Why Is He Still Single? hits 24,000 on heat index – no surprise, BEST Chinese rom-com of 2025

Chinese rom-com Why Is He Still Single? a success on Tencent

Why Is He Still Single? — or what I think is the best Chinese rom-com in years — has just exceeded 24,000 on the Tencent Video heat index as it begins the second half of its 16-episode run.

The Wallace Huo and Zhu Zhu-led drama’s latest achievement was celebrated with a new visual featuring the show’s leads, with the cute comment:

No preaching, no unrealistic pronouncements; it uses humor to deconstruct the concepts of freedom and self-consistency in life choices.

I’ll say.

Why is Why Is He Still Single? the best rom-com of 2025?

If you love a good rom-com and haven’t begun watching Why Is He Still Single?, in my opinion, you are missing one of the best and most fun of the year with this.

The exceptional cast

That’s because the casting director not only chose the most fitting actors for the main and supporting cast, but even did so right down to the po-faced woman who plays the convenience store clerk (Qu He), Yu’s annoying DVD store-owning friend Li Huai Qing (Liu Xiao Hai), Dr Gu’s obsessed-with-finding-her-a-husband father (Yin Zhu Sheng), and even to Dao the smush-faced dog.

So much so, we ended up with a stellar ensemble cast that makes every moment of every episode – even the supposedly inconsequential ones — stand out, and have you still thinking about them days after you watched.

And, of course, kudos for the superb performances of Wallace Huo and Zhu Zhu themselves, as their characters’ relationship moves from doctor and patient, to doctor and annoying patient, to friend (?) and friend (?), to friend and reluctant friend, to friends whose opinions mean a lot to each other, to eventual love interests.

Although, we are currently at Episode 10, and both of them are still desperately trying to ignore that aspect of their relationship. <rolling my eyes>

The cleverly-written script

The Why Is He Still Single? script too is exceptional, with its nicely-written dialogue featuring subtle lines that, at first, seem throwaway until you realize they are some of the cleverest and funniest of things.

Written by Bu Xiaofeng (步晓峰), the script also does a superb job of making you care about every character in it — and yes, right down to the dog — while also having you feel as though, if any one of them wanted to be your friend, you wouldn’t think twice about ditching your current friends so you could fit them into your busy life more easily.

But where the script truly excels is in the scenes featuring protagonists Yu Yu (Wallace Huo) and Dr. Gu (Zhu Zhu), as their burgeoning relationship grows ever closer, and as we meet their friends/coworkers and see them all become intertwined in each others’ lives.

People like Xia Xiao (Eleanor Lee), Dr Gu’s new friend and Yu’s next-door neighbor, Shen Wu (Fei Qi Ming), Yu’s long-time, loyal but taken for granted apprentice, Lin Sa (Zhang Yao) Yu’s manager and friend, and Lao Sun (Li Yi Xiang), Yu’s brother-in-law.

All people who are integral to the main story, while also having fully fleshed out and interesting stories of their own.

The scenery and sets

I am a sucker for a drama that shows off the city it takes place in well, and Why Is He Still Single? does this impeccably with its enormous wide shots of the Yangtze river, its views out over the city as an extravagant fireworks display kicks off, and its tight, more comfy shots of nighttime riverside walks in Yu’s neighborhood.

Its sets too are lovely.

RELATED: Wallace Huo’s new drama Forever Young FINALLY has a premiere date, and it’s this week

Yu’s designer-created apartment with its chef-quality kitchen but packed to the gills with his high-end “man toys”, Xia Xiao’s more comfy single girl pad, Li Huai Qing’s DVD rental store full of books, postcards of cool places to visit and quirky ornaments, or the hip design office Yu himself owns.

All places that, if I lived in that neighborhood, I would want to visit again and again.

Yep. Why Is He Still Single?, which by the way is based on the Japanese drama He Who Can’t Marry, is easily one of my favorite rom-coms of recent years.

And one with scenes I keep rewatching again and again. Just to luxuriate in the perfectness of it all.

Watch it, and it may just become one of yours.

About the Author

Michelle Topham

Editor

British-American journalist obsessed with C-dramas, a subject I have been writing about for more than two decades. How many C-dramas have I watched? Many many hundreds. How many are still in my backlog? Hundreds more.

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