Zhou Xun’s “Ruyi’s Royal Love” Unable to Air Due to Fan Bingbing’s “The Legend of Ba Qing”

The highly-anticipated historical drama Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace <如懿传> is in a broadcast limbo, and the producers are unsure if the drama would even make it to air this year.

The Qing dynasty serial, which stars Zhou Xun (周迅) as Ruyi and Wallace Huo (霍建華) as the Qianlong Emperor, is based on the book of the same name written by Liu Lianzi (流潋紫), who also wrote the inspiration behind 2011’s hit drama Empresses in the Palace <后宫·甄嬛传>. Ruyi’s Royal Love, which wrapped up filming in May 2017, was originally slated for a late December 2017 release on Dragon TV and Jiangsu TV, but this was later pushed back to an unspecified date in 2018.

According to reports, producers failed to secure a timeslot for Ruyi’s Royal Love due to the government’s strict quota on broadcasting historical period pieces. According to the rule, provincial satellite stations like Dragon TV and Jiangsu TV are only allowed to dedicate 15 percent of its airtime to historical period dramas—in other words, satellite stations cannot air more than 110 episodes of historical period dramas per year.

With Fan Bingbing’s (范冰冰) The Legend of Ba Qing <巴清传>, a historical drama about China’s first female entrepreneur, slated for a January 13 premiere, it appears that Dragon TV and Jiangsu TV have opted to release The Legend of Ba Qing first. With 76 episodes, Ba Qing would take up most of the station’s historical period drama quota of the year.

With Ruyi’s broadcast date up in the air, the producers have this to say on Weibo: “Thank you everyone for your love and attention for Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. As a production studio, we filmed the show with sincerity and finished post-production with utmost care. We wanted the production quality to match up to everyone’s expectations. The broadcast time [however] is not something controlled by the studios. We can only work hard on doing what we can do, and diligently wait for the day everyone can see our work.”

Source: HK01.com

This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.

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Responses

  1. Nope, not even my love for Wallace Huo can persuade me to watch Ruyi’s. Absolutely cannot stand dramas about scheming concubines anymore. Surely this plot has been used to death.

    And Ba Qing sounds quite meh as well.

    Guys, go watch Nirvana in Fire 2 instead. I’m seriously loving it. Huang Xiao Ming is surprisingly great in it. NIF 2 is the first sequel I’ve seen that lives up to the first drama. Everything is top notched, from cinematography, plot, screenplay, martial arts…

    And if you haven’t seen Nirvana in Fire (the first one), what are you waiting for?! Hu Ge and Wang Kai <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

    1. @heather concubines plotting with each other is nothing new really.. but this drama promise to touch on true relationship that struggles within the royals… I think that could be something interesting as we all were made to believe that there’s no true love in the Palace. Haha!

      1. @cassiemissy Interesting, but I still don’t believe true love in the palace when the king have tons of wives, he is basically doing his “job” of producing offsprings only, he is not loving anyone responsibly. Many times, at the end of some dramas, the king would always say I did all those f**** things to actually protect you because you’re my true beloved… at that point who would buy that anymore anyway?
        For the women, they don’t really do their “job” as wives according to history, but make use of the chance to live a lavish life. In dramas, they fight and plot against each other to the point it would become the main storyline.
        So the true love theme, it never works at all. Only and only when the director unrealistically gave us the fantasy that the king is monogamy i.e. Tuo Ba Jun. I’m predicting Wallace will be greatly disliked for his maltreatment towards Ru Yi and other concubines just like in Journey of Flower, he’s not worthy of the women’s love and so on da..da…da…

    2. @heather NIF 2 was slow to start but that the plot has started, it is pretty good. Still cannot stand the brainless empress. Will dread ep 27.

  2. Ruyi’s main theme is not about scheming concubines and fight for the throne. The main theme is about the relationship between Qianlong and Ruyi from when Qianlong ascends to the throne to Ruyi’s passing when she was in her forties. Imagine the story about an ordinary couple from where they fell in love to where they die/grow old. The delights of falling love, the impending realities and crisis affecting the relationship, the surrounding families etc. Within our own families, we have our stories too on the ups and downs. The only difference is this ‘relationship’ happened in Qing period between an emperor and his second wife and other family members.

    The delay is unfortunate. But I am still looking forward to it. I read that they may try to negotiate for an online release through QQ.

  3. Oh… so disappointed with the delay as I was so excited with all the preview. It seems to be a quality drama with good costumes and casts!

    Hopefully it doesn’t get push to 2019……

  4. @cassiemissy Interesting, but I still don’t believe true love in the palace when the king have tons of wives, he is basically doing his “job” of producing offsprings only, he is not loving anyone responsibly. Many times, at the end of some dramas, the king would always say I did all those things to actually protect you because you’re my true beloved… at that point who would buy that anymore anyway?
    For the women, they don’t really do their “job” as wives according to history, but make use of the chance to live a lavish life. In dramas, they fight and plot against each other to the point it would become the main storyline.
    So for the true love theme, it never works at all. Only and only when the director unrealistically gave us the fantasy that the king is monogamy i.e. Tuo Ba Jun. I’m predicting Wallace will be greatly disliked for his maltreatment towards Ru Yi and other concubines just like in Journey of Flower, he’s not worthy of the women’s love and so on da..da…da…

  5. Who cares about FBB? She’s a one-trick pony. Always casted in vain and overrated dramas that she deliberately produce in order to make herself look good. -_-. Borrrrrinnnnng.

    Ruby Lin does the same, but at least Ruby chooses roles that aren’t always glamorous or easy to portray. There’s dimension in her characters.

  6. I love Fan Bing Bing, but I could care less about her drama at this point. I am a huge fan of Empresses in The Palace (Legend of Zhen Huan/Zhen Huan Zhuan) and since Ruyi’s Royal Love is an “indirect” sequel, I have huge anticipation for the drama. The fact that this “Legend of Ba Qing” is possibly gonna delay Ruyi’s Royal Love is honestly off-putting.

    I haven’t been too interested in “Legend of Ba Qing”, and now the possible chance that it’ll delay the release of Ruyi’s Royal Love, I’ll definitely not watch FBB’s drama.

  7. No wonder the name Ba Qing sounds so familiar. This is the character that appears in ‘A Step Into the Past’. I remember reading about the real life version of this character after knowing about her from ASITP. Sonija Kwok played an amalgamation this character (Widow Qinq) and Jin Yan Ran in the series.

    The series seems interesting, but, it’s so long, and I’m afraid Fan Bing Bing will make this series all about her and not develop other characters well. I remember there were news of FBB changing the script of the Wu Zetian to increase her own screen time.

  8. What an odd restriction China has on broadcasting. I wonder if Fan Bing Bing won out cuz her production company probably has more pull than Ruyi’s production company. It’s hard to imagine producers, who after spending all that money on making the show, not killing themselves to secure a timeslot. I was looking forward to Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace more than Fan Bing Bing’s show since the story sounded a lot like last year’s Nothing Gold Can Stay.

    1. @dalebaines China appears to have all sorts of restrictions. I think some of these restrictions are stifling creativity and will not bode well for dramas and movies in the long term especially if they wish to compete in the world wide artistic sphere.

      I guess there may be politics involved and FBB’s production company has more muscles than Huang Lan’s? Don’t think one can ignore politics in China?

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