Tencent Confirms Wu Lei as the Male Lead for Upcoming Big Budget Wuxia C-drama The One
Well if that Han Dynasty Epic never gets off the ground at leas there is for sure a next C-drama with Wu Lei for his fans to look forward to. This week Tencent announced the wuxia C-drama The One (Chinese title Jian Lai 剑来 or Sword Comes) adapted from the same name novel, and also confirmed the long running rumor that Wu Lei will be the male lead. There have been talk about the potential actresses for the female lead but so far nothing substantive enough to be certain. With Wu Lei confirmed this is totally one of my most anticipated C-dramas of 2026 now, can’t wait!
After reading your article, I went to find out more about this book…omg the ending for this story was so badly criticized. Think is the rare time where fans will not protest if the adapted drama version does not stay true to source.
Although WL did a great job in Love Like the Galaxy, he is yet to prove he’s a versatile actor with flexible acting range. Also, Zhao Lusi as the FL for LLTG contributed tremendously to the success of the drama. For other dramas, however, I found zero chemistry or awkward interaction of WL with his costars. None of his other roles was convincing to me, and he somehow appeared uptight in the acting of those characters. TBH, even as much as I like Nirvana in Fire, I found him the weakest actor in the drama. Fans simply cut slack on him thanks to his child acting upbringing.
That being said, WL’s aura fits general expectation (or imagination more precisely lol) for a warrior/general. He was believable at least in LLTG.
as much as I like WL, I agree with you. He looks stiff most of the time. But it is fine if his character required him to be like that like in LLTG. So he probably gonna be fine to play another general character
I respectfully disagree. “He is yet to prove he’s a versatile actor with flexible acting range…” said no one EVER! No one born after 1995 has even half the acting awards he has and that without an agency managing him and getting him roles. Have you watched his expressions when he is acting? He is raw and exposed and subtle and brilliant. Zhao Lusi is also a wonderful but he slayed in LLTG! He was brilliant. Same for most of his movies and TV dramas; Long Ballad, Amidst a Snowstorm of Love, Fights Break Sphere, Nothing But You, Dongji Island Rescue.He is a disciplined, powerhouse of an actor.
Good! Maybe he finally realized that C-ent is capped and it’s okay to pick scripts and just give it his best.
I really wish C-dramas would stop adapting novels though. SIGH. I like to NOT know the entire story while I’m watching a show. Do people not enjoy that thrill?
Anyway… I’m just bitter there’s no entertainment across the globe to enjoy right now. Stories have been so meh and/or too weird, like… why would you produce this?? 😔
Even if there was no novel, just the trailers and intro are enough to spoil the whole plot. And it’s not as if most dramas actually follow the novels. They would be much more interesting if they did, instead of the same storylines, cliches and rhetoric that borders on propaganda over and over again. But that’s impossible with the censorship, rules about the number of episodes and their length, nepotism (not really the right word, but you get the idea) and the overall prudishness. “The First Beauty of Chang’an” had a quite unique plot about the fall of a noblewoman and was pretty dark, but it turned into a badly acted rom-com about justice seeking.
Yeahhhh, what you described covers what C-ent is currently. I just think of “A Journey to Love” (an original story)… and how poorly it ended… and it was due to all those parameters. That’s why BL dramas deserve props for doing what they did in their heyday. They actually had to be written with some level of sophistication to pass censorship, which made it so that some good, mostly coherent stories came out during that era. Most dramas are just fluff for fluff’s sake and boring unless actually talented actors and actresses are hired to sell the boring. I’ve been so bummed about all kinds of entertainment lately!
Eh, his acting is very, very one note. So what we had for lltg is exactly what we will get here. He had a lot of good will from netizens in the previous years but that is slowly dissipating because nothing is really changing in his acting. Not to mention he has had quite a few flops lately. He better get himself some acting lessons and fast.