Yang Zi and Li Xian Star In “Flourished Peony”

With the success of their pairing in 2019’s Go Go Squid! <親愛的，熱愛的>, you’d expect Li Xian (李現) and Andy Yang Zi’s (楊紫) upcoming drama Flourished Peony <國色芳華> to be another huge anticipation for fans – yet each of the two camps are opposing the two idols’ second-time pairing with vehemence!

Yang Zi Brings Good Fortune to Male Co-stars?

With hit drama Lost You Forever <長相思> raising the profile of its 3 male leads Zhang Wanyi (張晚意), Tan Jianci (檀健次), Deng Wei (鄧為) and Wang Hongyi (王弘毅), Yang Zi’s ability to bring career highs to her male co-stars is apparent. Having just wrapped up her new drama Story of Joy <承歡記> with Xu Kai (許凱) in end September, her co-star for Tang dynasty drama Flourished Peony has finally been confirmed as Li Xian on November 9, after a rumors list of candidates including Mark Zhao (趙又廷), Wu Lei (吳磊) and Chen Xingxu (陳星旭).

Fans Think It Will Be a Step Backward for Li Xian

Despite fans’ enthusiasm for their next collaboration in a costume drama after Go Go Squid!’s astounding success, the reaction from Li Xian’s fans was a hostile one as the Bildungsroman arc of Flourishing Peony’s female-centric story meant that he would have to play second fiddle to Yang Zi–which they felt would be a step backward, given his rising profile after his well-received collaboration with Crytal Liu (劉亦菲) in Meet Yourself <去有風的地方>.

So concerned are Li Xian’s fans that they were angered when the production team put a comma between Yang Zi and Li Xian’s names in the official post, which caused netizens to mock Li Xian as being not only second, third fiddle in ranking of importance of his role.

Li Xian’s fans, though, are not the only ones protesting – Yang Zi’s fans voiced their unhappiness about Li Xian’s unattractive costume drama look.

Receiving poor feedback for both his costume drama styling for 2019’s Sword Dynasty <劍王朝> and 2020’s Soul Snatcher <赤狐書生> as well as his modern enunciation style which made it easy for viewers to tune out, both idols have yet to publicise the official announcement post for Flourished Peony, due to fears of antagonizing their fans.

Source: Upmedia