Liu Xue Yi’s disastrous recent dramas (and at least one terrible leading lady)
Chinese drama fans all over the world know that, while Liu Xue Yi is one of China’s most talented actors, he has rarely been given the roles that his talent deserves or, for that matter, female co-stars who can keep up with his standout performances.
You only have to look at the catastrophe that was last year’s The Princess’s Gambit, a long-anticipated but ultimately horribly-written drama starring a co-star, Meng Zi Yi, who simply cannot act.
Or 2024’s Kill Me Love Me — another promising C-drama with a nonsensical plot that disintegrates beyond help mid-way through and a co-star, Wu Jin Yan, who while having superb chemistry with Liu Xue Yi and giving a strong performance, couldn’t save the disastrous story either.
So much so, after starring in several “flops” over the last couple of years, many fans are now asking “When will Liu Xue Yi get his breakout role?” and “Why has the incredibly talented Chinese actor’s luck been so bad with the dramas he has been cast in?”
Here then is a look at the problems that have faced Liu Xue Yi in the past, and why the dramas he has starred in have been so disappointing.
But, before you get depressed at the undeserved lot in life the talented actor has had to suffer through, there is one quite exciting silver lining (well, two) heading his way as well.
That is the Chinese actor’s upcoming historical romance drama Against the Current and his role in Northern Wei Dynasty.
Both dramas that, I think, could just be not only the actor’s long-awaited “breakout roles”, but also epic dramas in their own right.
Why does Liu Xue Yi have problems finding roles worthy of his talent?
That’s the million-dollar question among C-drama fans right now, and that is the tragedy of Liu Xue Yi.
He is incredibly talented, and is also widely acknowledged as a “face actor” (where his acting actually matches his visuals, which is rarer than you’d think), yet he still keeps landing in projects that don’t deserve him.
The short answer to why Liu Xue Yi has problems finding roles worthy of his talent then?
The Chinese actor is stuck in a brutal combination of bad luck, typecasting, and the “curse of the danmei face.”
You know, that good-looking guy who isn’t stereotypically handsome in that pretty boy way of most of China’s leading younger actors, but who you could easily imagine steaming up the screen as half of a hot danmei (Boys’ Love) couple.
Yep, with his sharper-than-acceptable-in-the-C-drama-world features, that’s Liu Xue Yi. A hot guy who would look even hotter if an equally hot guy was his love interest.
And we all know how acceptable that currently is in China. Not.
And yes, I am joking to some extent, as the longer answer to the question of why he hasn’t been given better roles is far more interesting.
And, that answer also means, after years of Liu Xue Yi starring in some truly terrible stuff, there is finally some hope on the horizon.
The core problem? Liu Xue Yi is just too good at playing evil (and beautiful)
Here’s the irony of the actor’s problem and, other than his danmei face, his main one — Liu Xue Yi’s biggest asset is also his trap. And it all goes back to the way he looks. Again.
That’s because, along with his danmei face, Liu Xue Yi also has what some C-drama fans call a “villain face with a hero’s build”, ie: striking, sharp features that lean slightly towards having wicked or evil energy (or xieqi (邪气) as the Chinese say).
After all, the actor did first gain attention playing antagonists, and that’s where he has excelled in roles like:
- Hao Chen in Love and Redemption (the obsessive, egocentric “senior disciple” but actually Emperor Lord Bai Lin) — he stole every scene
- Luo Zi Shang in Destined — another morally grey character that audiences loved
- Tian Qi / Jing Yan in Ancient Love Poetry — the Demon God, and yet another powerful, slightly unhinged male lead
The problem with these roles?
After you have played half a dozen “intense, possessive, slightly dangerous” roles, casting directors struggle to see you as the fluffy, devoted, green-flag boyfriend that idol drama heroines require.
In that respect, some critics have also pointed out that Liu Xue Yi “doesn’t have eyes that look like they’re in love”. Instead, his gaze reads as obsessive or possessive rather than tender affection.
And, while I might not have a problem with that if that gaze was turned on me, in the idol drama world? No cute and fluffy chemistry usually means no hit.
The Sub-Standard Script problem
If you think the scripts poor Liu Xue Yi keeps getting stuck with are terrible, believe me, you are not imagining it. His recent projects have been genuine messes, with the truly awful The Princess’s Gambit as a textbook example.
“What a colossal waste of the talent that is Liu Xue Yi… saddled with a script riddled with badly used tropes and a poorly written female lead. The rumor is that there were 11 scriptwriters on this.”
This was just one of the tens of thousands of comments all over social media/forums in both China and outside the country, as fans easily pointed out what the hell was wrong with that abysmal mess.
Starting off with eleven writers. Let’s face it, that’s not a drama; that’s a committee disaster.
So bad was that script, the female lead’s character was so inconsistently written that viewers couldn’t sympathize with her, which meant the male lead’s emotional investment also made no sense.
Throw in that Meng Zi Yi’s face never changed expression once — not when she was falling backwards off a cliff, having her life threatened by an attacking swordsman, or suffering through a monthly poisoning — and poor Liu Xue Yi stood no chance before he even started.
As one Chinese commenter pointed out when they gave The Princess’s Gambit an incredibly low score:
Yes, Meng Zi Yi’s good looks are undeniable, but she’s overly focused on her image, making her every move in the drama appear clumsy and artificial. And extremely distracting. If she can’t shake off her idol image, she should stay in variety shows and not ruin the audience’s viewing experience.
Similarly, Kill Me Love Me (with Wu Jin Yan) underperformed despite both leads being competent actors, and Liu Xue Yi giving a performance as Murong Jing He that was on fire, while A Moment But Forever (with Tiffany Tang) was mocked as a “dull middle-aged romance” with flat chemistry.
Again, sub-standard, uninspiring scripts that started out great but went off the rails quickly, and that did not allow Liu Xue Yi to sink his teeth into standout roles that he deserved.
The Female Lead Problem (It’s Real)
In my opinion, other than with Meng Zi Yi, Lue Xue Yi’s problem with his co-stars is not that the actresses are bad per se. If anything, many are quite good. But that the pairings themselves lack chemistry.
Some notable misses in that regard are:
- Ju Jing Yi in In Blossom — She is a polarizing idol actress known for prioritizing her own “pretty shots” over scene coherence. The drama briefly caught fire when another actress (Zheng He Hui Zi) played the female lead’s first version, an actress who should have been kept throughout the entire drama, but then immediately cooled when Ju’s version took over.
- Tiffany Tang in A Moment But Forever — A capable, very well-liked actress, but the material was weak and critics called their pairing “middle-aged romance” (which, ouch)
- Wu Jin Yan in Kill Me, Love Me — Fresh off the huge success of The Double, she had momentum, but the script was chopped to pieces and the chemistry never quite clicked. At least after the first three or four episodes, when it was initially on fire.
2025 was brutal for Liu Xue Yi (the numbers don’t lie)
Here’s where Liu Xue Yi’s recent career gets even more painful.
In 2024 and 2025, along with The Princess’s Gambit, Liu Xueyi headlined in four other major dramas, and all four underperformed. They were:
- What If co-starring Zhong Chu Xi – 5.5 million views per episode
- Kill Me Love Me with Wu Jin Yan – 15 million peak views (mediocre for fantasy)
- A Moment But Forever with Tiffany Tang – 14 million views per episode
- Love Never Fails co-starring Hu Yi Xuan – 2 million views per episode
As a result, Liu Xue Yi was dubbed the “biggest flop of 2025” by Chinese netizens, which is obviously ridiculously harsh but reflects the fans’ score-settling mentality.
The context: Liu Xue Yi came from nothing
Now let’s just backtrack a bit before we get to his promising upcoming dramas Against the Current and Northern Wei Dynasty as it might help you understand his situation a little bit more once you know his backstory.
Liu Xue Yi spent his first few years in the C-drama industry as a background player through H&R Century (the studio/agency behind Love and Redemption), constantly playing second lead while actors like Cheng Yi got the big pushes.
Fans always believed Liu Xue Yi was more conventionally handsome than his peers, but management clearly had their favorites.
That’s why he only started getting consistent male lead roles after turning 30, which, in idol drama years, is practically geriatric.
So now, while Liu Xue Yi is finally getting “first-tier” opportunities at 34-35, he still has other disadvantages to overcome. They are:
1. He’s older than most idol drama male leads.
2. He’s fighting against a decade of typecasting.
3. He’s stuck in a factory belt of mediocre scripts that are written by committees.
4. Due to his looks and his talent in playing morally-grey characters, the industry has no idea how to market him.
He did, however, leave H&R Century at the end of 2024, and that may be at least one thing about to work out well for him. And then there are a couple more.
Finally, a real break?
And now we are back to today, and here is what has changed in the last year or so, as Liu Xue Yi is now involved in two far more “serious” projects than previously.
Projects that, hopefully, could change the trajectory of his up-to-know not so stellar career, drama-wise, from here on out.
Those projects are:
1. Against the Current (已完成拍摄) — A historical drama co-starring Tan Song Yun, one of the most respected actresses of her generation. She’s known for choosing smart scripts and having genuine chemistry with her leads. That drama just wrapped filming in October 2025 and, from the stills and BTS photos and videos out so far, fans are genuinely excited about this one.
2. Northern Wei Dynasty (傳聞中) — A big-budget political drama at YOUKU, which is being compared to Nirvana in Fire. He’s starring opposite Yang Mi in this one. Yes, Yang Mi, the A-list legend, and an actress who always makes her co-stars look good.
Once released, both of these could finally break Liu Xue Yi out of the idol drama ghetto and into the “acting-focused actor” category he has deserved to be in for a very long time.
And now that you know what some of the problems have been with Liu Xue Yi’s career so far, fingers crossed that’s what we are going to be seeing soon, eh?
I’ll keep you posted as both dramas head closer to premiere.
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