This has been a super popcorn filled story and actually started two months earlier. During lunar new year the C-movie Article 20 directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Lei Jia Yin, Ma Li, and Zhao Li Ying was released to great reviews and high box office. All good right? Not really, as the success of the movie was marred by Zhao Li Ying reportedly buying hot searches, her fandom’s actions, and her taking center spot many times during promotion as if she was the female lead rather than a supporting lead in this movie as she continues to build her movie career. Her fandom claimed the movie only did as big a box office due to her draw.
This week female lead Ma Li won a Best Actress Award for this movie at the Big Data Movie Night event and during her acceptance speech she thanked everyone in the movie but Zhao Li Ying, said she doesn’t like promotions and is just an actress with ability and substance who doesn’t know how to promote, but to be recognized and win an award for box office success is a true validation. Netizens took her speech as a direct shade to Zhao Li Ying, who then updated her Weibo page listing of her famous prior works by removing the movies she’s starred in and updating it only to her most popular C-dramas and by doing so appeared to be her clapping back that she reigns in C-drama land and doesn’t need movies to be popular and recognized. I’m so loving all this open cattiness haha.
It’s no secret that Zhao Liying has been stepping on Ma Li repeatedly. This was a story that all of cent has been watching and not counting her stans, everyone is on Ma Li’s side.
Word was that Zhang Yimou himself was just done with her nonsense so it’s more like she created a lot of bad blood in the movie circle so she knows she can’t go back easily and the rest is a show to cover that up. Easily seen through show.
Does anyone know when Zhao Li Ying came to this position where she is acknowledged as a respected actress? Was it only recently? I always assumed that she got popular real quickly. But the other day I watched a cut of her bed scene where she and the guy were dressed in Qing costume, and was shocked she actually agreed to film that. She doesn’t reveal her important bits but her movements were very explicit. Like they went from missionary to cow girl. You’d think only an unknown newbie actress with a poor background would be willing to film such scenes
I thought her breakout was 2015 with Journey of the Flower. Is the Qing one you’re talking about The Palace? That was released in 2013..so before her breakout.
She’s not a respected actress, and not in the same league as her film co-stars, who all have solid and stronger resumes.
That was before she became popular. Also she is never a critically claimed or respected actress but she is popular drama actress. She doesn’t even have many friends among the celebrities. I had seen many award events where she was sitting alone or with others but everyone deliberately ignored her. I don’t know why, tbh.
You don’t know why.
Would you bother showing care towards a new girl you helped, but she always gossip evil things about you that aren’t even true?
It’s good enough no one gives her a slap already.
Congratulations to Ma Li!
ZLY and her fans sound so petty and disrespectful towards her co-workers.
Fans of any traffic star claiming box numbers are because of their fave are delusional on so many levels. The movie made all that money for many reasons, it’s directed my Zhang Yimou, it was released during the New Year holiday, it had good word of mouth, and it had social commentary which spoke to a lot of people. No where in there was it because of one actor, it was an ensemble. ZLY fans did not contribute to the big box office number because TV stars’ data/numbers don’t transition over to movies. Sometimes wonder at what point will celebs think it’s enough regarding fame, if you’re so famous on TV and make all this money, why tread a dangerous path and piss off people in the movie industry.
Agree that like people accusing one actress like she did everything. Like chill with the word on the street blah blah blah. I could be the one creating word on the street. People are so jealous for no reason. ZLY popular for a reason. Her acting at least entertain me and she is always a different character. One thing I don’t agree with is that stepping from dramas to movie isn’t a power move or money move. A lot of people just like to challenge themselves and seek validation for their works. Tony Leung had no formal education and worked for years in TV series and is now a famous movie actor. He did plenty of raw bed scenes. Like I don’t get the double standard between actresses and actors. Even if ZLY had power and did all this and that, like she is still definition of started from the bottom. Took her 10 years just to be a main character. People forget she used to do maid roles. Also so what she did bed scene? Mad freaking censored and tamed compared to HBO. Idk how many people here can’t afford plastic surgery to be hating her looks and acting so much. All actresses have work done lol at least I can see her emote. Crazy part is I’m not even an absolute fan of her works but the accusations on her buying her popularity or snide remarks of her sleeping around is crazy. Lol this girl group up in a village and least she don’t go around saying she is all natural or being extremely cocky in her speeches.
@Pameli – get your facts straight- Tony Leung graduated from Hong Kong TVB Acting Academy, a highly regarded training center back in those days with graduates Andy Lau, Chow Yun Fat. Do NOT compare multiple times Awards winning Best Male Actor Tony Leung with ZLY who can only get popularity prizes! There is no comparison whatsoever!!
Hahahahha! Yes, when ZLY couldn’t break into idolic dramas, she did plastic surgery to look like Yang Mi and then posted on Weibo claiming to be all natural while Yang Mi is not. That is so not conceited and disrespectful (sarcasm). Angelababy gets so much hate for plastic surgery, and she did many attempts to prove herself natural which annoy people. But if anyone count the amount of hot searches “ABB trying to prove self natural” versus “ZLY claiming to be natural”, ZLY has gozillian more hot searches than ABB and no one is annoy at all, which is too too too unstrange (sarcasim). Also, at least ABB does not throw anyone under the bus. ZLY will always find someone to compare with her and throw them under the bus.
NO ONE IS BORN WITH CONNECTIONS. One has to get make their own connections. ZLY career started in 2006 through the sleazy Feng Xiaogang, there, she has connections, through him. She joined a competition and was unable to sing nor act without tons of laughters from the audience. Don’t believe it, just search up Zhao Liying Yahoo Search Star. Come back and tell me how amazing her performance was. Convince us how you didn’t hear the audience laughing how funny she was.
From 2006 – 2010, Yes, she played some maid roles, but she also played some QUEEN ROLES, alright? In very big productions, and with very famous actors. She came in with no experience or education, and was able to get those opportunities when others worked so hard and couldn’t get them. All of her scenes do not last longer than 15 minutes, on average, they are all 5 minutes only!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Compare to REAL ACTRESSES who worked their way up step by step, that would’ve been Ma Li, Fan Bing Bing, Liu Tao, Jiang Xin, etc. NOT ZLY!
Take FBB for example, she put in more than 1,000 hours in her supporting role as Jin Suo. Then she supported for Cecilia Cheung in The Lion’s Roar, and played an evil princess. Then again played an evil role for Gillian Chung and Charlene Choi. She appeared as a support in Xiao Li Fei Dao, she had a few episodes of screentime and was memorable. When ZLY supported for others for 5 minutes only, who the heck even remembers her? She was not memorable bc she looked average and her acting was not outstanding. FBB worked that hard, and in the end, people like ZLY comes in and say “only sharp chin people can get famous” like beesh… FBB has sharp chin but she worked her ass way more than you did. Charlene Choi, Vicki, and Ruby had no sharp chins, FBB supported for them and never say a bad word about others.
ZLY first joined Huaiyi through Feng Xiaogang. After feeling like he can’t help her, she moved to be with He Ru in Peking University Starlight.
She was still unhappy playing supports. He Ru once revealed, ZLY cried and begged him so pitifully so he felt bad for her and helped her.
So He Ru took her to Hairun, where Sun Li was the biggest artist. She fought with Sun Li for resources, refused to be a support for Sun Li, and disrespected her by saying she’d never even watch Legend of Zhen Huan before but just want similar things Sun Li has.
Then He Ru took her to Yu Zheng, so he gave her a few supporting roles to test her first, he was not satisfied with her, overmore, she cannot read and remember scripts well at the very minimum. She has a good relationship with Yu Zheng though, so he TAILORED The Legend of Luzhen for her in 2013. She started to fall out with He Ru. She had very bad attitudes on a variety show with her mates from New Princess Pearl, she especially bullied Li Sheng multiple times. The first time, she blew kisses to the audience and put Li Sheng behind her, that might be accidental only, but as the show continued it got more and more intense. She pulled Li Sheng to the ground, and He Jiong helped her soothe down the embarassment. Then she scratched Li Sheng when snatching a cup from her, but feigns ignorancy, Li Sheng pretended that it didn’t hurt. Then, when sharing a water bottle, she tried to save her lipstick by swallowing the top before she lets Li Sheng drink. After all those things, she did an EPIC CRY and said the whole squad did not invite her to dinner with them because of her farming background! THE AUDACITY! The truth was she was dating Gao Ziqi but cheated on him with Chen Xiao during Legend of Luzhen. Later, she even went online and yell at netizens that “even drinking water is problematic” without reflecting on her own self. She lost fame immediately after Legend of Luzhen. She also had a fall out with He Ru. Rumors began flying that she used to travel with rich men for money. During that time, Yu Zheng protected her all the way. During a Press Conference, she cried into Yu Zheng’s arm and chest. He didn’t hug her back though, but what she did made it look like he was her lover. It didn’t help either, she went online and mocked Yang Mi, causing Yang Mi fans to almost “kick her out of the entertainment circle” entirely.
She broke up with He Ru completely after he declined her role for The Journey of Flower. She used her connection with Ding Zijun to go talk with the producer of Journey of Flower. She even went to find the screenwriter and author as well! Who is Ding Zijun?? A super rich guy, probably more powerful than FSF and equivalent to Wang Sicong. He is so rich but already married to the beautiful actress, Han Xue. During Journey of Flower, ZLY was left in a state of having no agent. So she used Ding Zijun temporarily!!!!! That year, in 2015, Hairun mysteriously transferred a whole lot of money to Zhao Liying, making her the 14th largest shareholder of Beijing Hairun Film Co with 1.4187 million shares!!! No one knows how she compensated He Ru to shut his mouth, at first, he was so angry that he exposed her sketchy past, the whole mess about her sleeping with rich men became a talk all over again.
She is also involved with Nicki Wu. On the eve of Nicki Wu and Liu Shishi’s wedding, he transferred 20% of the equity of “Straw Bear Pictures” to Liu Shishi at a consideration of 2 million yuan, and at the same time, he transferred 1% of the shares to actress Zhao Liying at a (free) price of 100,000 yuan. A transfer at such a low price is almost equivalent to giving it away for nothing.
Then some time later, she was caught going on a honeymoon trip with a CEO from the US, rumored to be married with children already. It seems like the rumors saying she travels with rich men for money might be true. She did lots of good marketing and white washed all of that.
Then she worked with Zhang Yuejia, and they got some rumors together and ended badly. Then she worked with Huang Bin, who was Huang Xiaoming’s previous agent, and received 20 endorsements in one year, including high luxury. She even posted that she wants to marry Huang Bin, and was disapproved by her fans. She had very sketchy photos with Huang Bin, always riding on top of him and he carries her around like a baby. When she married FSF, Huang Bin was unhappy and took away all the team and account about ten days before Zhao Liying’s official announcement of marriage.
Through FSF’s connections, ZLY got to know Li Bing Bing and went under her agency.
ZLY’s pregnancy and going in labor happen nearly the same time as Liu Shi Shi, to stay on top of hotsearch, her fans constantly picked on Liu Shi Shi. Nicky Wu sided with Zhao Liying and did not protect Liu Shi Shi.
I guesss it’s ok to deceive oneself in their own little world, ZLY cares too much about what people say about her, but she doesn’t mind dragging others down to elevate her own self. I applaud her hard works (sarcasm).
@Riley
Wow, that is quite the recounting! Is all this common knowledge in C-ent? I only knew about ZLY being catty toward YM and about ZLY’s connection with Nicky Wu, and I never quite understood why, as a taken man, he would protect ZLY over the beautiful classy LSS. Doesn’t he love his wife?
I’m also curious about ZLY’s marriage with FSF. It seemed like a shotgun wedding, but then they divorced so quickly. What happened?
@Adnana
Nicky Wu is powerful and owns lots of companies. Business is risky, he was bankrupted at one point.
In Legend of Zu, he was asked in interviews how much he trusts ZLY can carry the show, he showed lots of protection, “You’re saying my actress is not good?” He also made it look like he’s relying on her traffic and said “She’s responsible for bringing in all the traffic”. With ZLY owning parts of his company, it might be why they are able to be listed on HongKong stock market, something so competitive not many companies can get in. But who knows if all that is just a facade, other than giving ZLY part of Strawbear, he also opened “several” smaller companies for her to make extra money around 2015. LSS is classy and wife material, maybe he only married her for that? He got scandals with his other assistants too so… I don’t know how much he really likes LSS. Funny how LSS does not even market attack him, not being good enough for her, yet I’ve seen people trying their way out convincing people how LSS done it. I was like, where? where? Prove it. LMAO! They can’t prove it.
ZLY though, market attacks FSF and his mother to death. People be posting all the evidence, revealing how often ZLY attacks FSF weekly, and her fans acting blind “we ain’t reading”.
I think ZLY and Nicky Wu are not serious together but he needs her to shuddup by compensating her good money. She started with only 1% but even with just 1% can generate millions, and by now her percentage already rose really high too. If anyone is a bit pretty and has the chance to hit Nicky Wu it’s not a bad choice. If I am LSS, I won’t like ZLY, what right does she have to own the companies from my hubby? He tried to lie his way around that he didn’t pay ZLY her salary in Legend of Zu so he felt bad, so his brilliant idea is he will give ZLY part of their company. HARHAHRHAR! LMAO! It’s just too hiliarious.
@Adnana
About ZLY and FSF, it’s mysterious.
A long time ago, rumors said FSF is a rich 2nd generation.
However, he denied it, in the video below, so that rumor already stopped.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgNXUQofWXQ&t=8s
Women like Ady An and Huo Siyan are known for chasing after rich men. He worked with both of them many times and rumored to be his girlfriends. If he is rich, I don’t think they would let him escape. Maybe he is not so rich.
I think ZLY might’ve gotten pregnant and didn’t know who was the father.
Maybe, a very poor FSF was only hired to be a fake father?
Ever since ZLY was rumored dating him, his rich 2nd generation rumor came back up. Oddly, people act as if they never seen him denying the rumor before when they most likely did already.
There are so many theories.
ZLY was once very close with Kris Wu, according to his fans he doesn’t write love song but their album is a love song call “Missing You” which ended up being her son’s nickname.
Kris Wu, Wang Sicong, and Ling Gexin are good friends. Wang Sicong is a rich tycoon, attracted to ZLY after she intentionally ignored him knowing he loves attention. Some theorists said Wang Sicong took down Kris Wu because of his relationship with ZLY.
Ling Gexin is afraid of offending Wang Sicong so he rushed to expose his girlfriend recently.
Another theory, Ding Zijun is equally powerful like Wang Sicong so he is ZLY’s type, and they’re even super close. He looks almost identical to FSF, that’s why they hire FSF out of everyone. Ding Zijun is already a married man, and ZLY is afraid of others calling her a home wrecker so they cannot expose the relationship.
Others say she was too busy to get involved with anyone, the only guy who spent all his time with her was Huang Bin, otherwise FSF, because they filmed together.
Another theory, since ZLY is highly protected by the government, she could be a mistress of someone more powerful than everyone think.
Many people wanted to mock ZLY for a long time already, they just don’t dare to.
When Ma Li made this statement, everyone was super happy because she did it so smartly, she did not name ZLY anywhere. It was only ZLY and her fans being too guilty and they came forward to admit it themselves only, can’t blame others.
@Riley
Thank you for replying!
Still waters really do seem to run very deep with ZLY. I was just really confused, like with the example you gave of Nicky Wu earning money because of her–but how? Is her traffic really that strong? Does she really have political connections–again, how? NW just gave her stock in his company and other ventures, and all the other men also gave her various things (money, roles, support etc.) at different times, but why would they all choose to support her above another actress? I mean, “unspoken rule” contracts are a dime on dozen in entertainment, and–sorry to say–she’s not that beautiful. Definitely not LSS or Sun Li tier. She must be really intelligent to be able to play the game so well, much better than other more beautiful actresses. But then again, a smart girl wouldn’t have burned so many bridges like she did. Sigh.
@Adnana
About political connections.
She was awarded as Ambassador for her hometown, a really rare award.
As Ambassador, she went dead silent on her hometown when her fans cursed villagers to death.
They got cursed because the government came to fix the road. The timing was coincidental with when she became Ambassador, so she made it look like she spent money to fix the road. Even today, if you do a google search, her team still write articles about how compassionate she is to build a road. The road was not built by her, because it’s illegal unless she’s the government. Only government can build it. Whether she build it or not, her connection with them is quite clear. If she build it, she is the government. If she didn’t build it, the government would punish her for misleading others, but they didn’t, so she has special privileges. The villagers are still cyberbullied even up to today, poor people actually do not like ZLY as much as she claims on her news.
The government also do not allow celebrities to fool around with hotsearches during the pandemic, in case something important happen, news such as “ZLY is prettier than YM” is not important enough to be the top. Anyone fooling around would be heavily punished. ZLY made some donations, and paid hotsearches that her donated goods got thrown into the trash. The medical company had to come out to speak, because they were being accused of breaking the law, so they explained that they only threw away expired goods and not what ZLY donated. ZLY acted like a victim, did not come out to apologize. I think she was trying to do some search clean up, she got associated with a character name call Trashta that she doesn’t like, so she tries to make her news get associated with trash, that way when people search up Zhao Liying Trashta they won’t see it, but they will see her donated trash news only. There are more cases like this with her, will be too long to explain.
@Adnana
Can’t find where to reply to you but just want to say ZLY got games, that’s why men like her. If you don’t know who Wang Sicong is yet, I recommned watching Stephanie Soo’s run down on it. He is a psycho. ZLY is smart to ignore him so he will like her. Don’t say dramas are cliche, it really works if you ignore men they will like you. Or, yell at their faces. Or, act suicidal and all the macho in front him, he will be impressed.
For the most part, I think ZLY really utilizes her poor history to get pity out of men. Like the one time, her and Wallace Huo. I think they were attending an award ceremony and she was in a blue dress. At first, they were sitting together. Then she pretended to go somewhere like the bathroom, and it’s suspected she hired an old woman to come sit on her seat. Wallace Huo told the old lady to go bc it’s not her seat, she replied back that ZLY is only a farming girl not worthy to sit on it so she can do whatever she likes. After making a big scene, she got dragged out, then ZLY came back and sit shyly, then they climbed the stage together to receive their award.
I didn’t get to see the video footage, only in photos and screenshots, but it looked staged as hell. So unbelievable, there are so many actresses from humble background too and no such thing ever happen, ZLY might be overdoing it with the whole farming background thing. Sometimes, I guess it really sells, people believe it. Maybe we should try it, let’s all act very pitiful and see if we can impress Hu Ge, Xu Kai, Zhang Linghe, etc.
How does one buy hot searches? I want to understand this phenomena. And then, how do others know that person bought “hot” searches? Is it recorded somewhere?
Someone else might have a better explanation but essentially all celebs/their teams buy hot searches. If you ever go on Weibo, they have a list of trending topics of what people are currently “talking about”. If let’s say an award show is happening, there will be the usual trending topics on red carpet looks, who won what awards, the hosts, etc. You can tell if something is bought when it’s more specific about an actor and the topic is a bit stupid/ridiculous, like, “Actor A’s cateye makeup” or “Actor B’s blue dress”. These phrases/topics are usually created by the team and then pushed up the trending list with the help of groups that artificially increase views/shares/comments and fans of the idol (kind of like twitter trending hashtags). Because everyone does this, it’s kind of accepted as the norm. However, when there are 20 trending topics, and 10 of those topics are about 1 actor, then you know that their marketing team is working overtime to make them seem really big/important/trendy. A huge part of the industry is to fake it til you make it, so it’s important to make people believe that you have a lot of fans, and that you are being hotly discussed/popular/worthy of future investments. This is just one aspect of being a “traffic star” and buying data.
I understand the trending topics part, as seen on Twitter and Weibo. I also understand how these topics become trending, even though I wonder why the actor’s marketing department would make the topic titles so suspicious. I’m guessing the “buying hot topics” mean they paid people to “like” and make conversation under those hot topics to push them up. Thank you for the explanation!
@Gennita
No, they pay W–bo. As vvip clients they can pay hs to go up or for it to be taken down. There are actors who are well known for never engaging in this. But most do and people like ZLY or Yang Zi are among the most known for it.
we often get news or rumors from AvenueX and Marcus Sim, both of them admitted they get their sources from things like Sohu. If compare Sohu news with sites like Kolasplayground, Jaynestar, and Dramapotato, they all match.
It’s embarssing for Zhao Liying because Sohu contains hundreds and thousands of headlines like this “Zhao Liying is better and XXX cannot compare”. Almost each and every actress can go into that XXX.
No, other actresses do not have such headlines like that. Liu Yifei had one with Fan Bing Bing, the media did try to make comparisons and even accuse FBB of being jealous. But that only happened once, so it’s not fair to suspect LYF. For ZLY, because there are way too many articles like that and it has been ongoing for way too many years. It happened to the point, all her peers are no longer happy with her and do not want to see her at parties. So it’s time that she changes herself, and even apologize. Cause ZLY was suing so many Sohu writers, so she definitely knows how she’s marketing, there’s no way she does not know. Even AvenueX is starting to say ZLY’s data are fake data in the Shen Li review.
If ZLY was smart, a few years ago, she successfully made people hate Yang Mi because of her marketing. Had she stop right after she reached her goal, I believe it will be hard for Yang Mi to gain back the fans she lost. Now, people saw through ZLY’s marketing and many people are saying, they used to like ZLY and hate YM, but now that they know the truth they are liking YM and hating ZLY. This is her over greediness. Never know when to stop.
@Advisor – I do agree about the part about the ZLY/Yang Mi saga, some years ago, the gossip against Yang Mi was really very bad, but things started to change after Zhao Li Ying’s divorce, for whatever reason, whether paid searches or not, the gossip was that ZLY had the most amicable divorce in comparison to Yang mi’s. All the manufactured positive news about ZLY’s divorce swung the pendulum back to Yang Mi’s favor, making her look more real and authentic in comparison.
Before ZLY blew up in 2015, Yang Mi was the very very top actress.
Because ZLY almost got kicked out by YM’s fans once, ZLY marketed that Yang Mi is the “best business woman” ever and only wants herself to be Number 1.
I think YM was especially hated for that reason. She suffered silently for many years, until people finally woke up and realized, if it’s true that YM doesn’t let others climb up the rank, then how come YM allowed ZLY become famous? Now ZLY is the top, she’s the one who doesn’t let anyone climb up!
YM still allowed Hawick Lau to give ZLY the lead role in “The Wife’s Secret” although ZLY already badmouthed YM. And YM never say anything bad about ZLY, even when interviewed, YM said very good things about ZLY. Only ZLY keeps smearing YM on her news articles too, but YM never do the same back to ZLY. YM also help guided a bunch of juniors, whether they are successful or not, they will keep trying, and they will have a strong trusting bond together no matter what! While ZLY only continue to smear juniors after juniors, tearing them down and if she receives any small criticisms she will blame it all over on them. As soon as there is a rising actress people praise, ZLY quickly find things to smear them. If I study ZLY’s biography, she isn’t true to any of her friends and family. Maybe YM had some mistakes too, but at least her love for Hawick was once very true. She was willing to admit dating him, she risked her top fame for it. She paved the path for the newer generation, if they want to admit dating their co-star, it’s ok. Hawick was caught cheating, but she doesn’t market attack him. She lets the media attack her. She fell out of friendships with people like Tang Yan, but they won’t market attack each other. They are willing to share the stage together, just not standing together.
Just look at how ZLY market attacks FSF. Look at how she attacks her MIL. She attacks her past friends. She refuses to share the stage with anyone, when it was only her who market attack them and they didn’t even do anything to offend her.
She marketed that YM is a business woman, but YM did not even receive any gift from men. Jaywalk was owned by ALL WOMEN leaders, and they started from the very bottom of the bottom up. Because it was a startup and YM joined in during the time they had no money at all, she is considered “a founder” only because of that, as a result she had a little bit of investments in it. People made it sound as if YM was this powerful woman who is producing dramas and can choose scripts and the casting members, if anything fails YM is the first to get blamed.
Few years later, NOW, the first to produce was ZLY, not others. Cause ZLY owns such a huge part of the famous Hairun and Strawbear, as well as many other companies, as FREE gifts from wealthy men. As powerful as that, of course she can produce. She produced very unprofessionally, I’m just wondering where did all the toxic people die to and not coming out to talk about her unprofessionalism.
I though MA Li’s speech was hinted toward Jai Ling? Since their movie is going head to head? ZLY added the Legend of shen Li to her profile.?
Ma Li did not name anyone. ZLY came out on her own, admitting the connotation is towards herself, whether Ma Li is connotating anyone at all or not doesn’t change the fact that ZLY turned herself in guilty.
ZLY wanted to break out in filming since a long time. The movie you’re saying is a film. Produced by Yu Zheng, titled as Palace, with Zhou Dongyu as the lead. It wasn’t a bad opportunity back then. Yu Zheng’s reputation wasn’t too bad yet.
Zhou Dongyu is famous for working with Zhang Yimou before. Zhao Liying also marketed herself over Zhong Dongyu. The leading man was Chen Xiao, whom she was dating because they worked in The Legend of Luzhen. He asked everyone to support ZLY, and even complimented that her acting evil comes off so realistic he got afraid of her. During the red carpet show, Zhao Liying intentionally held hands with Chen Xiao when he was suppose to stand next with Zhou Dongyu to do promotions. News all over the media also keep saying Zhao Liying overpowered Zhou Dongyu who couldn’t act. Zhao Liying’s dirty marketing has always been like that. ZLY was really happy and excited about the Palace film, and she believes by playing an evil role will make her versatile. Now that Yu Zheng’s reputation isn’t good anymore, she retracted everything. The day before Shen Li aired, ZLY relied on that bed scene to get hype, she recirculated it all over the media and tried to make it look like Yu Zheng did it. She even came up with a fake news that Yu Zheng wanted to work with her again but she declined him, because he didn’t take any safety measures during her bed scenes, and another time when she fell off a horse. However,she forced the team to let her do the horse scene BTW, they didn’t let her do it. About bed scenes, I’m sure she signed agreements to do them from the start as well. Shen Li was doing poorly, until the bed scene near the end, people seemed to be so satisfy with her bed actions so much that they just don’t care how plotless the whole thing was.
In 2015, her break out, her salary increased so dramatically because she was the first to ever surpass 20 billion views in history.
In 2016, she is also responsible for the first and most toxic fan war that ever happen in history, that is the fight between her and Yang Zi. In Noble Aspiration, ZLY was invited to play a small role after the director failed to find anybody for the role. ZLY was dating Jeffrey Wang Hao at that time, a married man, and CEO from the United States, he was helping on the back set although she denied dating him. He seemed to sponsor her or something, she was able to steal all of Yang Zi’s screentime, scripts, and leading role. Yang Zi fans was not happy but they should have the rights to be angry. However, they lost the argument to Zhao’s fans completely. Amazingly, Zhao’s fans didn’t know how to say anything intelligent other than verbally assaulting Yang Zi being ugly, and somehow they won all the conversations. The only reason seems to be it’s because they have more people, Yang Zi’s fans were really reasonable, they were speaking about integrity and justice but Zhao’s fans were all about the rights to be shameless. Yang Zi was naive so she friended ZLY to calm down everyone. Had Yang Zi posted some hamburgers and pizzas, ZLY would have nowhere to hide but Yang Zi was professional and kind hearted. ZLY always try to shift blame on Yang Zi, calling her queen of hot searches every now and then. All of the films Zhao Liying catched to play, she went on very special dinner dates with the directors. Even the role in The Story of Xingfu, she had to dine with Zheng Xiaolong. All of the toxic fan wars we see these days, never happen until ZLY started this trending culture. Fans used to never be a part of the industry, until everyone saw how ZLY used her fans to do things for her, like helping her get a role she wants, help her slander someone she hates, help her get views, help her acting status rise, help her teach directors how to behave, etc. This type of culture only happened because of ZLY, she is responsible for it, but the government doesn’t seem to want anyone bringing it up. People had been silenced before.
I am more interested to reasons why Zhang Yimou cast Zhao Liying? Is it due to her commercial value ? Her aggressive marketing tactics? Ability to get more investment? Zhang Yimou is famous but getting more investment is not a bad thing?
Will he work with Zhao Liying again? I dont know. Time will tell.
1. ZLY had special dinner with Zhang Yimou
2. ZYM tends to write scripts about corruption and gets censored by the government, ZLY is in high favor of the government
2. That is interesting… I do feel Zhang Yimou cast Zhao Liying knowing full well what he can benefit from her. He is a smart person. He know what he need for this movie.
I also want to know that. LOL. He didn’t just randomly cast anyone. I found those who were cast in his movies can act. I don’t know this actress Ma Li giving the award speech. But claiming herself a capable actress doesn’t sit well with me. LOL. Even in the US with kinda of culture that highly encourages self confidence, I HAVE NEVER SEEN any public figure recognizing one’s own ability in a public speech like this, not to mention THIS happened in a society that traditionally exalts humble personality. LOL.
I only know Ma Li from her appearances on variety shows, didn’t know she was an actress. Always thought she was a comedian but thinking about it, of course she is an actress like Shen Teng, they just do a lot of comedy. I wouldn’t take her speech seriously and use that against her as being humble. Another commentor brought up Jia Ling too, and that’s reasonable because they are a group of close friends.
I’d take this “report” a grain of salt. C internet is full of rumors that just have no way to verify.
💯 the wises comment so far 👌,people love to shot the gun when it comes to all kinds of rumours with prove, ridiculous.
I mean without prove
@Somebody, Agree! It is still just gossip…I will read and ponder for afew seconds, then move on. We know, some readers will not take this to heart . Not worth any hard drive storage space in my mind…🤣
These 2 days, the papers are full of bad news. Those are just so upsetting… this popcorn news is nothing.
@HL, you cracked me up with that limited hard drive storage space. LOL. This reminds me it’s the time to update my cell phone with more storage. LOL.
@Somebody, you know what really cracks me up…it is all the long essays we can see written about ZLY… How are those info are “created”, “dug out” or “exposed”? I dont know any artistes that has so many background stories written about her.
How she lives her life is her choice…. Some people are just too obsess with her. She is like this big melon, those obsessive people wants to eat.
My own life is busy enough…I cannot imagine giving unknown people more hard drive space…
What’s so not funny is how ZLY fans always say they’re not a ZLY fan but when ZLY gets an embarrassing news, they will drag YM into the news trying to shift attention to someone else.
Evidence is on this link, look at that Hoeliu (HL)’s comment, EMBARRASSING!
https://www.jaynestars.com/news/william-feng-cherishes-being-a-father/
@Veron, a real example of a troll trolling from one site to another…. I find the 2 kids have loving fathers. Nothing wrong with it. Do they have great mothers? I have always said both actress did the best they could for their kids. They know who is best to help bring up their kids. That is their decision. As long as the kids are safe, loved and happy…that is all that matters.
Troll, you have too much time on your hands… 🤣🤣
sorry, but im not going to read all these long essays on ZLY’s entire “disgraceful life story”. i dont understand why people can have so much hate towards someone that doesnt even know you exist. if a person is so bad why do you keep such close tabs on them and what they do? life is too short to waste this way.
ZLY can do what ever she wants. But stop bullying others.
Can’t break into dramaland, bully Yang Mi.
Can’t break into filming, bully Ma Li, Gao Ye, and Zhang Yimou.
Can’t act polite, demand The Restaurant to apologize to her.
Can’t do variety shows, bully hosts.
Can’t act young, bully younger actresses.
And always use the same excuse that she has no education, no culture, no background. Stop selling pity. When she sells pity, you read, and when you go bully others, you tell others they can’t bully your idol because she’s pitiful. People are also tired of the things her fireflies post too. Trashy Minglan ain’t good, boring as hell, stop going to other people’s work and bringing that piece of trashy work up for comparison in the future as well.
This is too silly. Ming Lan was great. And the newest drama she did was great too. Started slow but then drove it home to a great ending. Whether she is the only bully out there as you seem to think is too much. Chinese entertainment all together seems pretty cutthroat with the tricks played by agencies, wacko producers, psycho fans creating hate altogether is enough to rant on but at this point until proven otherwise your whining and begging for us to agree Zly is trash is your choice not everyone’s. She is still a good actress and appealing to watch most often. You may not like it but seriously too much hate. 🙃😬🫣🙄
Joke for today
DIRECTOR YANG WENJUN:
“Hi Pal! I thought I directed my show at a very slow pace already, well, yours is a little extra slower”
DIRECTOR CAO DUN:
“Well, yeah, after The Story of Minglan’s success, I trusted that slow pace is the new trend and people truly love slow stuff”
DIRECTOR YANG WENJUN:
“Sorry Pal! It’s all fake marketing from Zhao Liying. I got bad rating and backlashes about slowness as well. At first, I thought I got no success because I didn’t direct slow enough. So I heard your drama is very slow as well, I checked it out, and you got even lower rating and more backlashes about slowness.
It’s not true at all that people enjoy slow stuff”
DIRECTOR CAO DUN:
“Yeah, I figured. We didn’t cast Zhao Liying, had she been the cast, it wouldn’t matter how slow we direct it will be an automatic MASTER PIECE”
DIRECTOR YANG WENJUN:
“LMAO!”
👏 👏 👏
Maybe those long replies are another instance of “buying hot topics?” It’s a lot of work, typing all the hate to convince people about a stranger.
I too do not understand the obsession…
@backatyou what did i say makes you think she’s my idol? did i even defend her? i dont even know anything about her besides the fact that she has a few hits. didnt even want legend of shenli. but you people have so much hate and anger, you ramble on for pages, create multiple accounts, and have full on convos with yourselves. its not healthy. stop wasting time on these people you say are so terrible. thats my point.
It’s quite amusing reading all this ZLY-related gossips here. I like her and her acting. She’s worked her way up, and throughout her journey had endured people mocking her because of her poor background & education (she never went to college). She’s not Zhou Xun or Zhang Ziyi, or even Zhou Dongyu level, but she’s been nominated for Best Actress at Magnolia Awards (which is one of the 4 prestigious awards in China) TWICE, for Journey of Flower and Story of Ming Lan. That’s an industry recognition. Say whatever you want to say, she’s the one going to the bank laughing.
Totally agree with you. she is a hardworking actress. Has her own vision and very good at planning. She supervised the production of The Legend of Shenli and also the BGM for the drama. for the record she has been nominated thrice for Magnolia. The last one in 2022 for Wild Bloom. Her acting has become better and better and she accepted challenging role to test herself just like Article 20
ZLY seems to attract such long hate comments which makes me suspect these commentators are paid to bad mouth her. The ironic thing is that people are more surprise by the behaviour of the commentator than ZLY, which defeats the original intention of commentator to bring more hate to ZLY. Too many cooks spoil the broth so this strategy is not working 🤪
Cite which sentence isn’t a fact and prove it.
Its reallly funny seeing people writing their long paragraphs full of bullahit with zero evidence. I know that there is one person who always change accs and is on very single Zhao Liying related news saying everything bad about the chinese entertainement its the doing of Zhao Liying . Anti fans so mad that she got nominated 3 times for Magnolia awards and even got praised for this movie internationally. She started in 2006 doing small roles and it took her many years to get to leading roles but haters want to tarnish her journey. Go look at all the top actresses journwy to the top and see how they did 1 to 3 roles as supporting the Main roles. Look at the 95 flowers Zhou Ye, Bai Lu,Zhao Lusi, Zhang Jingyi etc.Look at Ni Ni, Liu Yi fei, Yang Mi, Angelababy and. No one gets suspected of anything but Zhao Liying obviously “slept her way” are you guys insane. I’m not trying to say any of these actresses did something immoral but make it seem like zhao Liying rise to fame its suspicious while the others are not just scream obsessive haters to me.
She did plastic surgery to look like yang mi 🤣🤣. I’m a kpop fan, i’m not delusional, i’m never gonna put my hands on fire on the topic of plastic surgery so i’m never gonna say i’m 100% sure she didnt get ps but evryone can see her face throug the years https://youtu.be/GNAy2_rvoUs?si=n25qi3pQIBnVKWga
I know all the rival fans are always waiting for an opportunity to tear her down but she keeps getting bigger and you guys are here being venomous losers.
Your comment is longggggg toooooooo!! Examine yourself.
Isn’t it super shameless how that link she gave, the very first photo of that baby child, it isn’t even ZLY.
That child’s mom posted her kid on social media saying it looks like ZLY, since then ZLY fans stole that photo and claim it’s ZLY.
Also, all the photos of ZLY in her early days have such thick filters on, and she uses them to prove how she’s a natural beauty. I can provide better ones:
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/c4/de/bd/c4debd6a1778b7a6ce62f451b7b44856.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/8c/fd/cd/8cfdcd93fccc02475dc85a501557603a.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/c5/cc/fa/c5ccfa722a23b3d0090469504d877897.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/60/6e/4a606eb25dd1ae073a2c222fcde5e2f6.jpg
Lmaoo, it’s like pot calling the kettle black XD all these long ass comments
I dont know if i’m angered or impressed about this one user who is always on ZLY related topics writing so much bullshit. You dont have to pretend there is multiple people talking about this. Isnt it tiring always changing accs on mydramalist and going to every chinese drama news site to post your conspiracy theories. I hope people here have a brain and dont waste time reading these quite creative novels.
I think it is same everywhere. You can super A list in tv but in movies you are still B list. There’s TV star and then there’s movie star. I wonder if it is same in china.
Oh that’s definitely the case in China. Movie stars are considered elite thespians compared to TV stars. They are also more known with the general public compared to TV stars who might have a more dedicated fanbase, but less public recognition. Eventually all TV stars, especially female stars want to transition over to movies, mainly because of ego, but also the TV industry’s misogynistic views of aging women and the roles they can take on. I don’t blame celebs for wanting movie industry’s recognition and acceptance, it’s part of the game they play, but some have got to chill with the approach.
I like zly. She’s a good actress and she’s believable in whatever roles she plays. I’m not sure she herself has time to post in weibo so maybe her pr team went into overdrive.
Have u watch her in Article 20,imo she was great in her role. Maybe u should discuss about her performance than all this rubbish rumours. we can’t deny in c ent she is one of the best actress out there.
She appeared for 5 minutes… and the only thing she did was crying.
She markets as if no one on earth can do a crying face, so lemme show y’all an example:
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/0d/56/bd/0d56bdddfd9388adab2cc383a7249b70.jpg
Stop bragging so hard. Had she let people naturally enjoy it, she wouldn’t lose face. She was so afraid nobody would see her, so she marketed so desperately, it became an annoyance.
People have eyes, if she did well people will praise her naturally.
The movie did not even come out yet, her crying photo was already all over the places. She even headline all the news articles “Zhao Liying Surpassed all 85’ers” causing all the Cnetz to hate her very much. If anyone reads on Douban and Chinese blogging sites, most people hate her so much now. The more her fans speak the funnier they get laughed at.
It would be a good idea for her to stop marketing for a while completely. It’s not good if she tries to push blame, last time something similar like this happened too, and they tried to accuse Chen Duling of being the marketer who was comparing herself against everyone else. They got caught and lost face as well. Better to just stop marketing, don’t even try to salvage the situation in any way. If there is anything for ZLY to say, that is, she should apologize for her bad marketing behavior. Everyone knows she’s spoiled and unapologetic. So if she doesn’t want to apologize, there is nothing her marketing team needs to do other than apologize, just be quiet and don’t come out for a long long time.
During the AFA award, ZLY also marketed so shamelessly too, Jiang Qin Qin won the Best Actress award while ZLY only won the Popular Actress award during AFA, nobody even know JQQ was the real winner because of ZLY.
If she still thinks she doesn’t owe people apologies then just be quiet, stop with her dumb marketing it makes her look hateful.
With all that money, why doesn’t she fix her mouth/teeth. I find it very distracting and scary when she smiles from the side, like, girl what is wrong with your teeth. Is that why the majority of her pictures has her smiling with her mouth closed? I was only able to watch Ashes of Love because of Deng Lun. Have not been able to watch her in other dramas because I can’t stand her mouth when it’s open. Imagine seeing pretty mermaid pictures with but with their mouths open and all scary teeth. Just wanted to see if others find that part as weird as me. Maybe I’m seeing the real monster because shamanism runs in my genes and sometimes we see things that are not meant to be seen.
HO! HO! HO! Another huge wave of white washing is coming.
ZLY is suing a bunch of Weibo users because they took side with Ma Li these few days.
My IQ is so low, I absolutely do not know why ZLY did not sue her own fans too. During the time she was doing an interview with Ma Li and they were sitting together, Ma Li looked tired when ZLY was answering questions, and she quickly hired news editors to publish tons of articles saying Ma Li is jealous of ZLY, jealous that ZLY is being asked more questions and getting more spotlight.
Look at the difference! Ordinary people on Weibo are only saying their opinions and ZLY is suing them! But when Zhao Liying defames another person on the friggin NEWS???????? ZLY gets away with it. No one can sue her. WOW! This is not a mistress of the CCP, I don’t know what else it is. Shameless woman! She can only bet on that child she had with her gold master, otherwise she also aged like everyone else and no longer youthful for her gold master to spoil.