Five Reasons to Watch “April Star” Starring Stephy Qi and Nicky Wu
Chinese drama Fanxing Siyue <繁星四月>, also known as April Star, has been airing on Jiangsu TV and Anhui TV to refreshing success. The attractive romantic drama, directed by Vicky Wong (黃偉傑), brings together Stephy Qi Wei (戚薇) and Nicky Wu (吳奇隆) for the first time in their careers, opening up a heart-wrenching romance that’s putting viewers on the edge of their seats.
Main character Ye Fanxing (Stephy Qi), or “Star”, is a successful and popular radio DJ who is in an underground relationship with Xiao Han (Nicky Wu), the CEO of Sun Group. Min Siyue (Zuo Hang 左航), or “April”, has always been in love with Xiao Han, but after befriending Fanxing, she quickly discovers their underground relationship as well as her own true identity as Fanxing’s long-lost sister. Meanwhile, Xiao Han’s nephew Fu Xia (Ming Jen 任言愷) falls in love with Fanxing, creating a complicated love triangle.
April Star is a juicy soap opera that explores the complexity of human nature. It teaches that all obstacles can be overcome with hope and determination. Here are five reasons why you should tune into the show!
1 – Catchy title
Fanxing Siyue, roughly translated to “Stars [of] April”, combines the names of the show’s two female leads, Fanxing (Stephy Qi) and Siyue (Zuo Hang). “Fanxing” means plentiful stars, and “Siyue” means April, the month of spring and life. In season and in style, the drama’s April premiere date was of no coincidence.
2 – Refreshing cast
April Star features the star power of Stephy Qi and Nicky Wu in the their first collaboration. The drama also stars Best Actress winner Sheren Tang (鄧萃雯), playing the mother of Stephy. Along with the casting of power rookies like Zuo Hang and Ming Jen, the drama aims to be a product of both beauty and talent.
3 – Dramatic story
The series is the epitome of enticing melodrama—Fanxing and Siyue grew up together as sisters, but are not blood related. When they got separated, Fanxing ended up with Siyue’s biological mother, while Siyue ended up with Fanxing’s own birth mother. To complicate matters, Fanxing and Siyue later meet in adulthood and become friends, without realizing that they are each other’s long-lost sister. Siyue is also in love with Fanxing’s secret boyfriend, who has a nephew that has a crush on his uncle’s girlfriend. It’s an exciting mess of relationships.
4 – Heartbreaking characters
Each character has their own heartbreaking story to tell: though Fanxing and her boyfriend, Xiao Han, are both extremely successful in their careers, they have to keep their relationship underground. When Fu Xia realizes that the woman he loves the most is dating his own uncle, he has no choice but to sacrifice his own happiness, and silently protect Fanxing from behind. Fanxing realizes that not only is her close friend her long-lost sister all along, Siyue’s mother is actually her own birth mother—but for the sake of everyone’s happiness, Fanxing has no choice but to keep all of these secrets to herself.
5 – Trendy fashion
If melodrama is not the reason to tune in, then perhaps the drama’s trendy fashion can draw some loyal viewers. Viewers have been rave about the drama’s high quality production and its attention to detail—many are saying the drama itself is a runway show for Stephy Qi, who appears in some of the trendiest fashion of today.
“April Star” Extended Clips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng8iUMNh3JE
Source: Sohu
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
Storyline doesn’t sound enticing at all with meaningless love rectangles and the find out who your real parents are cliche.
@megamiaow Haha I was just thinking that as I read the synopsis. Yep, sounds like a cliche drama.
one of the reasons i don’t watch chinese dramas is that they always dub over the voices. i find that extremely annoying to hear dubs.
@m0m0 More annoying than listening to heavily accented/poorly spoken mandarin?
@m0m0 & @aiya
I think they should dub the actors/actresses when it’s ONLY necessary because their voices are a BIG part of their acting also. They should dub people who have a very bad accent, but not the “acceptable” ones.
I like the way the stylists dressed the actors/actresses in this drama so far.
@m0m0 I honestly don’t mind the dubbing cus they’re so good at it. I don’t even notice the voices aren’t theirs. Plus I don’t know what they sound like in real life so it’s hard to be bothered by this
@coralie I do recognize my favorite actors/actresses’ voices. I prefer to listen to their real voices unless it’s hard to understand them with a terrible accent. 🙂
@dramas4me I dislike dubbing because thats not a good judge of a good acting if you can’t hear the real voice. A bad voice and accent masked by a dubbed voice which often elevates the bad facial acting is to me an inadequate acting. Some actors have such lovely voices that you just can’t dub them. But some may be due to accents, like un-China accent so to speak. Or can’t speak mandarin at all. I understand the need to dub, but those you can only judge by looking at their faces. The dubbers should be given an award sometimes.
@funnlim I agree with you about dubbing also. My comments above said basically the same like you, but it’s just a different way of expressing it. You are right – some dubbers are so good and they are definitely deserve getting awards also.
I hate dubbed voice and since I usually just read subtitle and can’t really tell if they are pronouncing something correctly, I rather hear their real voice.
1 reason not to watch;
convoluted plot.
And rich successful attractive people not having any problem except for love.
@funnlim Lol, yes so true.