ChineseChik525! I miss you, too! The good old days were fun, when we used to drool over Yuan Hong together in LSS's thread. I still like Yuan Hong, but my affections have mostly shifted over to Wallace Chung now. I'm actually around spcnet quite a bit, but I've mostly been posting in my story thread (Legendary Book) in the fan fiction section. I have a few readers who are hardcore Wallace Chung fans, and so we have been discussing Wallace Chung's character in my story over in my story thread. You should stop by if you have time and drool over Wallace Chung with us.
Anyway, back to this Qing Shi Huang Fei series. You know, after reading so many posts about Ruby taking a gamble on casting Yan Kuan as the villain, now I'm a bit concerned about how the series will do. I know all the male eye candy in the series will draw a large gathering of female viewers. However, I think a truly great series not only needs a good plot line but also a great villain. Heroes are important, but I think villains carry the show and move the story forward. In all the series I've seen, the ones I remember the most are usually ones with awesome villains, ones who are multi-faceted, very three-dimensional, and somehow are able to gain the viewers' sympathy. (Examples of actors who played awesome villains include Gilbert Lam in Heroine of the Yangs, Wallace Chung in Ni Shui Han, Yuan Hong in Young Warriors of the Yang Clan, and Dominic Lam in Fistful of Stances.) Therefore, with all that said, I worry that Yan Kuan might not be able to portray a memorable villain. I've recently seen him act in Da Ren Wu. He wasn't the villain, but his performance was only mediocre. He simply didn't shine or grab attention in Da Ren Wu. It is such a pity that Ruby Lin could not get Yuan Hong or Wallace Chung to play QiYou. I
know either Wallace Chung or Yuan Hong would have been able to make the character QiYou suave, hotly attractive, and intensely evil.