Object / prop, skill, location, costume, pet, weapon, the main character themselves. Everything is on the table.
I am taking Nan Xuyue from The Blossoming Love :’) and keeping him safe with me. I will probably wipe all his memories of Mu Xuanling or make him drink a potion to believe I am her (I have very rich imagination).
From which drama would you take something and why?
More details in this post: When I Meet The Moon
Other posts: When I Meet The Moon (cdramasfans)
The drama is based on a novel by Zhu Yi. Adaptations of her other dramas are: When I Fly Towards You, Hidden Love and The First Frost.
Shy and socially anxious Yun Li enrolls in graduate school to prove her independence and unexpectedly reunites with her high school crush, the brilliant Fu Shi Ze. Determined to win his heart, she steps out of her comfort zone and pursues him. Their love flourishes, but past traumas and personal differences drive them apart. Years later, Fu Shi Ze, now a renowned researcher, is determined to win Yun Li back when she returns from abroad. Through growth and perseverance, they find their way back to each other.
Read The Novel here: Folding Moon
MDL link here: When I Meet The Moon
I feel like a lot of people discovered him through The Blossoming Love, while others, including me, became fans after Bloody Romance. Then there is an entire generation of fans who still remember his eating vlogs like a core memory (if you haven’t seen them then let me tell you that he is known for his humor and wit).
Which of his characters made you become a fan?
I will be too star struck to even breathe :’)
I really want him to get the girl in one of his costume dramas! Basically, someone like Nan Xuyue: strategic, warm on the outside but cold on the inside for others, marshmallow for his lady love, and ruthless to anyone who threatens her.
What about other fans? Which role do you want to see him play next?
Note: This adorable video was shared by his studio
From the sets of “Nirvana in Flames” … Wang Duo in red today! The color really suits him imo.
From the sets of “Nirvana in Flames”. He mostly jokes about losing hair and he even has regions of hair named after women. I have an inkling he is telling the same joke to Wu Jinyan since he keeps fixing his wig.
Anyway, the second clip where he bends and looks directly into the camera lens… I felt personally courted. Drawback of being a fan girl or anybody else felt like melting under the warmth of that gaze?
Wang Duo is a very emotional person and I guess one has to be this way when their livelihood depends on inhabiting and projecting the consciousness of a fictional existence. I digress, I wanted to share a beautiful piece of writing by him which perfectly captures his sensitive side and dedication to his work. If you pay attention to his words, you will see his vulnerability and fear in playing a character so flawed that he himself couldn’t find any sympathy for.
Here we go:
The first time I heard your name, it was at a dinner. Out of curiosity, I went to read the original novel, and then the script, and what I found left me both stunned and delighted. It’s rare to encounter a character with such vast, deliberate negative space, the kind that makes you feel an irresistible urge to rush in and fill the blanks.
The real attachment came during the script read-throughs. Running lines with my fellow actors, Zeng Jie’s past and future slowly unfurled before me like a scroll.
I began noticing him in everyday life. I have a small notebook, the first ten pages packed densely with traits I’d observed in real people or found in other works: good and bad qualities that belonged to Zeng Jie. That process was also the process of him coming alive inside me, bit by bit.
I built a separate life timeline just for him, from “micro Zeng Jie,” “tiny Zeng Jie,” “little Zeng Jie,” to “mid Zeng Jie,” “grown Zeng Jie”… Even a single year’s difference, I wanted there to be some distinction in how he carried himself. Every piece I filled into Zeng Jie mattered. Remove one link, and he wouldn’t become what you all eventually saw. Laying that out now, it really was pain and joy all at once.
I remember the scene chasing the train. The first time I ran the lines, I couldn’t stop crying. But I wasn’t satisfied afterward. Why should I pity him? He shouldn’t be so easily seen through by the world. The second time, I wanted to try for something I’d call “truth hidden inside falseness, falseness hidden inside truth.” That felt closer to the Zeng Jie I had in my head.
I wanted Zeng Jie to be grounded. I wanted him to be the kind of blemished flaw person that ordinary people could recognize in real life, not some distant symbol.
Aside from the idiom chaining sequence (which in my reading is Zeng Jie’s fantasy of the luxurious life he could have had, his deepest, most fragile dream), I never reinforced his goodness anywhere in the performance.
What I wanted to show was evil that reads as ordinary, complexity rooted in human nature. I have no regrets about Zeng Jie. He got what he deserved. He doesn’t need anyone’s sympathy or empathy, and I hope you never encounter someone like him in real life. (His subtle note to fans - don’t romanticize the character and see the flaws).
Thank you to every person who gave themselves to this production, in front of the camera and behind it, and to the audience who stayed with us.
Because of you, Brown-Eyed Mystery (aka Blemished Flaw) shines the way it does.
Goodbye, Zeng Jie. Thank you for everything you gave me: all the exhilaration, the excitement, the fear, and the awe.
—— END of GOODBYE MESSAGE —-
In case you haven’t seen the drama, Zeng Jie in a nutshell is: A cheating scumbag who was raised in poverty and married a woman for her money. Shifted the blame of infertility onto her when he is the one who is impotent. To add insult to injury, he cheats on her and eventually plans to kill her.
I added this context because he mentions not crying when chasing the train. His goodbye message explains his choice to deliberately make Zeng Jie abhorrent. His first instinct was to cry, to invite viewers to feel the tragedy of a man like Zeng Jie, the smallness of him, the wound underneath.
And then he stopped himself. Because he reasoned that a man like Zeng Jie would never let anyone see that.
The impotence, the ego, the murder: none of it works if the audience can locate his pain and feel tender about it. The whole architecture of that kind of man depends on opacity.
He performs normalcy, performs confidence, performs the devoted husband, and the violence is just maintenance.
If Wang Duo had played the pathos, the character becomes sympathetic. And sympathetic Zeng Jie is a lie (when you read the novel, you will feel rage and hatred for the man).
Note: I am writing this at an ungodly hour to fulfill my fan duty to him; please overlook typos and mistakes.
From the promotional event of The Blossoming Love. I love his expressions
His studio shared these photos today
From the sets of, “Nirvana in Flames”.
I really like this costume worn by him. He looks almost ethereal here to me.
I feel like you folks are going to end up watching Nirvana in Flames before the release through these videos but I really can’t resist sharing this cute laugh
There was some serious archeological work done behind this video. I dug this up to share his early voice-over work with fans
