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| Li Yitong and Liu Yuning’s New Show Slammed and Praised for Entertainment Industry Roast (Pics: iQIYI) |
This fantasy-romance bit stars Li Yitong and Liu Yuning, and on the surface, it looks like your standard dreamy fare. Li Yitong plays Song Xiaoyu, a struggling no-name actress who gets pulled into the world of a historical drama she’s trying to land a role in. There, she transforms into the tragic heroine Song Yimeng and keeps colliding with Nan Heng (played by Liu Yuning), the dashing male lead of the in-story drama.
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Song Xiaoyu, not keen on dying a tragic scripted death, tries rewriting her own destiny with her modern brainpower. But every time she meddles, she just makes things worse, roping Nan Heng and other characters into the realisation they’re basically puppets on a storyteller’s string. Cue a rebellion against the plot itself, with everyone scrambling to break free of the roles forced on them.
Sounds artsy, right? But viewers are losing their collective minds not over the magical bits, but over some absolutely savage lines that blew up online. A quick sample, courtesy of Sohu Entertainment, goes like this:
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“There are 900 scenes. I want all the key moments and highlights to go to the male lead.”
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“Aren’t there stand-ins for dialogue, action scenes, hands, even nvde scenes?”
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“You got the female lead role because we already went through every actress willing to play second to the male lead—and you were what we had left.”
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“The title of this drama is wrong. It has nothing to do with our male lead.”
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Blimey — no wonder people went off! Loads of netizens called it a thinly disguised swipe at the drama world’s obsession with propping up the male lead at all costs, from dodgy casting choices to stunt double shenanigans and female characters getting short-changed.
When the chatter hit boiling point, the drama’s screenwriter tried to laugh it off with a cheeky statement: “It wasn’t me, I don’t know anything! I’m just a regular writer!!!” — a comment that only made the debate more lively, hinting they knew exactly what they were doing without confessing outright.
Controversy aside, A Dream within a Dream is still pulling in a crowd thanks to its bold concept, pretty visuals, and deeper message of breaking free from a pre-written fate — something that’s resonating with a lot of drama lovers who’ve seen one too many cookie-cutter storylines.
In the end, it might just be the perfect bit of telly for anyone keen to see not just a fictional heroine, but an entire cast tearing up the rulebook — on-screen and off.