Wow, I don’t think I’ve seen so many C-stars supporting and posting about another star’s new drama in such fast and short period of time from the premiere. The Story of Pearl Girl with Zhao Lu Si and Liu Yu Ning was released on November 1 and almost immediately other C-stars went on their own social media to either post support, re-post Zhao Lu Si’s post on the drama airing, and/or actively urging others to watch the drama. The biggest name of the bunch was of course Xiao Zhan, who costarred with Zhao Lu Si during their early days in the 2018 drama Oh My Emperor. All this outpouring of support for Pearl Girl does appear to have mixed reception, it did generate more publicity for the drama but some of the feedback has been negative in that this level and degree of support doesn’t feel authentic and may have been orchestrated by Youku or Zhao Lu Si herself.
XZ doesn’t just randomly advertise for other celebs even there is solicitation from others unless they are on very good terms and had very positive working experience together in the past. I could totally understand XZ was willing to promote ZLS’ drama. He was seated right in front of her seat at an award ceremony (or some huge event). He turned his head over to greet ZLS first and started to chat for a while. In one BTS of Oh My Emperor, they both even casually shared one portable fan LOL.
There used to be a rumor that ZLS was dating EXO Lay who is one of XZ’s buddies bcos she was spotted together with Lay in front of a restaurant or somewhere. I wonder if that could be since EXO Luhan also joined the celebs to promote her drama. LOL. How did she even get connected with Luhan? Just some amusing gossip. Never mind! hahaha
The dating rumours about lay was confirmed to be false n she wasn’t spotted together with Lay in a restaurant but rather their vehicles was seen in front of the restaurant. Let not twist rumours here .
It was just a rumor as I already stressed. Nothing serious about it, just for fun like already so many gossips on this site. LOL.
Oh
As a former member of EXO’s fandom, I must share the gossips inside of the fandom.
It’s very much speculated that Lay do not have any contact with any former Chinese member of EXO after the three of them left EXO in extremely bad terms BUT recently it was proven that Luhan is still friends with few Korean members of EXO and Lay is friends with few of them too so people speculate they both are “amicable” with each other.
It must be said that Lay was a huge fanatical defender of SM and EXO so he publicly criticized/bashed the Chinese members who jumped out of the ship through lawsuits and badmouthing SM so it’s speculated they hated each other’s guts for a long while.
Lay practically do not have any public interaction outside televisioned ones (can’t escape lol) with former Chinese members of EXO since 2015.
There is no dating rumours of Lay and ZLS. Once upon a time the guy was rumoured to be dating every popular girl but I think it ended before ZLS became popular.
I am a fan of Lay…that is a sincere and hardwork guy…he still have connections with his agency in SK. Thus he is popular with many veterans.
Koala has got all the hot names to get traffic. LOL.
She knows how to drive and direct traffic and discussions.
Besides Pearl Girl, I’m also following a low-key sweet drama, Go Back Lover, with Li Yunrui as the ML. He was the 2nd ML in Love like the Galaxy. GBL is a light idol drama that is easy to watch and a good time killer when I’m not in a mood to watch something as dark as PG. Just randomly spotted his name in the list of those celebs endorsing PG. LOL.
I just googled news and it seems these promotion strategy works. PG’s hot indices are rising. LOL.
If stars actively promote her drama, it speaks well of Lusi that they are agreeable to do so. Who knows, if she wasn’t well liked or had a good working relationship with these celebrities, would they be willing to do so for her?
I see this as setting a precedent. What people are complaining about today, because it isn’t the norm, will become the norm later, when celebrities ask other celebrities to promote their works. All things considered, it really isn’t a big deal, except it means less money for the to spend on advertising, unless there is profit to be made can off of celebrities promoting other celebrities works. lol.
I also thought the same thing, she just asked few people to do it like the normal promotion that all star do when their show airs n the rest just followed suit , it goes to show the type of person she is in real life n with them. That why she made the video to thank them personally, I think she was surprised herself. She didn’t think she will a lot who will do it .
It’s really quite a feat. And yet, of course, some people would find something negative about even support for a colleague. Yet, knowing how some people would do that, these big names still come out to do that anyway. Xiao Zhan knew what he was doing :).
It’s a good drama. Up to Episode 12 now and story is still holding my interest.
@xoxo, @gennita
I agree the stars must have good previous working relationships for them to support Zhao Lu Si. The stars are not that desperate to be solicited by Zhao Lu Si to promote her drama. Stars like Xiao Zhan, Luhan etc are far more established and richer than her.
When she was the female lead in Oh! My Emperor, that should be her first leading role. So there were lots of jealousy and hatred against her for having good rapport with Xiao Zhan. If she had been a more established actress at that time, she won’t face such a terrible backlash that lasts until today.
Also, she is not a daughter of billionaire or owner of TV station or agency, so can she force the stars to speak up for her?
From her interviews and videos, she appears to be straightforward, decisive and determined. She is not the typical soft and gentle girl who wanna please everyone. So trolls or cyber troopers generally hate strong-willed women like her.
P/S by the way I tried posting twice, but it doesn’t appear… I wonder why
Friends helping each other…that is great. I am just surprised how close she is with afew of those in the list… I find that interesting. Good luck to her drama.
When is Xiao Zhan coming back on my screen with his new project?? His CF is active these days, lots of YT post. I can watch those while waiting but I really hope his project airs..
His movie Legend of the Condor Heroes and his drama Zanghai Zhuan will air 2025. Everyone is still waiting on the official announcement. But it is rumored that his movie will air during the spring festival and his drama sometime after. I heard winter slot or summer slot.
🎉 I hope so!!!
@HL, XZ’s major sources of income are from CF and high-end brand endorsements, not from filming projects. It’s legit for him to spend quite a chunk of time to work But he needed to work his butt off on those filming sets to achieve and maintain his high popularity that’s the driver for him to get profitable CF deals.
Cringe. So cringe. Her drama isn’t doing even remotely how she thought it would do so Youku pulled all the strings and she went around begging from even influencers.
XZ has to do his part, Zanghai is with Youku so that is all that is.
The only thing more cringe is her fans trying to spin this as if she is some diva of cent that everyone loves. Wake up, this is business.
I for one am glad Esther Yu is on par with this drama because she isn’t a beggar and is letting the drama speak on its own. Her character jumped over ZLS on vlinkage today and Pearl is recording terrible TV ratings. Guess begging isn’t working.
It really doesn’t feel like a genuine friends helping friends situation tbh. Apparently cnetz are all very skeptical about the synchronized mass promo that feel like copy and paste apparently. I think some are genuinely friends but others probably have dramas on deck with Youku and are doing this as a work thing. It feels off. Esthers actual costars made posts to promote for her as well but they all had personalized messages, like friends spreading the word. Zhang Linghe made a cute one referencing their characters from My Journey to You.
Lmao Zhao Lusi fans who are trying to play this as if she is some universally beloved saint. Get a grip people. It’s pathetic she has to beg for this and Youku has been pushing all the celebs that work with them to post.
See what I mean? They’ll come raiding out.
Xiao Zhan is one of the good guys in China’s entertainment business. He is sincere, honest & thoughtful. USA here
XZ is handsome and a very hardworking Chinese artist.
He IS. He is very likable in the C-ent.
Ha ha imagine for a second that it is revealed that Xiao Zhan and Zhao Lusi are dating. That would break the internet, and I can’t even imagine some of their fans’ meltdown!
I know I would be happy though, that would be the couple with the sunniest smiles globally!
OMG!!! You want to start a fanwar?? 🤣🤣
LOL!!
@Nena – You went there!
I for one, would be happy to see them star together in another drama together as main leads. You never know, seeing that they have a good working relationship, it may not be too much to hope for.
ZLS has been known to work twice with the same actor in some of her dramas if they got along very well the first time.
Omg nightmare will happen on weibo lol. I guess his fans wont allow him marry with anyone even top actress like YZ they didnt give her pass. Maybe dilraba cause she is the queen in c-ent so she is at least same level as him😅
If Dili really end up with XZ, can you imagine their babies visual?? Like its gonna be a whole another level, but thats just my wishful thinking lol
Aww, it’s such a shame your girl can’t get enough hype without you trying to link her to Xiao Zhan.
Can she do anything on her own? Begging for people to watch her show, linking to others to leech. Poor girl, so pathetic. Even her fans admit it! How unfortunate.
Is she the only one ‘begging’ people to watch her show? Are you aware that each time you watch a drama trailer or an advertisement it is the same thing as them ‘begging’ or ‘enticing’ you to watch their show or buy their product? So why is it okay for advertisers to do so and not for an actress who starred in her own production to ‘beg’ people to watch her show?
Even if people are ‘begged’ to watch the show, if the show is not captivating enough, folks will drop it eventually. It’s a 40 episode drama. You can ‘beg’ people to watch an episode or two, but you cannot ‘beg’ people to watch 40 episodes! That requires a lot of commitment on the part of the viewer, so if they are not interested, they will drop it.
Asking other actors or actresses to ‘plug’ your show or spread the word, is a popular marketing technique done in K-pop and K-entertainment. I see it done all the time and no one bats an eyelash about it. A K-pop star would ask his/her colleagues to tell their fandom to spread the word of the new song and they do. It’s commonplace and common practice there. So I really don’t understand why it’s such a big deal in C-ent that resorts to calling folks names and all that negativity. Smh.
So, her drama was plugged. Big deal! Welcome to the rest of the world!
@Nena, the moment the wording linking XZ to ZLS came out, certain rabid keyboard warriors would come shading you. As @HL suggested. LOL. I personally would love to see these two lead a drama together. I actually shipped their characters together very hard in Oh My Emperor. I didn’t like that emperor who was completely overshadowed by XZ, visually and acting-wise. LOL. But XZ was barely a C-ent nugu back then. Now, I’ll be thrilled if he can be a ML in a drama with Lusi.
There’re no signs they are dating. But XZ has been on good terms with ZLS for sure.
Ha ha Somebody, I know. I was provocative, to check reactions. I was expecting that weirdo that always accuses me of being Wang Yibo fan (🤣) to come at me too, but I guess they have taken the day off.
Anyway, I would love to watch Xiao Zhan and Lusi in a drama too even if it wasn’t a romance. I think they are both very talented and of course when they smile it feels like sunrise!
@Somebody
Ah it’s always good to see your true colors. A Xiao Zhan anti now boosting nena, another Xiao Zhan anti.
Great to see two peas in a pod finally out in the open!!
Nena only forgot this time to mention how much Youth memories sucked, tsk you guys didn’t fulfill all your tasks!
Of course you two would love to see him in a drama with Lydia, downgrading him is your job
What a shame for you both it isn’t working out.
@Lol, I’ve long forgotten to remind you of checking your mental state constantly. Your brain nerve system has been brainwashed by some toxic XZ rabid fans to wire differently than normal. Do you have trouble getting right signals sent by XZ’s post to your abnormal brain? SMH. XZ’s post from his own Weibo account told us fans to watch Pearl Girl. Did your brain cells decode those plain Chinese characters some other ways? LMAO!
I love The Untamed and The Youth Memories and love XZ in all his dramas but not necessarily the rest of his dramas. But other drama fans don’t. That’s their preference. What’s wrong with that? What’s the big deal if ppl don’t appreciate your idol or like his dramas? You have problem tolerating! Go live with CCP as a leek LOL, who have the same problem tolerating dissidents, same as you! Geeeezzzz.
You and some other obnoxious commenters are authentic XZ antis, constantly driving people who admire him away with your lunatic mental gymnastics that are obsessed to label and accuse people as XZ haters just as CCP stooges and pinkies love to make unfounded allegations in similar manners. Just have fun living in your tiny and dark mental cells imaging the rest of the world other than you rabid beings are all against XZ. LOL.
XZ doesn’t need your lunacy to defend him!!!
Zhao lusi said on her weibo she has to asked her friends to promote cause she doesnt have choice that youkou doesnt give enough promotion to her drama. And how the hell youkou could tell xz to promote her drama if not asked from lusi herself?, they cant tell him what to do. Xz superior to anybody. So lusi must have good relationship with him.
I thought this drama has good amount of budget…why would marketing budget not be factored in? I am curious..
I do find that explanation a unwise move.
I suspect she demand more promotion cause she’ll head to head with esther drama and youkou said no cause they already promoted her drama enough along the other dramas on the festival before. It because
Her drama not got so much attention unlike xz’s drama being talk and forwarded alot by his fans almost everyday. She forgot her fans and her traffic is not big enough to make super discussion like xz. So it might triggering her with the idea ‘friends promotes my drama’ instead.
@Heido, thanks!
@ HL, do u really believe everything that is said on this platform, I would be surprised if u did 😆.
@HL, I doubted Pearl Girl had good amount of budget as advertised S++++++ LOL. The CGI of the drama is so apparently insufficient. I guess the production team has long ago run out of money. LOL.
@Mercy, yup! I’ll take everything gossiped here many grains of salt. LOL.
@Mercy. I just read and listen.. sometimes question. I stop believing in Santa Claus since a kid..thus I rarely believe in people I do not personally know..
But I have to say Zhao Lusi is a tactical player in this industry. She or maybe her market team knows how to get people talking about her online. She is great at creating discussion online and making herself very visible. She reminds me of afew high profile American celebs.. they are famous getting people talking non stop about them. It is quite a clever tactic.. as her value rises and her CF value rises too.
I have to add, I am not being negative about Zhao Lusi, just my observation.
@HL, not defending ZLS. Regarding her getting buzz very often, who else in C-ent have never tried to do so? LOL. I may invite fanwars by bringing up other celebs. But I still can’t help thinking about Yang Zi when you mentioned “tactical player.”
@Somebody, YangZi does have a strong marketing team behind her 🤣. I enjoy looking at how these artiste PR themselves.
Zhou Lusi’s marketing strategy is interesting for me. More then Yang Zi’s to be honest. I find there is always something new from Zhou Lusi’s team. And Zhou Lusi actively participate in discussion too. She seem to have to explain herself alot. I dont see the need to do so… example this article, she need not explain why she ask for friends for plug in. I am really interested to watch how Zhou Lusi’s career progress and how public views her in years to come.
Again, I need to stress to her fans…I like some of her projects and have no dislike for this actress.
Lmfao keep lying.
Youku literally pulled in most of these for her. It’s all one giant coordinated project where she cries woe is me, while Youku actually does work and they try to get people to pity watch her drama.
Ahhh you think so? So XZ did that because Youku ordered him to? Lusi must really be special then for him to do that. Let’s see if he’ll do that for others because they ordered him to.
Whos lying? ZLS said herself she doesnt have choice to promote her drama and xz barely promoted anybody project, this is his first time after 227 incident he reposted somebody projct so he must got her asked him to do that not the platform.
@Heiho
XZ does things on the regular because he has to, just like any other person who works. He promoted Huang Jingyu’s movie by booking a theatre recently even after all that happened during AT because that is what work is.
He promoted this for Youku, he will get some benefits from them. It’s very common.
Exactly. Yet the delulus on this page are writing here thinking she’s so amazing to pull all these ppl singlehandedly. Of course some are genuine friends, others are doing it for future favours and others are a mix of both. Youku spent so much money on this and it got upgraded to what S++ before it aired? Clearly a huge advertising and marketing budget to push this drama, not some pitiful woe-is-me crap shes trying to pull (and a huge reason why i dont like her – the hypocrite behaviour). With all thr budget and hype though this drama is a snoozefest with LYN phoning it in in all his scenes, looking dead behind the eyes, and she plays the same old hardworking and “girl boss” mary sue who then falls in love with said broody and dark male. so tiresome arent they sick of repeating this trope over and over? I cant stand esther yu but might actually check out her drama because at least the synopsis is interesting!
Off the top of your head, can you name 3 other Youku projects this year? If she doesn’t think Youku promotes, look at all the other dramas. There’s nothing at all.
I think “female lead personally asking friends” is actually the promo strategy to get more publicity! It’s not a bad idea but ZLS fans painting her like some victim because Youku “has no money for promo” rubs people the wrong way. This is one of Youku’s biggest release this year. I find it hard to believe they didn’t plan any of the budget for promo.
Ikr. Its not bad to ask friends for help with promotion. But seriously, this drama have a lot of posters. Different versions. I also hate it when I saw narrative like YSX is pulling the strings behind. First is DLRB now YSX. Fair enough YSX is an easy target cause she is not as solid as reba. I’m not saying this to paint YSX as the best out there. She certainly needs improvement but at least she dont drag others.
Hopefully they will support and post when Xiao Zhan’s new movies and drama air.
I’m going to put TSOPG on the back burner for now due to lack of time as the story still isn’t engaging me enough. I’ll be prioritizing Love Game in Eastern Fantasy instead as it helps with de-stressing. LGIEF also reminds me immensely of the first time I watched the original Chinese Paladin, stories filled with exciting xianxia adventures and relationships that touches the heart, even the OSTs are appropriate and immersed me into the plot.
Has the support yielded fruit? What’s the improvement today please. Surely with all these it should cripple LGIEF. RIGHT?
It’s two totally different genres. Why the need to compare. Smh I don’t think she’s asking for help just for fanwars to make it seem more than just her promoting her show.
I agree – why compare? I feel like it’s great that we have two very different dramas, so that they don’t eat into each other’s audiences. And also, ZLS and her friends are promoting the drama without throwing shade at LGIEF – so what’s the big deal? And they seem to have different airing times in the day.
I don’t think she asked all those actors to plug her work, but she probably asked a few close ones and everyone just jumped on the bandwagon because it seems the hip thing to do.
It’s below LGIEF ahahahah and Esther jumped over her for most popular character on vlinkage.
Imagine that, people don’t like beggars.
Did I mention the incredible TV ratings of 0.2 on three stations? Lmao
At least as a XZ stan, I responded to his call to watch Pearl Girl and found it interesting. I dropped Love Game less than 10 minutes into the show. LMAO.
Nonetheless, as @Liz said, these two dramas are in totally different genres with very different plots and settings. It’s personal preference. I myself won’t squander time on frivolous VR- or gaming-centric dramas. So far, none of this genre can grab my attention long enough. Every time after watching a drama in this genre, Love Game included, I needed to go hiking for at least 2-3 miles for fresh air to clear my mind. It was such a huge waste of time in those trash stories. LOL.
I’m not sure why this is even a negative to others, if you have worked on something and passionate about what you do, won’t you promote it and ask friends and colleagues to do so as well. She’s not forcing anyone to. And for those saying XZ is only doing it because Youku ordered him to, really? So how come he’s not doing it for every show they have. That argument is so weak. He must have a good relationship to some degree with her to be willing to do that.
Nope! XZ didn’t just do it for random showbiz friends. He once promoted movie projects for very few friends and senior veterans. As to dramas, I knew last time he promoted was many many years ago when he posted something about Kdrama, My Liberation Notes. After 227, XZ has learned to be very discerning about the people around him.
Exactly, but of course since it’s ZLS here comes all her haters disparaging her and negating XZ promoting her show to just because she’s begging him hard for it.
A minor correction: not many many years ago, My Liberation Notes was released in 2022. But it’s been a while since then and I’ve never seen him tell his fans watch other dramas until now for Pearl Girl. He did support some movies of his industry friends from time to time by booking out the theaters etc. But not dramas.
I guess some people are bitter cos XZ is a huge name in C-ent. To me, he is obviously on good terms with ZLS. He initiated a chit-chat with her at an award ceremony. I think he is also on very good terms with Yang Zi. But some crazy XZ fans went banana just thinking about they have good friendship. LOL.
Just for this fact alone,it makes me want to drop it…
After reading the comments here, I am a bit confuse why wang yibo fans are wilding about this matter on every platform in China and outside China. WYB fans are extremely affected by this matter more than the fans of XZ and ZLS.
Just like Wang Yibo fans like @yiboky (admin and owner of @forcdrama melon account) on X app is on rampage for days now on both accounts attacking XZ, ZLS and their fans just because these two fandoms decided to focus on their own lane and stay out from the self-directed drama by Wang Yibo fans that started from Douban forum (similar to Reddit).
It was found out that for several months now or a year almost, Wang Yibo fans are very active participating in this forum believing that the poster was ZLS herself posting about her intention to work with WYB.
However, all the delusions of WYB fans got shattered in an instant when XZ reposted ZLS post to promote her currently airing drama. Other fandoms also stated to mock them making WYB fans angrier from embarrassment so they started attacking ZLS and her fans and demanding apology from the actress.
My guess is that Wang Yibo fans are already suffering from exhaustion from waiting for him to join filming soon as it will be almost two consecutive years that he did not joined anything.
Lol about wyb fans theres reason they’ve been called toilet cause always make trouble everywhere, they seems doesnt want step back with everything relate with xz, always ready to attack.
I thougth wyb fans pretty much chill with 800 day wyb didn’t shoot anything, they said their idol have another goal/ hobby so its make sense if he kinda rest from making movie🤔
Wow, reading the comments:
1) LuSi called in and begged for support and everyone did it!
2) YouKu called in and made LuSi say she did it! And everyone did it for YouKu and LuSi!
3) YouKu made XZ post about support of the show and he did it!
4) LuSi made all her coming up drama star and crew support her and they did it!
This forum has more conspiracies everyday. How about friends of LuSi decided they wanted to support her new drama? Nah, LuSi has no friends! None! Have you seen her mascara and makeup?! We all dislike her, including all the stars fake-supporting her.
🤣🤣 I have this vision of someone “Throwing a spanner in the works” …