Rookie Movie C-actress Zhang Wen Xin and Hou Ming Hao Reportedly Cast as Leads for iQiyi’s Period C-drama Immortalis
For once this is a rookie star to main lead casting I am fully behind! C-ent is reporting that iQiyi has cast the leads for its upcoming fantasy/supernatural/investigative period C-drama Immortalis (碧血蝉 Bi Xue Chan) and it’s a fresh faced female lead paired with a very familiar faced male lead. The female lead will be Zhang Wen Xin and the only know you will know her is if you watched her incredibly scene-stealing debut in the big budget movie Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants with director Tsui Hark and big male lead Xiao Zhan. She played Princess Hua Zhang who is normally a spoiled clingy annoying second female lead as written but her version was just awesome fiery and fun. She acted circles around female lead Zhuang Da Fei and then some. That was her first role and it was uniformly praised and some wished she had way more screentime and scenes with Xiao Zhan. Anyhoo, she is reportedly getting the female lead in Immortalis opposite Hou Ming Hao, with the drama slated to enter into production in the coming weeks. The drama earlier had different potential leads floated including Yu Shu Xin, Zhou Yi Ran, Lu Yu Xiao, but I’m good with seeing if Zhang Wen Xin is the real deal in a full length drama or she just got lucky once in her debut role.
Zhuang Da Fei was obviously a miscast for Huang Rong in XZ’s movie. She was another example of nepotism getting offers from XZ’s projects that tried to ride on XZ’s fame, but the roles were apparently not written for these nepo babies. I don’t think ZWX did a spectacular job in Condor Heroes. ZDF’s miscast was simply so blatant that any actress fared slightly better outshone her in the movie. Yet to see if ZWX can carry a drama that’s very different from filming a movie.
I had hoped the movie would do very well…but I think it did well enough in China which is good, I guess…
It is the highest grossing martial arts movie ever in China. He did more than fine, especially considering the issues.
I was disappointed at Tsui Hark. I couldn’t see his usual passion for creativity in Condor Heroes as in his old works. But ppl saw the versatility of XZ as an actor that there was no problem for him to take a role visually not how he looks in reality lol. He did a good job both visually (lol again) and acting wise. So, that movie was a good project for him in that sense.
I don’t know this actress but she is gorgeous!