Chinese actor Ding Yuxi’s popularity soared after starring in ‘Eternal Night Galaxy’. In his new drama ‘Mountains and Rivers Pillow,’ he plays the seventh young master ‘Wei Yun’ of the Marquis’ household, acting opposite female lead Victoria Song in a forbidden romance between uncle and sister-in-law. However, even though he’s the male lead, statistics show his valid screen time in the entire show is only 9%, about a little more than 2 hours, leaving fans stunned and rocketing the topic to the top of Weibo’s trending list.
In ‘Mountains and Rivers Pillow’, Ding Yuxi personally performed all kinds of fight scenes and even accidentally injured his hand with a sharp arrow. Many cool behind-the-scenes photos had fans anticipating the drama. But after it aired, it was found that across 40 episodes, his valid screen time totaled only 2 hours and 27 minutes, averaging less than 4 minutes per episode. Especially in episodes 28 and 29, his appearances were only 4 minutes 23 seconds and 2 minutes 30 seconds, respectively.
This sparked fans’ outrage, as they believe Ding Yuxi, being the male lead, only having 9% of all screen time is unacceptable; many key scenes were substantially cut. Fans had even previously spent a total of 6 to 10 million RMB (about 3.19 to 5.32 million MYR) on “cloud screenings” to promote their idol, only to find he wasn’t given the treatment of a true lead role. They see this as a serious problem with the script and editing, which had greatly weakened the male lead’s character.
Not only this, some fans calculated that Ding Yuxi’s valid screen time in his cameo appearance in ‘Huai Water Bamboo Pavilion’ was 2 hours and 26 minutes—almost as long as his appearance in ‘Mountains and Rivers Pillow’ at 2 hours 27 minutes. Fans were stunned, exclaiming, “How is this a male lead? He’s basically a special guest star,” “The drama’s name should be changed to ‘Cut Rivers Pillow’,” and “The love line is totally unnecessary, feels like they’re forcing a CP onto us.”
Source: ETtoday Star Cloud