However, after enduring the last 8 episodes, I’ve completely lost interest and will just wait for it to finish airing watched the last few episodes to figure out what the mystery is.
I really enjoyed the first two episodes with ZHHZ and even JJY as the obsessive character. ZHHZ played her role with such quiet confidence and strength. Her Yang Caiwei was really lovely. However, after JJY took over as the female lead, it started going downhill. She is basically the same person she was in Sword and Fairy. Her acting is so juvenile. In some angles I think she looks very stunning, but other angles she looks really unnatural (yes, I know she’s gotten a lot of work done). Not that she ever would, but even if JJY played the role with the scar on her face, I doubt she’d deliver like ZHHZ.
No worries ju jingyi is approaching 30,unless she upgrade her acting no one would hire her anymore,there are lots of idol with more beautiful face and younger waiting to supplant her
So much mediaplay by the ML of this drama. Tsk tsk tsk. And now this supporting actress. Everyone is just imitating Wei Da Xun who has done this most successfully. But that’s only because he has daddy and mommy’s money behind him. He’s still spending a lot of money to maintain the “heat” of his supertopic in weibo. Companies are of course willing to invest money to push their artist and step on other artists but how can that be comparable to WDX who comes from money and can do this pretty much forever if he wants to. Paying influencers and water armies cost millions of yuan. How long can they keep this going?
I guess so. Seems like this is becoming trends. Just a while ago hua sen did the same to liu yuning, and it’s working. I wonder tho, will these popularity last?
At least ju jingyi is not being eviscerated for being old and fat like lin geng xin for his outing in legend of shen li, too thick make up and filter for zhao liying.
totally. JJY looks so fragile like she’ll snap in half any time and skin paler than a corpse.
Ju Jing Yi can’t act
I’m convinced that JJY is just a time-traveling Chinese makeup influencer with a permanent face filter who goes to different time periods just to interact with ancient people, all the while displaying either mild discomfort or mild interest.
LOL LOL LOL! This is so accurate. She is exactly the same in every drama: same make-up, same two bland facial expressions, same filter, even her costumes are nearly always the same colour.