Yu Zheng on Cultivating New Talent
Chinese producer Yu Zheng (于正) is both noted for his popular works in recent years and condemned for plagiarizing others’ works. Although surrounded by controversy, it cannot be denied that he has cultivated many popular stars since establishing his own artiste management company, Huanyu Film. Some of his former and current artistes include Chen Xiao (陳曉), Zhang Zhehan (張哲瀚), Wu Jinyan (吴谨言), and Xu Kai (許凱).
Despite his ability to recognize star charisma and boosting relative unknowns to stardom, Yu Zheng expressed that the risks of promoting newcomers is great. In addition to the high cost of promoting new talents, it is also a risky investment as the probability of a new artiste becoming popular is relatively low. Most dramas that star new faces lose money. In the event that a newcomer becomes popular, they must continue to work hard to maintain popularity.
Yu Zheng shared, “The cost of cultivating new talent is very high. If the artiste does not become popular, you will lose money. Some artistes who become popular are ungrateful. Artistes such as Bai Lu (白鹿), Xu Kai, and Wu Jinyan are artistes who give me motivation to keep working hard at what I do. At the very least, it has allowed me to believe that artistes who have become popular can still be good people. This type of profit is not that of monetary gain, but of emotion and relationships. I often envy Li Yitong’s (李一桐) manager for having such a great artiste. I am very grateful, because I now have that too!”
Source: World Journal
This article is written by Huynh for JayneStars.com.
Wow…another b*tchy comment… He is so good at it!! I am glad Chen Xiao left him..he is doing much better now.
You are right, his comments do sound nasty. Wasn’t he also managing Song Weilong who is now taking him to court?
SWL is likely one of the bad people he’s referring to.
Yes… I wonder if the case will be settled quietly or will it be done in public?
While I do admit Yu Zheng dramas are a great way for new artistes to get introduced to the audience as he is very good at promoting his productions, I get worried about the artistes who stay on with him. There is the initial hype with their first few series but then they get stuck in certain stereotypes and then their acting doesn’t grow and then their commercial value goes away.
Yu Zheng has a habit of promoting only the same few people over and over again even though the audience have shown that they are not that well liked anymore. I think he enjoys stirring the pot, and he loves leaving cryptic messages when his stars get caught up in love scandals (which he probably helped create to spark gossip when he as management could have just ended speculation with a sentence). I really really dislike that because with all the immature fans around, the artistes can really get dealt heavy damage to their reputation. I feel that Yu Zheng is a selfish person who plays favoritism amongst his artistes. He will play nice when he wants to and when things don’t go his way, he snaps and goes crazy at them with weird comments. He really feels that these artistes owe everything to him.
I am happy for Bailu that she is getting more diverse roles and growing into a strong talented actress, but it is mainly due to her getting offered outside jobs rather than Yu Zheng productions unlike her predecessors (YSS, Yang Rong, Wu Jingyan, etc…). I do hope that she fights for more control over the work she takes up when she renegotiates her contract with Yu Zheng later on (I would rather she get different management but she does seem to be doing well so far).
I am glad that Chen Xiao left him because we can really see his talent now. Even though Mickey He has not been very active, I am glad he left Yu Zheng as well because he was so depressed back then and looks happy now.