Favourite Chinese Actors and Actresses

Mandarin 普通话
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We recently published articles on our favourite Chinese actors and actresses - who are your favourites?

Let’s have a chat about them - maybe we missed some of your favourites out?

Actors | Official | Top 20 Most Famous Chinese Actors (+10 from Hong Kong)
Actresses | 20 Most Famous Chinese Actresses in 2023 (+ Pics & Profiles)

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Actresses: 2
Actors: 8

Though, I mostly watch TV shows and the actresses in the article seem to be mainly from movies.
Secondly, I have a hard time remembering names, so unless I haven’t seen the actors’ name pop-up on MyDramaList at least twice, I mostly won’t know I’ve seen anything they were starring in. :smiley:

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10 is actually pretty decent! Sound effort Stefanie

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Zhu Yi Long!!??!! you didn’t include 朱一龙 in the list???
how… how… could you…

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red faced

Maybe we’ll need to update it! Thanks for the suggestion @Pascale-Mandarin_Simplified_HS

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I love 高亚麟 Gāo yàlín the dad in 家有儿女, so chilled out, funny and a nice Northern accent.

and I’m surprised 杨紫 Yángzǐ (the daughter) is not on the list, I thought she has been very active since that show. She is even the default voice on my GPS!

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I knew some of the actors and actresses, like Xu Kai. But others I like are Wu Kang Ren, Ivy Shao, and Shen Yue. I’ve just recently started noticing more actors from one drama to another. I’ve watched many, many dramas. Probably more than is good for me, ha ha!

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Great topic!

I spotted a few errors in the article related to the famous Chinese actresses.

  1. Zhao Liying
    The article sometimes uses Zhao ‘YiLing’ instead of Zhao ‘LiYing’.

No mention of the TV series “Princess Agents” in the list of Zhao Liying’s Best Chinese Movies/Series?? Princess Agents is hands down her most viewed TV series! :slight_smile:
In fact, Princess Agents (released in 2017) was a commercial success both domestically and internationally, and held the record as the most watched Chinese television series at that time. (source: Wikipedia)
Note that in 2018, as per Wikipedia, the TV series ‘Eternal Love’, featuring Yang Mi, became the most watched television series in the world.

Talking about Yang Mi, she is actually not one of the four “original” Dan actresses.

  1. The Four Dan actresses
    The original four Dan Actresses (四旦 or 四大花旦) are:
    Zhou Xun
    Zhao Wei
    Zhang Ziyi
    Xu Jinglei (the one not mentioned in the article)

That being said, Yang Mi is definitely one of the “New Four Dan actresses” (四小花旦)
Two lists of 四小花旦 were actually made. The 2005 version, and the 2013 version.

New Four Dan actresses, 2005 version:
Huang Shengyi
Wang Luodan
Yang Mi
Liu Yifei (well known for her roles as 小龙女, Zhao Ling’er, Mulan…)

New Four Dan actresses, 2013 version:
Yang Mi
Liu Shishi (well known for her role as Maer’tai Ruoxi)
Ni Ni
Angelababy

Yang Mi is the only 四小花旦 who appears on both lists (the 2005 and the 2013 versions)! :slight_smile:
Thus, as a member of the “New Four Dan actresses”, I guess she can be considered as a Dan actress of the second generation.

There is a Wikipedia article that provides much more details about the “Four Dan actresses”, from the first generation, up to nowadays (the “post-'95s” generation):