Empress of the Ming: Legend of Sun Ruowei is the latest female-centric drama to star a well-known film actress, and this time Tang Wei will be playing the titular empress. Zhu Yawen, her costar from The Golden Era plays Sun Ruowei’s husband Zhu Zhanji, later known as the Xuande Emperor.
Qiao Zhenyu (Song of Phoenix) plays the strategist Xu Bin, a warm and selfless friend who is described as the most important person in Sun Ruowei’s (Tang Wei) life. Poor guy, it’s already his nth time playing a character who doesn’t get the girl.
Yu Haoming got his breakthrough playing the main villain Du Mingli in late-Qing romance drama Nothing Gold Can Stay, and this time he’ll be playing the Prince of Han Zhu Gaoxu, an ambitious royal who rebels against his nephew Zhu Zhanji once the latter ascends the throne.
Zhang Yixing (Operation Love) costars as adult Zhu Qizhen, the main couple’s son. As emperor, he would be captured and taken prisoner by the Mongols during the Tumu Crisis, and is put under house arrest by his younger brother after returning.
Other supporting cast members include Sun Xiaoxiao (Memory Lost) as a consort from Joseon (modern-day Korea), Deng Jiajia (I Am Not An Elite) as Zhu Zhanji’s first empress Hu Shanxiang and Wu Yue (The First Half of My Life) as his mother.
For a change, can’t someone film a historical drama about the non-royals who work in the palaces? The costume designers, seamstresses, cooks, doctors, guards, gardeners, etc.. deserve some attention and face time.
In honesty, in a lot of these dramas they do start out in the mentioned professions. It’s just that depending on the gender they will end up a royalty nevertheless through birth secrets, marriage, etc. Lol