October 2025 Actor Led Period C-dramas has Blood River Leading with Douban Ratings then Sword and Beloved with Whispers of Fate Bringing Up the Rear
This is as good as it gets for Gong Jun, his most recent period C-drama Blood River has opened with Douban ratings of 7.2. In comparison his last two dramas The Legend of Anle has 5.5 ratings and Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Blood Moon Pact has an even worse 5.0. The competition other male led centric period C-dramas that aired in the same time slot did worse, with Sword and Beloved with Cheng Yi getting 6.0 Douban ratings and Whispers of Fate with Luo Yun Xi has just 5.7 ratings. In terms of how well all three dramas did during its run, none are hits and even the usual breakout of a supporting star that can happen even in mid dramas hasn’t happened to any actor or actress in these three dramas including sadly Chang Hua Sen who was in all three dramas as supporting male lead.
Sword and Beloved started great and everything was perfect in 1st half.But 2nd half everything changed and stupid storyline ruined everything.
Interesting! Legend of Zanghai got even lower rating of 7.1 than a drama of a ML who can’t act. LOL. How can I take Douban ratings seriously?
Legend of Zanghai has a locked, low rating because Huanrui and Cheng Yi organised giving it low scores, along with the usual Wang Yibo toxic garbage.
Youku and Chunyu refused to pay protection money so it’s sitting so low. They were right, who cares about that when Zanghai is drama of the year anyway.
If CY were that powerful, he wouldn’t have let the production team of S&B treat him like a cameo role in the 2nd half of S&B.😂😂
@Andy
You can dismiss it all you want, just like the rest of his delusional fans
In China, Huanrui’s operations before, during and after Zanghai aired are well known. Do you think people despise him there for nothing?
“Do you think PEOPLE despise him there for nothing?”
😂🙄🤥
People= 🦐 fandom…please stop spreading your propaganda and lies just to fit your narrative🙄 As if your fandom didn’t launch a smear campaign against TJOL before, during and after its airing. The pot calling the kettle black🤦♀️
@panda_eyes
Everyone. From Luo Yunxi fans that can’t stand his guts because of his repeated attacks to Gong Jun to latest Ding Yuxi. Let’s not forget the attacks on WHD.
Keep dreaming while Cheng Yi drowns in his flops. That’s karma.
i think douban care about script sometime. Btw these 3 despite being a very bad actor, the script should be best. I read the drama follows closely novel work. They likes everything following original material.
I really like your comment how can I take douban rating seriously
I really like your comment how can I take douban rating seriously
I really like your comment how can I take douban rating seriously
These Douban ratings are a bit of a joke.
Whispers of Fate may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but in terms of acting, production and script it is vastly superior to many other dramas that I have seen this year.
Maybe the production team simply forgot to pay sufficient money to the person who usually removes the negative votes on the dramas that Douban wants to promote.
There have been some massive attacks on this drama across a number of platforms, with people even down-rating episodes that hadn’t even aired yet.
Whoever wants to be fooled by this is surely missing out on a great drama with an intriguing, unpredictable plot and stellar acting by the whole cast.
What people see in actors like Gong Jun, Cheng Yi, Zhao LuSi or Ju Jing Yi etc… their acting is so mid !
the problem is most script writings are even less than mid so acting looks better…
At least I know I have an official crush on Chang Hua Sen now 😂
Whispers of Fate CVB on-demand rating top #1 with 95.22 from 3rd of Nov 2025 to 9th Nov 2025
All of them were bellow my expectations, but at least I was able to enjoy blood river and whispers of fate to some extent..
Sword and beloved on the other hand, just tested my patience..the first half was decent but that was it and then it ended up as an underdeveloped mess..
Aww, I’m sorry to hear he didn’t really ‘break out’, because he was actually very good in all of them pulling off polar opposite characters and different styles..he was way better than the ML in blood river in the acting department imo, and his character and story was almost the brightest part of sword and beloved..hope he does get that break out soon as he deserves it..
What criteria determine whether an actor “breaks out” in a drama?
Massive increase in Weibo followers.
Blood River is actually Gong Jun’s best drama since Word of Honor, and the best among the three. But it still doesn’t compare to The Blood of Youth in terms of storytelling.
Watched a few eps of Sword and Beloved but promptly dropped it after I heard that the main couple don’t even have screentime together after ep 18.
Whispers of Fate is the worst among the three. Luo Yunxi just looks too feminine for my taste, and the storytelling is confusing and uninteresting.
Yes ,Blood river hadn’t such quality when compare to Blood River.But it is the best amoung the 3 parts.
Love in the Clouds got 7.0
Interesting! I’m surprised Sword and Beloved survived with a 6 after the shenanigans in the second half that torpedoed what could have been the best of the Fox Spirit Matchmaker series. I dropped it. Was also not in the mood much to continue Blood River and planned to save it for a later time. Continuing with Whispers of Fate casually and 5.7 seems about right. It’s got a great cast (beyond LYX) who are all elevating what feels like a very thin script that they’re trying to stretch out. Very pretty, but also sort of soulless?
It may be okay or even good that Chang Hua-sen didn’t break out. Not every talented actor will break out into being the headliner. I feel like once you get cemented as the male lead all the time, you don’t get as many interesting roles and there are more anti-fans. He’s obviously getting steady, solid supporting and main-cast-but-not-male-lead roles and people are recognizing him for more than just his pretty face.
Blood river is genre I usually enjoyed when I was childchood. The genre setting is like shounen genre, but surprising I’m not feeling any of the character and relationship. STill my best drama of Gong Jun is legend of Anle and still his best acting. It might come due to the directing. Very good action scene. WHen it comes to action scene it come alive. But when it comes to everything else, it’s just bland. There is some raw and real scene but it’s just a few. a few memorable scene as well. I will rewatch just an action scene. but everything else is really dull… It’s no wonder male audience like this though. It’s more about male fantasy drama.