lily

The switch up of cnetz and novel fans is so hilarious. Now they all saying he is too handsome and perfect to play xjx 🤣

Yeah it's the later stage reuters probably around ep 18. Not the young marquis era

I was surprised too when his casting was first rumored. What excites me most is that he is working with mzy. I find their friendship adorable & ship them hard so ik their chemistry will be INSANE

I just want to explain a bit more about billing without dragging this. LLTG, TFF, NLB, MR are all female centric dramas with ML as 1st billed and story was still female centric. The reason they were chosen is because they were bigger star than FL. Similarly, LBFAD novel protagonist is actually dfqc and novel name is Demon lord but Ysx is first billed in the drama adaptation. There is so much debate over this because it's a very famous IP and whd recently was only doing male centric so people think his fans will demand more screentime for him and ruin the script but let me tell you one interesting fact: his fans are not supporting this project cuz they believe he is being forced to take this and they are afraid of novel fans backslash so their approach is to not care and there is no demand for script change cuz the more they demand changes, the more novel fans will be angry so I am pretty sure this will remain female centric with little bit addition of ML scenes to explore his character. This is story for sm and xjx will be an anchor in HER story, He will be present more but it will still be about sm revenge. So far a week has passed and only mzy shooting her solo scenes. This indicating me already that he doesn't have that many scenes as compare to her. Let's hope the script and direction will be good so they both can survive all this hate

Yaay it's coming soon

Might see wang hedi reuters tomorrow cuz he will join the drama team finally

Girl i gave mixture of examples for a reason cuz my point is that this is not about the gender or something against mzy or female actresses. Victoria song is a huge idol but in drama/acting industry, she is nowhere and has no big hit drama so FFL example definitely suits because most of her fans are from her kpop days. Also you are cherry picking all my examples and saying this or that is not flop in your opinion but go to chinese social media and everyone will tell you how much of a big flop fox spirit matchmaker is. And in previous years, market wasn't this cold like it is now so comparing their performance based on today's standard is wrong. What is considered acceptable now was considered mega flop then. Also you didn't read my comment clearly. Rising actors are still not that well known in china. You have to understand that china is big and these idol actors who we think are big are nowhere close that popular to general public in china. The reason i didn't give S+ dramas example is because nugu/rising actors don't even get any chance to be casted in such high production unless you have some backing/connection. That's why my whole argument was based on big ips and not their budget cuz investment is only huge with big names in cast. Why would anyone invest their hundrede of million on a rising star? Therefore i can only give you examples of S tier dramas with such actors and both rising FL/ML can flop even if they are casted in big ips with huge audience. But when you are really popular as an actor, it becomes less risky for such drama to flop cuz even if drama is not well made according to novel fans expectations, their will still be audience willing to give it a try cuz of actors/actresses popularity and track record to attract audience. You say script and direction is imp and it is, i am not denying BUT there are hundreds of dramas releasing rn every year in many different platforms and most of the time many quality projects are overlooked by the audience because cast was not that well known so they didn't even give it a chance for example 12 letters is a masterpiece drama and critically acclaimed in china with 7.8 douban score which is really impressive but views were very low cuz even with good writing and direction, not many watched it. Reality is that big names sell the drama most. Even if drama is not that well made, their popularity can still make it a decent performance. And btw 10-19m is good to you but this is clearly not what xinli is targeting especially since this project is S+ tier. As i said, they want this to be mega hit and not just okayish performance. If they casted mzy as first billed and some other nugu actor as ML then this would have been S tier drama and only in this scenario, 20-30m would be acceptable/good performance for them. But clearly they want this to be big and this is why they chose whd as ml and here they could have chosen more nugu actress but they chose mzy who is still well known and on a rise so this shows just 15-30m performance is not what they want from these 2. Your standard of what is call hit is still very low and not according to what cnetz think. Just last year 40m was the criteria to be big hit. Now just because all drama views recently are really low doesn't mean the standard is now lowered to 15m-19m to be hit lool. They are still underwhelming performance considering how china has billion of audience

Ngl i am tired to debate on this for days but I'll try one last time and hopefully we can understand each other. Firstly no i am not blaming mzy and i never will. I don't think i am blaming anyone specifically. I was just talking about realistic standing she has in the industry which even she will agree. I wasn't even talking about "actresses" in particular but i think i already mentioned the dramas above and some of them do have FL as first billed but it couldn't do well but i also gave example of dramas with male lead as first billed which also didn't do well. I don't know why you keep bringing gender to this when all i am saying is that xinli prefer to give big budget dramas to big actors AND actresses. Mzy is on the rise and i hope she gets bigger and bigger but she is not at that top level rn and that's okay. She will get there one day and i will be there to support her cuz i love her. Secondly, i agree with you on one thing that expectation towards drama performance should be looked based on the budget. If it's only S tier then it's fine even with 30m views performance. But original work popularity still plays a big role. Big ip drama adaptation will always create huge buzz because fans of the novels will also watch them. If it's really good and has well known cast then they will even support the drama and if it's not good then they will eventually leave. Now it depends on what type of hype platform wants. Some choose to hire small actors and actresses in big ips adaptation so scrutiny towards the casting will be less by novel fans, it will be S tier drama cuz cost is not high and they already have novel fans as in built audience who are anticipating the drama so their profit will be huge if it becomes a big hit. Many novel fans of malicious empress also believed that xinli should have gone with this route. However as i have given example of big ip drama adaptations not doing well, there are also some audience saying that when the production team cast nugu actors and actresses for such dramas, no one watches them and that's why they are flopping. Therefore they believe xinli approach to go for big actors/actresses for big ip dramas means guaranteed decent performance at the very least and by hiring them, drama budget will also rose to S+ which means more quality project. I feel like we are going in circles at this point and I don't remember what was even our first convo 😭

You really didn't get my point & mixing things. Firstly, i said big ip dramas flopping and not S+ budget. Many actors/actresses can't even carry S dramas let alone S+ level. No platform will even risk giving S+ dramas to nugu actors/actresses cuz these dramas have big investment which means only big actors/actresses can carry the burden for example zhao lusi, yang zi, dilreba etc. Plus, now audience is not watching much dramas in China so very few dramas are getting S+ budget now.

How dramas get such budget tier? Based on their investment attraction. Big actors/actresses attract investors which results in dramas getting S+ budget. Mzy is still considered a rising actress so she alone can't attract S+ level investment based on her name and that's why xinli chose whd as 1st billed so investors can invest more and their budget of this drama can rise to S+ level. Not every big IP gets S+ budget because if they fail to cast big actors/actresses, they have to lower the budget to S tier cuz investors won't invest on them.

Secondly, i never said it was cause of FL as 1st billed that those big ips flopped. Idk where you are getting this idea. It's not about the gender but star power. If your question is which big ip flopped in general then i can answer: generation to generation currently doing terrible, how dare you is big ip but performed underwhelming, litchi road last year, lotfg was okayish, fox spirit matchmaker series all 3 parts flopped, when destiny brings the demons, Fight for love is also big historical romance ip but performed terribly (dyx is not nugu but his screentime was very less and FL alone couldn't carry this S drama).

Lastly about your second question, ME ip is very controversial and anyone who dare to take this have to be mentally ready to face all the hate & bullying because these characters are too popular so scrutiny will be alot more. According to rumors, both sze and dilreba rejected this. Only other 95 actress who could have carried this S+ production alone was zls but even she might not take this cuz she is still recovering. Others are either busy with some great project like txw and zhou ye or they are now too old to play this role or not popular enough to carry this alone

And xinli dramas like jol views are around 100m+ and gotd views are around 53-55m. Now market has gotten more worse so even reaching 40m will be miracle unlike last few years. You are giving examples of very rare instances of low tier dramas doing well with nugu actors and none of them are S+ investment. Just this year big ip dramas are released or currently releasing with small actors and they all flopped cuz no one wants to give new faces any chance. My point is that there is a huge risk in hiring small actors for big ips. Many popular ips in recent years have flopped with small actors so xinli can't afford this to flop

Sure
I love your comments on this page too

The thing is xinli don't want modest result otherwise they would go for nugu actors and actresses. They want highest result and that's why chose big actors. Other dramas you mentioned are made by small production companies which did decent but this is by xinli media who is behind joy of life (top 1 drama of 2024), guardians of the dafeng (top 5 drama of 2025) & they are targeting same level of fame for this drama. For other dramas, 20m+ avg might be decent or acceptable cuz they were S or A tier dramas but this is S+ and performance need to be 35 to 40m+ to be acceptable with such big actors

The popularity of this novel is wayyy more than any of the drama you listed. Actually there are also rumors of big actresses turning down the offer of this drama cuz whoever takes it will risk her career and will be targeted by novel fans just like how it's happening rn for both leads. Whd already rejected this previously but now the ip was about to expire and xinli needed someone big quickly. Since they failed to get any big actress willing to work on this project, they appraoched whd again and convinced him by offering gotd s2 so he accepted. Now whether they needed him or not, you judged it based on your own criteria but if they approach him at the end then it does mean they had no other option than him. Even if his dramas do decent, he attracts alot of investment. He is commercially successful. You are bringing movie but that is completely different industry from dramas. Jackie Chan is a big and established name so no traffic star can compete against them. This has nothing to do with this drama casting. Xinli is a production company which doesn't risk by taking small actors. You gave example of lotfg but the performance was actually underwhelming, Shadow love flopped badly, TPOB and Glory both were mini hits but not S+ budget dramas. Same with blossom which was A tier project and performed exceptionally well but that is rare especially rn when drama views are all time low. This is S+ budget drama so investment and money to make this will be more so need higher return and profit and xinli won't risk this. They need guarantee of it at least doing decent which whd & mzy together can give them. If whd is not the ML then the project investment will go down and budget will drop from S+ to S. This is how industry works and xinli doesn't want to lower their budget for this project

That's fake. No English name has been decided yet and melon accounts sharing fake news

Exactly you spoke my mind. I actually like mzy makeup and styling in this one. She looks young and cute. Plus, both whd & mzy cp is already popular in china due to them participating in a variety show together back in 2022 so we don't have to worry about their chemistry. I don't think story will change that much. This will still be female centric but there will be more ML scenes added to flash out the character

I understand not being happy but their criticism should be towards xinli for casting them but sadly actors get the most hate for just doing their job. Also we should see drama as a separate thing from novel cuz censorship won't allow many things but yeah they will dislike whoever plays this role

Because these characters are really beloved in china and true novel fans want no one to touch or ruin them. They have pictured the characters in their mind so anyone playing it can't live up to their imagination

Sadly both whd & mzy are getting bodyshamed and novel fans are throwing insults at them. Atmosphere is really messy and poor actors are getting hate just for being casted

Have you watched lbfad? His character dfqc and xiao duo has many scenes where he is smirking very well

So excited to see their styling and costumes