atmospheres:
Zhou Dongyu is a very good actor. I recommend her film Better Days with Yi Yangqianxi (and Zhou Ye in her best performance as a mean girl bully), I think that film is probably available online with english subs because it was a big hit.
I thought Better Days was available on Netflix, but I checked and it isn't. Maybe it's no longer available in my region, otherwise, where did I watch it??? But yes, it's a good movie and both leads were excellent. Some scenes were difficult to watch.
atmospheres:
As a cdrama viewer, something that makes me feel quite old is that in TJC's currently filming show Filter, his leading lady is Li Landi.
You lived long enough and it happened. Some of the actors that I crushed on are hitting old age, and the young ones are now in romantic roles. Such as Wu Lei. Sometimes it's hard to watch him when I have the image of him as little Fei Lu in my head :-)
H19279:
Yes, Ancient Love Poetry is the prequel of The Last Immortal (in term of original novels which were both written by Xing Ling).
All these talk of Ancient Love Poetry, The Last Immortal and Movie Actors vs. Idol Actors. If you want to see the difference in acting calibre between the two, watch Zhou Dongyu in Ancient Love Poetry then compare it to Zhao Lusi in The Last Immortal. Particularly the emotional scenes that required restraint and subtlety. Zhao Lusi is good at certain things and I can see how she got to her current position, but watching her in the scene where she found out that the male lead is disappearing/dying was painful.
nathsketch:
Maybe in order for him to move up some rows, he needs to do serious stuff, not the silly idol dramas where he gets be called an uncle :)
You have to be a top liuliang with huge fandom to sit closer to the front. And even the top liuliangs know that they need to pivot to more serious work. I think Xiao Zhan is doing that right now. And the "older" liuliangs like Yang Mi, Zhao Yi Ling and Tang Yan have been working hard to gain acting recognition, fighting for 3rd, 4th leads in movies with prestigious directors in an attempt to change their image.
I hope that TJC will follow Zhu Yilong's path and try to establish himself in the movie industry. The idol world is a young person game and it seems so exhausting.