Yuanyuanzi

LOL, RB finally reached 1 billion effective views on MaoYan! It happened quite a bit faster than I expected 🙃


Congratulations! #RoyalBetrothal Has Reached the Incredible Milestone of 1 Billion Cumulative Effective Playback Volume on MaoYan!
A Well-Deserved Achievement for the Entire Team! 🎉

✨ #ChenZheyuan #WuJinyan

https://x.com/cdramacharts/status/2089679165934993774?s=12

I really like the way he looks in Light the Dark. There’s something so natural about him with less makeup, he looks handsome and cute at the same time but in a much more realistic way 🥹
https://x.com/donglekookie11/status/2089542527259197807?s=12

And I really respect that he was willing to shave his head and sacrifice that hair just for the role especially for mini drama. It may not be some huge idol production but he still committed himself to the character and that’s exactly the kind of attitude I want to see from him as an actor.

Now I just hope iQiyi doesn’t abandon this drama somewhere in the warehouse.
Please air it this year!! I want to see him in this kind of more grounded, suspenseful role with veteran actors rather than waiting forever for it to see the light of day 😭😂

The funny thing is, some marketing accounts are trying to drag DNAD by calling it a flop 🤣 just because it wasn’t considered “popular”.

Like… imagine calling a Republican-era drama that reached an 8,XXX+ heat index on iQiyi online and a CVB 2+ rating on CCTV drama during the cold period a flop simply because it didn’t generate enough online hype or buying the trending topics LOL 😭😂

These ridiculous marketing-account tactics are one of the reasons I feel the C-drama industry has a hard time improving. They mock actors and actresses, drag them down when they aren’t paid enough and then fandoms use the same narratives to attack other actors too.

It also creates an environment where actors may become more cautious about taking challenging or unconventional roles because one less-popular project can immediately be labeled a “flop.”
So instead of experimenting and improving their acting through different genres, everyone gets pushed toward whatever type of drama is considered commercially “safe” or "popular".

And then more and more money gets poured into marketing, trending topics, and online hype, sometimes leaving less money for the things that actually matter, like the script, directing, production quality, and post-production.
Can the chinese government please make this marketing-account culture and these ridiculous tactics disappear from C-ent already? 😂 Your country can innovate in so many areas and compete with or even surpass the West, man!!!!

Apart from that, is it really that hard to come up with more original scripts instead of constantly adapting novels with the same repetitive tropes like rebirth, revenge , strong female-centric story and so on? I don’t mind adaptations at all when the source material is good, but sometimes it feels like the industry keeps recycling whatever formula is currently popular instead of taking more risks with fresh stories and different genres.

😞😞😞

Sharing time ...

[MaoYan] Daily Effective Playback Ranking (All Dramas)

🥇 #RoyalBetrothal
✨ #ChenZheyuan × #WuJinyan

🤡🤡🤡

https://x.com/cdramacharts/status/2089535195959394662?s=12

Now, the total views have reached 980 mil on MaoYan, average around 30 mil views per episode. I’m still not sure exactly how MaoYan calculates its playback/view numbers. Maybe it combines both online playback and satellite TV viewership.

According to MaoYan, the drama has been the satellite TV ratings champion for 17 days and has also ranked No. 1 daily on Hunan Satellite TV for 17 days. So if MaoYan does combine online views with satellite TV viewership, then the 980 mil would make a lot more sense.

No. 2 on MaoYan chart right now is Huang Jingyu’s drama Forging Justice. It’s also performing really well and has even surpassed Mystic Nine in Daily Effective Playback. At this rate, it might surpass RB tomorrow or the day after.

I just checked and Forging Justice is a drama about criminal law, so I’m actually happy to see this type of drama doing well on the chart too. Sadly, this kind of Chinese drama is overlooked by inter audiences. If it were a K-drama, I feel like more viewers would definitely give it a chance, since Korean crime and legal dramas are already quite popular.

And what I like about K-dramas is the casting. Most of the time, they cast veteran actors or simply actors who genuinely suit the roles, regardless of how popular they are or which agency they come from. With less fandom fighting over the casting too except for international CP fans fighting sometimes 😂.
Age isn’t really the issue either. We often see actors in their 30s or even 40s taking lead roles and hardly anyone complains that much about their age even in romance dramas.
It’s quite different from C-dramas where age somehow becomes a huge topic.

Sorry for complaining so much here 😅 Maybe I’m just desperate to see CZY take on more diverse roles and work with a wider variety of actors, without all the dumb fandom culture, agency tactics, marketing accounts spreading lies, CP drama, or popularity becoming major factors in deciding which roles he gets and who his co-stars are.
With the way the C-drama industry works right now… sometimes it just feels hopeless. Sigh 😮‍💨

Zhiku Xingtu Top Brand endorsements list for 8.10 - 8.16

#ChenZheyuan ranks Top1 with SENKA brand 👑

https://x.com/czy1029scorpio/status/2089272168974872740?s=12

I bought a SENKA product because of him too!! 😁 The good thing about him endorsing an international brand is that we can actually find and buy the products easily. And Japanese brands usually have really good quality too, so it’s a win-win for both his fans and the brand! 😆

SENKA is actually owned by Shiseido, one of Japan’s long-established and well-known beauty companies. They definitely have a good eye for choosing their brand ambassadors! 👍

That’s exactly the kind of drama I want for his next project!
I’m seriously so done with all the crazy CP wars in romance dramas and the endless “chemistry” discourse....chemistry my a$$ 😭 They’re annoying me to the max! 😂

The characters are completely different, so I don’t really see the point in comparing them. I feel like haters on both sides are trying way too hard to stir things up and make CZY and ZLH fandoms fight which would be really unfortunate if fans actually fell for it.

ZLH gets along well with CZY and even calls him “Ge” (big brother) 😂 It’s funny how the actors themselves can be perfectly friendly with each other while C-ent fandom culture keeps trying to create unnecessary drama between them.

The melon comes and goes...lol..

It’s a mystery, my friend 😂 No one actually knows exactly how they measure it. Just treat it as something fun to look at and don’t take these charts too seriously 😉

CZY is so cute today! He looked so confused but you could tell he was secretly smiling under his mask the whole time when the senior actors came over to act as his agent for him lol.

It would probably be difficult to add a rule that prevents the script from being changed after an actor signs on, and with CZY’s agency being so weak, I honestly don’t trust them to negotiate strongly enough to protect his role either.

I’m actually okay if his screen time isn’t that huge. I don’t need the ML to dominate the whole drama. But at least, please make proper use of him as the male lead and give him a role with a complete, valid storyline. I’m fine with a female-centric drama or whatever direction they want to take, as long as the male lead is still written properly and actually has a meaningful place in the story. Otherwise, like you said, why even cast him as the ML in the first place?

That’s also why I’m worried the same thing might happen again with Fusheng.
This is exactly what I mean when I say I’m getting close to hating C-ent at this point, the way they treat actors who worked so hard on their roles, only to cut their parts or push them aside later just to favor someone else. It feels so disrespectful to the effort the actors put into their characters.

Because CZY’s agency is relatively weak, I feel like he often ends up being cast in projects that other actors may not be particularly eager to take on, or projects that already come with obvious risks.
For example, SAF4 had a weak and underfunded production team and was based on an outdated IP, TWOT came from a completely new production team that had never produced a drama before and tried to push a BL storyline into the adaptation and SB was basically a “three-no” production, with a new director, an inexperienced production team that didn’t seem capable of delivering a strong drama and one agency aggressively pushing its own artist for more screen time.
Meanwhile, the more decent projects that cast him properly, gave him a solid role, and had a more competent production team generally turned out better. That’s why I keep saying his agency’s weakness really matters. He works hard, but if the agency can’t secure better projects or negotiate properly for him, he keeps getting thrown into risky productions where he has to carry far more of the burden than he should.

This is too funny 😂 This drama doesn’t even rank that high on the popularity chart, yet it ranks No. 1 in Effective Playback, even on the same MaoYan platform.
So I guess a high popularity ranking doesn’t necessarily mean more people are actually watching the drama compared with a show that has lower popularity?
Then what exactly is the popularity chart measuring? Is it mostly about people, fans, and marketing accounts talking about the drama on social media, even if the actual viewership isn’t that high?
And if a drama is supposedly very “popular” but its actual view count isn’t that impressive, then what is the real value of the popularity chart? 🤔

My point is that using a popularity ranking to drag another drama is unreasonable, especially when that drama may actually have a higher view count.
Popularity and actual viewership are not necessarily the same thing. A show can generate more buzz, social media discussion, fan activity, or marketing exposure without necessarily having more people watching it. So using a popularity chart alone to judge whether a drama performed well or poorly doesn’t really make sense. Just saying.

How come Royal Betrothal, the drama that has bad execution, no chemistry between the leads, a terrible ending, isn’t popular, blah blah blah, yet it’s still ranked No. 1 on MaoYan’s Daily Effective Playback Ranking??!! 😭😭😭
WHY??? Is MaoYan a fraud ??? 😂 yeah it must be a fraud I supposed! 🤪

[MaoYan] Daily Effective Playback Ranking (All Dramas)

🥇 #RoyalBetrothal
✨ #ChenZheyuan × #WuJinyan

https://x.com/cdramacharts/status/2089128969396277405?s=12

I would name them PendPeng, KaiKai and YuanYuan aka PengKaiYuan 🤣

Peng Peng, Xu Kai and CZY seriously need to do a drama together, something like the K-drama Welcome to Waikiki.
It would be absolutely hilarious 😂 I really love that kind of chaotic friendship comedy. But in what light year are we ever going to get something like that? Especially when Xu Kai is still under that witch’s agency... 😶

And honestly, K-dramas also save me whenever I’m in a drama slump because they offer so many different genres to enjoy. Who said C-dramas were about to overtake K-dramas again??? LOL, not in this light year!! 😂

It’s an open ending because both the ML and FL have responsibilities to rule their respective kingdoms. They clearly love each other, but the drama doesn’t explicitly show whether they will eventually live together, it feels more like a matter of time, maybe once their responsibilities allow it.

While many dramas end by showing the leads living happily together and having children, I actually think this ending is more realistic. Their responsibilities are too heavy for them to simply put love above everything else.

So honestly, the ending isn’t that bad. It’s not like one of those endings where either the ML or FL dies 😅 I think audiences have just been spoiled by very definite happy endings, where the leads reunite, get married, have kids, and live happily ever after. Apparently, having both leads put their responsibilities first, despite still loving each other, isn’t satisfying enough for some viewers 🙃

And he’s going to play the villain again in Chasing Dreams.
He’s actually a versatile actor and the industry should make better use of that instead of constantly typecasting him as the villain.
At this point, whenever he shows up in a drama, everyone automatically assumes, “Yep, he’s the bad guy.”

How about giving him a completely different kind of character for once? He’s good at comedy too.

Okay, I have to say this because I also watched Overdo. ZLH and WCR both did a good job with their characters, but the script completely ruined them!!! WCR’s character ended up becoming an FL that many viewers disliked because of the way she treated ZLH’s character to the point that a lot of viewers were actually fine with them not ending up together because of how badly the FL behaved.

Look!!! And now are they seriously about to do the same thing to WCR’s character here again??? Please! And the funny part is, some of her own fans actually seem to want that to happen. Like... do they really want another situation where the audience ends up disliking FL character because of the writing? Amen.

It’s such a waste when a drama doesn’t make proper use of CZY’s chemistry with the FL. Just look at HL, for example, the director really knew how to bring out the charm of both the ML and FL together.
Their chemistry felt natural and it left such a strong impression on the audience that people still remember and rewatch them years later.

Exactly!! Not to mention that this drama already has so many supporting characters, so the screntimes between ML and FL will be even less with just only 30 eps. And if the drama doesn’t turn out well, people aren’t going to blame only the ML, they’ll blame the FL, the director, and probably the whole production team too.

And isn’t this the second time WCR has worked with this director??? If this project doesn’t do well, do they really think that would be good for WCR either? She’ll get dragged into the criticism too, whether it’s fair or not. She’s literally just doing her job and working like crazy with such a packed schedule. Poor pretty girl.

As for the director... if this one also turns out badly, he might be done for good, if you know what I mean 😅