With Liu Xue Yi‘s latest drama The Princess’s Gambit finally ending this week to huge disappointment from many, fans like me are desperately waiting for his next drama series to drop in the hope that it will be better.
Especially as The Princess’s Gambit was so horribly written it was devastating to those of us who know the now-35-year-old actor deserves much better scripts than what he got with this.
One possible winner is Liu Xue Yi’s upcoming historical fantasy romance Against the Current, which dropped its first trailer this week. (watch below)
Against the Current is written by Tong Hua, a Chinese romance novel author and screenwriter who recently penned Tan Jian Ci and Landy Li’s fun comedy romance Filter.
RELATED: A huge number of Against the Current BTS photos have been released as C-drama continues filming
And, from the first Against the Current trailer released this week, it looks like it could be a C-drama that features a much better female lead for Liu Xue Yi than he got with Meng Zi Yi and her awful performance in The Princess’s Gambit.
The cast of Against the Current
That female lead, of course, is the wonderful Tan Song Yun.
An actress who gave standout performances in recent C-dramas like The Sword and the Brocade, Flight to You and As Beautiful As You and who, if she embodies the character of Xu Lan Xiang in Against the Current as well as she has performed in her previous dramas, could end up being Liu Xue Yi’s best co-star yet.
Fingers crossed.
In the first Against the Current trailer though, we don’t learn that much about the relationship between the two or the C-drama’s plot, as it is more of an introduction to the leading and supporting casts and their characters than anything else.
But we do get a nice look at Liu Xue Yi and Tan Song Yun, alongside supporting cast members like Wu Tian Tian, Ye Qing, Pu Tao, Amber Song and Chen Chuang.
Yes, it’s a female-heavy drama, and no I am not opposed to that, are you?
In fact, the only potential weak link in the cast as it stands now is Xin Peng, who gave such an amateurish performance in the popular BL-themed drama Guardian back in 2018, I was in full cringe throughout most of it.
He has had a few years to improve his skills though, with his performance in Flourished Peony definitely a step up from his portrayal of Guardian‘s Guo Chang Cheng, so let’s see how he does in this.
Meanwhile, the only interaction between Liu Xue Yi and Tan Song Yun in the Against the Current trailer is right at the end, but even that short scene gave me goosebumps as the chemistry between the two appears to be oozing right out of their pores.
The Against the Current plot
The upcoming romance drama is based on the novel ‘Lan Xiang Yuan’ (兰香缘) written by He Yan Shan (禾晏山).
The plot of Liu Xue Yi’s latest drama, while it does not sound like anything particularly different, I have to say the part of Lin Jin Qi does seem to have been tailored made for him:
The Granddaughter of the Grand Secretary, Shen Jia Lan, is betrothed to Lin Jin Qi, the eldest grandson of the Lin family, the Minister of Personnel.
However, the political tides at court shift abruptly, and her grandfather, Grand Secretary Shen is convicted of treason. Because of this, the entire Shen family is brutally executed.
To protect themselves, the Lin family annul the engagement and instead form a marriage alliance with the newly favored Zhao family at court.
Xu Wan Quan and his wife, former servants of the Lin family who had once received aid from Jia Lan’s mother, Lady Cui, substitute their recently deceased daughter, Xu Lan Xiang, in Jia Lan’s place.
From then on, Jia Lan assumes Lan Xiang’s identity and becomes a third-tier maidservant in the Lin household.
Despite her dire circumstances, however, Lan Xiang refuses to bow to fate. She persistently fights for a better life for herself, while attempting to clear her family’s name, and resist all forms of injustice and oppression.
In the end, through her kindness and intelligence, Lan Xiang breaks free from the constraints of her social class, and may even end up winning Lin Jin Qi’s heart.
Now, while all this sounds right up my alley, and probably yours too, don’t get your hopes up too much, as Against the Current only started filming in May, 2025 and is still filming as I write this.
That means it will be at least mid to late 2026 at the absolute earliest before we learn if this one is worthy of Liu Xue Yi’s talents or not.
Until then, watch the first Against the Current trailer and see what you think!
And, yep, WeTV did upload it in 1995-quality 480p. (Shaking my head!)
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