Top Chinese film actress slammed for bad acting and looks in TV series
The first television drama to star top Chinese film actress Zhou Dongyu launched recently to widespread criticism, echoing the disapproval that met fellow star Zhang Ziyi’s disastrous foray onto the small screen earlier this year.
Zhou’s first period drama series – Ancient Love Poetry – launched on Tencent Video on June 17. Reportedly costing 400 million yuan (S$83 million) to make, the 49-part series tells the story of romance between two deities, Shang Gu, played by Zhou, and Bai Jue, played by Kevin Xu Kai.
Critics and viewers say Zhou’s small stature and distinctive features do not lend themselves well to her role of Shang Gu, an ethereally beautiful goddess.
Zhou herself has said she doesn’t have the right face to play period drama beauties. In 2018, on the talk show Fei Chang Dao , she said she had once turned down such a role in a costume drama series set in the ancient world.
“I feel I can’t play that kind of role as I am not one of those beauties with big eyes,” she said. “It’s too embarrassing to play a role that is not suitable for you.”
Besides her mismatched look for Ancient Love Poetry , Zhou, who has previously appeared in modern drama series, was also panned for her exaggerated acting and because the series has been dubbed.
Critics also say she is upstaged by supporting actresses in the drama, including Luo Qiuyun who plays the most powerful deity in the fairyland, and Zhang Jiani who plays Shang Gu’s handmaid.
Zhou, who won best actress at the 2020 Hong Kong Film Awards for Better Days , is not the first female film superstar whose small-screen work has been attacked.
Zhang Ziyi, of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame, was criticised for her unconvincing acting in the series Monarch Industry broadcast from January to March. She played Wang Xuan, the daughter of a prime minister who gives up her love for a political marriage.
Zhang – who was 38 when the series was filmed in 2018 – plays the character from her teenage years through to middle age, but her portrayal of Wang as a 15-year-old in the first few episodes was slammed for being unconvincing and embarrassing.
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Tang Wei (Lust, Caution ) was also hit with criticism for her first venture into costume drama, Ming Dynasty (2019), for which she was panned for her so-called bad acting and unattractive looks.
The fast production of TV series means there’s often no time for multiple takes to get the perfect sequence, unlike in movie-making, says Beijing-based entertainment commentator Zhu Qirui, who has 6 million fans on his C-pop channel on Douyin.
“If the director of a TV series cannot finish shooting on schedule, he will be replaced on set,” he says.
“Even the big stars don’t have a chance to check out how the completed scenes look on camera before moving on to the next scene, because doing so would slow down production. That’s why some female superstars look very beautiful in movies but ordinary or even bad on TV.”
This article was first published in South China Morning Post.
