First Look at Gong Jun and Cast Filming Wuxia C-drama Tales of Dark River
This feels like an anchor project for C-actor Gong Jun, a make-or-break moment for him to stay an A-list drama male lead or show that Word of Honor was indeed a one-hit wonder for him. He hasn’t had a hit in four years and the most promising ones Legend of Anle and Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Red Moon Pact were both disappointments in reception and ratings. The only one to do okay is Rising with the Wind but that’s not the type of hit that he needs to maintain his level. Up next is Tales of Dark River (An He Zhuan) and the first filming stills are out from the set which includes female leads Peng Xiao Ran and Yang Yu Tong as well as second male lead Chang Hua Sen. Everyone looks great, wuxia is always more my alley than xianxia.
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As a fan of TODR. I must say that Gong Jun IS Su Mu Yu in person. The same must be said for every actor and actress who truely became the characters they’re playing.
Everything and everyone looks amazing.
I pray to all gods that the drama is good! I’ll be very happy if it’s just good. If it surpasses my expectations, I’ll be the crazy one dancing and screaming in my X’s account.
My greatest fear are the people behind the cameras. The people in front of the cameras do not make me worry much.
This is so true. Gong Jun has a powerful screen presence with high emotional impact, and it takes the right person to direct him. The directors are the ones whose vision we see on screen, as they control every movement, angle, kiss, punch and word that the actors say. Actors have very little power to control the scene. A director may re-shoot a scene dozens of times. Thinking of Fox Matchmaker, I saw many mistakes in the story telling and the way the scenes were shot. So many people were turned off by the female lead’s lack of emotion and stone face in most of the show. That is the director’s fault, and by not emphasizing the dead friend story in the FIRST episode, that love story was lost. Also, they should have let the actress show more secret emotion. The right director would have made this show a hit. IQIY shows 9.7+ rating on most of the episodes, so possibly those audiences are more mature and educated. I have High expectations for the director of Dark River.
Is it really the ‘make or break’ drama? I feel he have been going thru that recently afew time already.
I definitely love Wuxia more then Xianxia. Hope this script is good.
I feel like I’ve heard that “make or break” comment multiple times already too. Still seems like he’s getting lead roles, so the previous flops don’t seem to do much.
I agree.. 😂😂
Looks like C-ent is willing to give GJ plenty of opportunities for “make or break” INDEFINITELY. LOL.
It’s not a stretch to say GJ is one that the industry has been babysitting for a long while and drama fans are still waiting to see him to start to walk by himself. LOL.
Babysitting…interesting word to use. I will hijack it…
I won’t lie this is the only possible explanation. I didn’t say much then because their CP was blowing up, but Gong Jun was carried by ZZH in Word of Honor. I know ZZH is cancelled now but facts are facts, he was the better actor. I don’t know why things keep falling in his lap, he’s handsome I guess but he doesn’t seem to be trying.
If Gong Jun was a woman getting all these hit-or-miss opportunities people would be saying he slept his way to the top! The trust and hope in him is so strange.
Lol, he’s someone’s sugar baby for sure lol. Even after that Fox Flopmaker drama someone’s still willing to bet on the wrong horse and burn money investing in his non-existing acting talent lol.
Everyone looks great! The makeup and wardrobe team are doing a great job. I never found Gong Jun handsome, but his style in here is up my alley. Next, will have to see how the acting, script, directing, and production do.
I’m really looking forward to ‘Dark River’. I’ve been interested and invested in the character Su Mu Yu ever since ‘The Blood of Youth’ and again in ‘Dashing Youth’.
Whether Gong Jun can bring life to the character is another story, so far his acting except for his Wen Ke Xing from ‘Word of Honor’ has failed to impress me.
He has huge shoes to fill as Jiang Zhen Hao was great as Su Mu Yu in ‘The Blood of Youth’ and Cheng Hong Xin is so far nailing the role in ‘Dashing Youth’.
This is based off of blood of youth? If so then my interest is piqued? His acting is like ping pong for me sometimes he is okay and other times terrible. But if it’s based on the other dramas world background I don’t care if he is good or bad. Just interested in the overall story.
Yes, this drama is related to ‘Blood of Youth’ – it’s the drama adaptation to the Chinese novel ‘Tales of Dark River’ and will be about ‘An He’ or the ‘Dark River’ family of assassins that we saw in both Blood of Youth and Dashing Youth.
Zhou Mu Nan wrote the Shao Nian (少年 – Youth) series and its shared universe in chronological order includes:
1) World of Honor (Jun You Yun) – set a few hundred years before the Shao Nian series
2) The Young Brewmaster’s Adventure (Shao Nian Bai Ma Zui Chun Feng) – Dashing Youth drama counterpart currently airing, and also the prequel to The Blood of Youth
3) Tales of Dark River (An He Zhuan) – Dark River; set after The Young Brewamaster’s Adventures and 8 years before Song of Adolescence
4) Song of Adolescence (Shao Nian Ge Xing) – The Blood of Youth
Fox was just bad directing. Jun was wonderful, but they didn’t give the female lead any emotion.
This might be the first drama I check out of GJ. Very excited to see PXR here!
Chang Hua Sen looks great. Let’s see if he will make me forget the stupidity of Li Tongguang!
Oh how did I missed that he’s in this drama? Might have to rethink this drama. 🤣
I’m more interested in the FL and the 2nd ML than GJ himself. Perhaps GJ will get lucky this time again to have strong acting and impressive presence in the cast other than himself to sell this drama like Word of Honor. LOL. Most likely he may be just proving himself a one-time fluke. I’m seeing him a lazy actor, not making efforts to understand his roles in all his past dramas thanks to lacking competition in the same cast without someone like Zhang Zhehan.
You just spoke my mind lol.Tbh, even in WoH even though his character is interesting but ZZH is obviously the better actor. I sometimes want to laugh during his angry or emotional scenes since to me its like is he laughing or crying/angry? And that goes on in other dramas too. Maybe he’s trying to hard instead of emoting it naturally? I would love to be proven wrong though and see if he improve in this drama
He always looks good
He can’t act worth a damn though. Another flop in the making.
I really love gongjun in begin again. Just watching it this year. Such a nuance performances I was shock there is many haters of him here lol…. does he really that bad in other drama?
I’m not hating him. “Hater” is a strong word only for those who may go extra miles to take revenge. He doesn’t owe me anything for me to be his hater. LOL. I was appealed to his visuals and did check almost all his past works including Begin Again that I even finished. It’s fair for me to say he’s not improving anything much since early years.
He is really wow me in begin again to the point I want to check out his other drama. He is not only good, he is really very good. One of The standout performances apart from senior actor. He is always delivered emotion even I find will challenging for a mediocre acting to pull off. He is good.I heard word of honor is his best acting, I really can’t wait to watch it.
he is a pretty decent actor when he get a good script. And I think he suits modern drama more
He does have a pretty face……. the end
People bashing this guy for nothing.
People still give jobs to women who can’t act so I don’t see why men can’t have jobs.
Dilraba being the most popular one who can’t act but keep on being employed. She got nice backers financing her adventures so her lack of acting skills are not a problem for whatever platform air her dramas so the platforms do not feel the hit of failure as much thanks to the money brought by her backers. Her beauty is the only thing going for her and people pay very good money to see her for just being pretty enough.
there are tons of women, including Dilraba, that get bashed for not being able to act. YM was just getting pummeled online for her movie and drama with GJ flopping. She probably got hit worse than GJ for that fox drama. people also criticize JJY for being the same in every drama. It’s not a phenomenon for just GJ or “men”. And it’s not for nothing. He literally had no emotional range. if you’re going to be an actor, it’s normal for people to have expectations that you improve or they’ll have an opinion on your performance. no one here is personally attacking him. criticism on his acting is fair game.
I have no idea. Do all chinese actor really so great to the point someone as reliable as Gong Jun can consider as a bad actor? I agree some actor just suit certain setting or character. But Gong Jun is by no means a bad actor. Some bad script/bad written character also can hinder someone performances.
I watched begin again, He is never get outshined by anyone in terms of performances. It helps the drama has a solid script for his character
Lmao he is a terrible actor.
Start watching some actual good dramas to see what is good acting not just idol trash. Smh
Tales of Dark River has an amazing donghua already with strong-willed, empathetic, and yet troubled MC who is on a path to redemption despite past heinous assassin work. I don’t understand how they could pick someone like Gong Jun to represent this multi-faceted role. I’m disappointed. I feel like Youshuo Wang, Wu Lei, Xiao Zhan, or even Huang Junjie would do a better job.
But then again, the C-Ent industry usually disappoints me when it comes to casting for adaptations
Man, he better not F this up. Lol. I just finished the first season of the anime, and OMGAH, it’s so good!!! My fave!!! So if Gong Jun messes this up, we are definitely fighting. Lol. I actually freaking loved how he played Wen Ke Xing in “Word of Honor”, and he’s been an absolute disappoint since, so tap that WOH energy, and we’ll be just fine, Gong Jun! (The voice actor better come through for his character too!) Not only him, Chang Hua Sen better rise up too!! He can play wicked well enough, but he needs to be super nuanced in his performance this round. He fell flat in “A Journey to Love” because he couldn’t navigate the right beats in his performance and made his character a freaking caricature when it had so much potential.
Augh, I love this anime too much (as you can see through my exclamation points).
I just really need them to treat this like a career breaker. Lol. Give it your freaking all.
People here are being stupid.
The amount of hate this guy get is ridiculous.
People do not even bother to watch him and do a deep well thought analysis to justify their hate.
I went to MDL to research him. Gong Jun did well in his latest modern drama. His acting got a lot better. He have 2 modern dramas waiting to be released. His Projects always get stucked in dungeon. He keep on working and his projecs after being made are blocked for too long.
As far as I’m concerned he was wonderful in Legend of Anle. He worked with what he was given. I’m looking forward to this.
Totally surprised by the negativity shown to GJ. I have enjoyed his body of work and look forward to future projects. ‘Word of Honor’ was special for sure. I also loved ‘Begin Again’ & ‘The Legend of Anle’. A few projects were a little less than but I felt it was more the script. These actors work hard on their craft. I might not like a specific script but I don’t bash the actor.
I’m not surprised by all the hate and negativity that these people have for Gong Jun. It started in 2021 when his costar in Word of Honor got canceled. They blamed it all on Gong Jun and thus the hatred train started since then.
These people will be everywhere: here, YouTube comments, and so on if that subject pertains to Gong Jun and especially when it’s about his dramas. They would tell you that they have watched all his dramas so that they have a right to criticize his acting as terrible or never improved. We know that is a lie. If you watch his recent dramas, you can see that he has improved a lot in each one. Like Legend of Anle and the Fox drama, his acting in there was great but since the dramas didn’t do as well due to the production and scripts, they blamed it on him and his acting instead. And if the drama does well, they will credit the other actors for the success but not Gong Jun. Just the same way they gave all the credits to his costar for Word of Honor success but not him. Some even hope that all his dramas will flop so they can feel much better. So pathetic, right? And don’t even get me started with some accusing him of sleeping his way up for those roles. It just speaks volumes about that person’s character instead of Gong Jun.
Anyway, I do hope this drama will do well since he works very hard for it every day in the blazing hot sun while wearing those thick layers of clothes and doing all those wires work hanging and flying action sequences since day 1 of filming. Also, I hope the production team and the script will also be great. He got screwed over by Legend of Anle and the Fox drama production teams so I pray that it will not happen again for him with this drama team.
Like many C-actors, his face is saving him.