Cheng Yi Goes From Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Sword and Beloved Filming to S+ Male Lead Period C-drama Fu Shan Hai

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• Confirms his serious career is never going to take off. Just one more costume.

  I wonder how long he is going to last, doing these costumes because even though he waters his data with at least one tsunami per day, he is not truly succeeding.

  • Yes yes, an outsider dont understand anything. Serious career? Nothings more serious than reopening wuxia's industry

• I am actually glad he made this move...I like Cheng Yi but to be very honest, he is really not the best actor out there. He acting, looks are not bad but he is replaceable. To risk changing his career path...I dont think his is the the time. His career is not stable as yet in this industry... He is not in the best place to take risk...

  He popularity in China is fond of his period costume dramas... so be it. He can slip in other themes in between to test waters but he need to take full risk.

  I am happy he has re-signed with his agency if it is 100% his will and he is not threatened or forced. At the end of the day... economy in China is really not great. Being able to get a job you enjoy and earning money needed...that is better then being jobless. I am just so glad his agency is managing his Image better as Chen Zheyuan's agency. Slow and steady may win the race...

  I am looking forward to this drama.

  • He can't just jump in into other genres. He tried and ever since, he has been firmly rebuffed. He can't even speak properly and this is one of the major conditions for it, nvm the other issues he caused.

    There is no slow and steady when new faces who are at least as good as he is and definitely hotter are popping up every day.

    You are right that he should grab what he can. It's better to keep working as long as it is possible, even if it is this.

    • I may like him but I too have aware where his strength and weaknesses are, I am not a big fan as i watch just 1/3 of his productions. Rest, I dropped. But I am very glad he made this decision... as you said, some new faces are at least as good or better then him.
      He is better off playing to his strength. What happens in the future will let time tell.

  • Only international viewers call his acting bad. 🙄 And whats wrong with wuxia, you think its a easy to handle industry especially in the current situation where everyone uses a body double and slow mo fighting?

• Ι haven't watched him in anything but MLC, but I liked him there, even if I eventually dropped the show. I liked his chemistry with Aero Xiao too, so it's good he's in the new drama as well. However, I can't really see him as a romantic lead, maybe I am influenced by MLC.

  • Fu Shan Hai is a male centric wuxia, but a romance drama

• Honestly with his looks, custom dramas r his forte, when he is in a mordern certain is difficult to enjoy his acting there because, I see lack of Charisma there, making him dull and uninteresting. I can only watch him in custom. He does not appeal to me once he is in the mordern certain, time will tell if that will change in the future.

• I don't really get his level of popularity either. He doesn't strike me personally as very handsome but his acting is good. I saw him on hello Saturday and he was freaking hilarious, making Dylan Wang laugh so hard he fell over multiple times.

• haha, I also didn't understand his appeal at first when I started watching C-dramas. I didn't find him attractive tbh and believed he would be such a bore to watch...that was before I gave 'Mysterious Lotus Casebook' a shot last year (people were all raving about it so it got me curious) and oh boy I was wrong! Man is charming and got me all invested in a genre that I'm not even fond.

  Later I decided to watch the drama that propelled him to stardom (Love and Redemption) and I totally fell in love with him (best xianxia ever imo...I tried to watch the iconic 'TMOPB/Eternal Love' but dropped it after 30 episodes...it was boring and the chemistry between the leads wasn't that good imo)

  Regarding this piece of news, though I'm glad he got cast in such a big production, I'm still a bit disappointed with his decision to stay with his current agency H&R (not much artistic freedom I fear) but also understand the difficulty to be free agent... sigh
  Wish him the best and will watch for sure all his future projects.

  • 💯

  • I noticed him in Noble Aspirations, but I didn't really get to see him in full action until LAR. I didn't find him handsome at all in LAR like he'll look okay at some point and zero point at some point. I only gave the drama a tried because it was popular, but I ended up liking the drama and liking him. IMO, I'd rather watch him than Bai Jing Tin and Li Hong Yi who I think are actors that can pass as his triplets LOL.
    His fight scenes in MLC is really smooth and pretty so I'd understand why they want to cast him in another one, but yeah, he's probably getting typecast. And yes, he needs to branch out from H&R.

    • Typecast into wuxia, naive non Chinese says. Which actors these days can get typecasted into wuxia, non cgi non slowmo non body double

  • I'm the opposite. I couldn't stand his non-stop blood puking in L&R, but his acting in MLC impressed me. I think he is a good fit for wuxia.

  • Hes not staying with HR, nothings been confirmed yet, and his contract still have a few years to go.

    • @Euphoria Thank you for clarifying things.

• Koala, you are missing out on the major meltdown happening over Yibo. Just go to twitter and add blackface.

  • Oh...what happened?

    • His new movie from yesterday has full blackface. It is going viral on twitter. I can't believe anyone thought this is something ok.

      To make it worse, his fans on Weibo are laughing at it all and fans here are defending him. So it got compounded and it has taken off.

    • Wow!! Not good for him...

    • @Lmao, I just read more about it online and saw his black face and drag locks. On economic side...China is heavily invested in Africa. This is a insult to them. This is just NOT OKAY! .. I dont understand just how can the producers think this look is okay?? I think many Chinese do not understand how the history of how Blackface insult came about on screen/telly.

      So will China take this movie off cinemas ?

    • @HL
      Unlikely they will remove it, Chinese don't care.

      I still don't understand how things got this far though. In the end, Yibo works with world brands and this is a problem here. He knows this because he has done blackface before and he was told it was unacceptable. But here we are. I guess until some big consequence hits him, it won't change.

    • I honestly question his intellectual ability to make any appropriate judgment in a situation like this.

    • @Somebody

      Well you are not wrong there.

  • The fact that not a single person on that crew from filming to release thought twice about blackface, blows my mind. And his fans either not caring or going around trying to justify it is such a stupid look.

  • Ridiculous how it can be approved in 2024. What were they thinking??????

  • I wish people had the same level of cultural sensitivity during the zzh scandal ~

    So what if he did blackface, his market is in china.

• The least versatile one in c-drama, always playing same roles, same type of dramas.. he did try other things but not work.

• After he films this drama I hope he takes a break and look over some modern, retro, or even republican era drama scripts. He's becoming typecast and I don't like that for him.

• He reminds me too much of Luo Yunxi. Both are decent actors that have made their names in period dramas and require the costumes to add to their charisma, they just don't work in modern dramas. Both are in their 30's and will age out of xanxia soon but keep churning out these same roles.

  • I agree that they are really similar (I'll add Allen Ren to the list as well). But Leo turns me off completely with his heavy makeup. He used to be so decent looking back in Ashes of Love days. But nowadays it seems like he is trying to compete with actresses in terms of who looks more beautiful.

  • Ditto @guest & Sera.