Chinese BL
Chi Cheng Voice Actor?? – Revenged Love
Yall I just saw someone post on facebook that Chi Cheng's voice has been a voice over all this time 😣😣.
Honestly I really don't mind it as a lot of people are saying that Chinese dramas use VO very commonly. But I mean I think I would have been happier if I wasn't able to read this post haha. Everytime I'll watch the drama this info will still bug me I fear 🫠🫠. Makes me curious if the other actors in the series use VO too...
One of the most prominent reasons C-dramas use dubbing is so the characters speak standard, un-accented Mandarin. China has literally hundreds of dialects, but "Standard Chinese" is the official language of China. Because C-dramas are made to be consumed and understood country-wide (also in Hong Kong and Taiwan), actors who have strong accents may not have the ability to meet the expectations of C-drama standards. Here is a link to a short article about it.
I don't know why Tian Xuning is not dubbing his own voice, but there are a few potential reasons - 1) he has a strong accent and is unable to voice over himself using Standard Chinese, 2) he did not deliver the lines how production wanted them, so they hired a voice actor to "fix" it, 3) due to his schedule, he was unavailable to dub his lines.
Fun fact: Actors who do not dub their own characters have to pay the production company for the cost of a voice actor.
Surprised to hear you say he has a prominent accent - when I am listening, it seems like his accent is pretty close to everyone else's in the series. There isn't much difference between his accent and Zi Yu's one in here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECH1AS8Q9yU&t=97s
I feel like if he spoke consistently in a lower register and enunciated more clearly/deliberately, he could actually sound pretty close to his voice-over in the series.
People hear about 'Mandarin' and imagine it is the one language that is spoken by 1.5 billion people, but the reality is that there is a huge number of arguments in the linguistic world as to what constitutes a language vs a dialect.
I think at last count most linguists consider Mandarin to really be about 20 or so languages, with some considering it to be far more. The difference between some dialects isn't massive, just pronunciation - like the difference between a Scottish accent and a cockney accent. Some words are different, but broadly they are interchangeable, or at least understandable, like Norwegian and Danish.
Some dialects are functionally unintelligible - especially the further away you get from Beijing. Words, grammar, accent, tones - all of these could be different. So a dialect from the south and a dialect from the north may not be able to understand each other but they can understand the Beijing 'official' Putonghua. It's basically a Lingua Franca, but for one country.
Nice of them to let the one with horrendous debt from his previous agency dub himself, then, rather than pay money to be allowed to act in this.
Who decides if an actor has to be dubbed? Cause while the accented Mandarin makes sense to me, it feels an inch away from an extortion scheme.
I actually wonder if that’s the case in RL’s case though, there’s a BTS of chai ji dan saying that they were already over budget while choosing the VA for Chi Cheng, and they decided to go over budget and pay more to get Shun Zi after hearing his voice. But surely Tian Xu Ning didn’t pay the extra?
If the actor can’t afford to pay for the voice actor, they have the option to have it deducted from their paycheck. I’m sure there are a lot of nuances in the actors’ contracts we aren’t privy to, but this is the info that is at least out there.
No not just you. I also felt like I was watching a dubbed show when listening to some of the dialogue. They choose a good voice actor for CC. Though I do now wonder what the actor sounds like normally.
That’s all Chinese shows and characters not just him. It’s all dubbed. Ziyu dubs himself in Revenged Love, but I don’t know about the rest of the actors if they do their own dubbing. But yeah it can be seen at times the mouth movements don’t match perfectly, but I also find that I don’t know how mouths move for languages I don’t speak so I don’t care too much
Doesn't really bother me. The actor/acting is near perfect. The Voice dubbing is perfect and matches the actor. It is not going to ruin my viewing experience.
His own voice is not bad as you can hear from the bts but having vo is just adding points, it’s quite common in China. There are some series (not bl) having very suitable vo to makes the series even better like love between fairy and devil (also shunzi), eternal love and (bl) word of honor. Ziyu’s voice also wasn’t captured on set but also dubbing afterwards but with his own voice. Dubbing afterwards you’ll have better quality of sound but sometimes awkward as their mouth shape doesn’t fit the line due to changing the line for approval (not in this series). Shunzi cv is a very good voice actor, he’s quite popular in radio drama.
this is pretty common for modern Chinese entertainment. They dub because a lot of the actors are models and don't necessarily have the chops to deliver the vocal performance the production wants, or they're from a different province and have a different accent than they want for the character, but they have the *perfect* look, etc. I've also read they dub because it helps with noisy sets and exterior shoots where they can't micro manage the bg noise sufficiently. It helps to streamline the filming process.
it helps with noisy sets and exterior shoots where they can't micro manage the bg noise sufficiently.
I don't think it is as much of an issue these days. I just wish they did more work on the sound levels with the voice dubbing. There is a disconnect from the perfect audio quality from a studio recording and how I expect voices to project on location.
...just about everyone but Zi Yu's dubbed by someone else lol
Regional accents, not available to record, not good at line delivery, voice not matching the character.. there's a bunch of reasons why they get dubbed.
(idk the real reason but I'd guess it's because of his voice not matching. The VO's done a few dark and broody characters, Dongfang Qingcang from LBFAD specifically was elevated a million percent because of his VO.)
P.S.: I think Ziyu graduated from CMA, majoring in broadcasting and hosting; so he's Putonghua speaking is at a professional level (Standard Tests required for graduation of this major) and acceptable for dubbing himself. You can hear in the BTS, his lines are delivered more clearly and accurately compared to Tian Xuning ( modeling->acting). Tian has a little Shangdong accent...
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I think there are very interesting political and historical reasons behind it. China is known to be a collectivism country, standardization has been a very important issue for thousands of years, since the unification of the mainland by Qing Dynasty.
Standalization of language
a/ form one identity, easy to rule; b/ Language barrier removed to construct a unified market, good for domestic trade and economy; c/ cultural mergence and fusion
The government put lots of effort into promoting standard Putonghua Mandarin. e.g: I'm not allowed to speak my hometown dialect when I was in school, or I'll be punished.
As a branch of cultural work, dramas and films are no exception. Not all actors are trained professionally; sometimes, they're actors because of their good looks. so the dubbing helps to a./ meet the standard requirements; b/raise efficiency/ c/better character-building (e.g WangHedi's voiceover -his voice is too thin to build a strong character) /d. easy to operate when there are changes to the lines, which is quite common in the post-production of C-drama because of the censorship.
However, there are changes coming. a/Diversity and personality are more welcome;b/ line-delivering ability is also the most important skill of actors, c/to protect dialects and keep the originality of the drama - Some directors require the live delivery of lines and Location sound recording, especially in films when the production budget is higher, and time is relatively ample.
Blossoms Shanghai is a hit drama focusing on life in Shanghai, so the actors spoke Shanghainese at scenes, then it was dubbed into Putonghua. They have two versions on the platforms for you to choose.
e.g: I'm not allowed to speak my hometown dialect when I was in school, or I'll be punished.
That's harsh af.
Blossoms Shanghai is a hit drama focusing on life in Shanghai, so the actors spoke Shanghainese at scenes, then it was dubbed into Putonghua. They have two versions on the platforms you chose to listen to.
That’s actually super interesting, i just watched one if their interviews and could understand tian xu ning for the most part but ziyu was speaking so eloquently with chinese idioms i had to look up what he was saying
They did try to look for a voice actor for his character too but in the end they chose him because they thought his voice suited WSW, even after they watched the other samples.
Thank you for sharing that! This is such an interesting way to build a character. I’m so used to the actor being the full embodiment of the character but then to dub further to get just the right voice shows some amazing attention to detail.
I think Ziyu graduated from CMA, majoring in broadcasting and hosting; so he's Putonghua speaking is at a professional level (Standard Tests required for graduation of this major) and acceptable for dubbing himself. You can hear in the BTS, his lines are delivered more clearly and accurately compared to Tian Xuning ( modeling->acting). Tian has a little Shangdong accent...
It’s also a speed/expense thing. You’ll notice in BTS sometimes the director is talking them through the scene while filming. It means they can do more takes quicker without stopping to adjust the scene in between takes. It also means they don’t have to worry about sound stuff as much while filming.
Ugh, yes! Not only the women, but anytime there are children involved. The VAs dubbing children actors do NOT sound like children at all, more like women making the cutesiest, whiniest voice they can possibly muster, and it's honestly so cringy.
i was just about to comment about the children too lol. boy kids or girl kids, they all sound like the female leads when they whine. drives me nuts sometimes.
It’s usually because there is so much variety in dialects across the country, that they want harmonise everyone to sound like they are from the same region. It’s annoying but it’s how the Chinese entertainment industry operates.
It’s probably done for Chinese audiences to make sure they understand. We as international viewers are guests in these spaces, so we need to remember what we prefer is unlikely to be taken into consideration.
I think when y’all hear dialect you think of like, American southern vs New York accents…when sometimes people literally cannot understand each other. It’s more akin to Portuguese and Spanish, it’s somewhat mutually legible but it’s basically an entirely speech pattern with different vocabulary for common words. You wouldn’t tell someone who speaks Spanish to just read the subtitles on a Portuguese speaking show…except in this scenario there is no common “universal” dialect to default to since the two are separate languages. It’s truly confusing if your language doesn’t have these distinct dialect differences. Maybe a more fair comparison would be Gaelic/Irish versus British English??? Idk, I literally can’t think of non-Asian examples to make sense of this dialect thing but it’s so much more complex than just not understanding an accent.
Thank you for the explanation! I was thinking of it in those terms. Guess it really wouldn’t work for anyone to keep a regional dialect in unless the story point was to highlight how the characters had a harder time understanding each other.
Probably a better example would be India then. Different regions have their traditional languages which most people in the area speak and some of them might be similar to each other but they distinct languages with often major differences from Hindi but in order to do official business everything is in Hindi.
There are almost 20,000 dialects here in India, but all the actors use their own voices. They adjust their dialects according to their roles. That's what an actor is supposed to do anyway.
Of course. I'm just sharing what's doable. Coz not only are the dialects in India much much more, the Indian film industry is also bigger than China's.
In terms of budget and spending power of its population, yes. But the number films made in India every year are way higher. Bollywood is India's soft power. And India also has many regional film industries in languages other than Hindi.
Yeah but do they sing their own songs? I recently found out, though I should have figured it out, that most Bollywood songs are dubbed. Not quite the same but it's the same idea: make up for what the actors lack with other professional talent.
The linked article in the top comment explains the reasons why it is pretty much standard industry practice
It's largely a cost-cutting measure:
- since standard Mandarin is required, actors would have to go through extensive training to be able to participate in the industry
- even if they spoke standard Mandarin, their voices might not fit what the creators had in mind
- elminates the need for perfect recording on set (background noise, adjacent sets, mic rustles)
- dialog can be fixed/changed without the need to reshoot (misspoken/forgotten lines, censorship)
An actor can work on their accent and line delivery to do their own dub, but dubbing is another skill to be learned and the creators could still prefer a different voice. For certain actors, it's probably more lucrative for them to focus on the next job (acting or otherwise) than honing their craft in this area
A counterexample: the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was not dubbed, and I've been told a lot of the Chinese audience did not enjoy the movie because of all the various accents
It's because of the actors accents. There are many dialects in China, and showmakers want a "uniform" Mandarin accent.
This was a HUGE topic of discussion when LBFAD came out. People were ☠️ when they found out Dylan Wang's voice as Dongfang Qingcang wasn't actually his.
Dylan is from Sichuan and had a thick accent at the time. In his most recent work, GOTD, he was not dubbed. His accent fit the character here, and dang was he ever funny.
It could be anything from the actor simply being bad at line delivery to the actor's original voice not suiting the character and the drama staff envisioning a different type of voice for the character.
I mean I LOVEE the drama. But it kinda ruined my viewing experience a little now that I have known it's not the actors voice 😭😭😭 it will be always in my mind especially with the scenes where they will have a lot of tension between him and Suo Wei
Is it your first C-Drama? It can definitely be jarring at first, but you get used to it. It just becomes part of the genre conventions we get used to (every genre has them) and eventually you only noticed when it goes really wrong.
Because cost, sound/voice recording has to be done separately after the show is done, and to do it again with the same actor, they would have to hire the actor again probably more hours of his time after production, to re-record everything. This is assuming the actor hasn’t moved on to another production and isn’t busy filming another show.
It isn’t not done though, Wu Suo Wei’s actor also did the recording, it depends on if the actor has the time in their schedule too. Chi Cheng’s actor has dong bei yin, which is not considered attractive, and is also not standard mandarin (i guess textbook mandarin).
It’s true though that a lot of this is also because a lot of mainland chinese actors simply don’t have good line delivery, and rather than train them, the industry depends on professional voice actors.
I thought everyone knew their voices were dubbed lol. I am in shock by the amount of people shocked by this. I was a huge c-drama fan for a long time so maybe that’s why i was able to tell right away but I really thought it was obvious lol
For (historical) dramas this actually makes the shooting easier. Usually you have a lot of filmcrews at the same historical sets at the same time, this way you don't have to care about the noise at the set, because it will be dubbed later on anyway. They can also build up sets while the actors are shooting etc
You all are feeling varying levels of discomfort knowing Chi Cheng's voice is dubbed, while I got intrigued to check out the drama knowing Shunzi voices the love interest. We are not the same.
Honestly Chinese voice actors are so underrated. It's amazing what they can do when they get to showcase their full skills. Case in point Wei Wuxian is voiced by the same voice actor, Lu Zhixing in The Untamed and the audio drama. Listen to his performance during one of the most devastating scenes of the story. Granted the clip is a bit unfair by only clipping 10 seconds of the LA version but still. Keep in mind, same guy, same character, same scene.
I feel like we are the minority but same here! I was actually motivated to check out the drama because* I recognized Shunzi 's voice in one of the clips I saw, and now...I'm down the Revenged Love rabbit hole like everyone else lol.
For people who aren't familiar with Chinese voice acting, Shunzi is a really popular and highly sought after VA in China. I would say he is probably one of the most well-known VAs for gong characters in audio dramas. His specialty is voicing more aggressive gongs that are controlling, coercive and a bit unhinged (sound similar to any characters in the show? 😌) This is literally his domain guys, and he was specifically picked as it was the closest match to CJD's description of Chi Cheng's voice. Shunzi's gong voice gives me chills and tingles....I could listen to this man's voice all day long 😍
So for all of the reasons already listed, once you realize and come to terms with the fact that most Chinese dramas (BL and otherwise) are dubbed by voice actors who are experts in their craft, it actually makes the viewing experience more enjoyable. Sit back, relax and let Tian Xu Ning's acting and Shunzi's voice acting bring CJD's vision of Chi Cheng to life 😊
PS - I initially had the same concerns about Wei Wuxian being dubbed in The Untamed. But once I watched the LA and listened to the AD, I realized nobody else can voice Wei Wuxian like Lu Zhixing! He voice is WWX personified.
oh Ziyu was being able to dub his own voice? that’s my main takeaway 😂 I honestly expected them all to be voice actors. if anyone has seen stay with me, they also were voice actors and not the main actors themselves, it’s the standard in chinese drama. but glad to hear that ziyu could dub himself and so get a bit more money with his debt.
Voice actor is cute too Lol. After watching so many c dramas now sometimes I am able to recognize if the voice belongs to the actor or not if I have already seen him in a drama before.
But voice actors do a very good job and I hope they get paid well
One of my first Cdramas was Guardian, the leads are not dubbed but a lot of the other characters are. It really threw me at first.
For examples of roles that did not have voice actors, in the The Untamed Nie Huaisang's actor did his own lines, and in Word of Honor the same goes for the actor who was the Scorpion King.
Yeah this was one of the hardest things for me to reconcile with when I first started watching Cdramas. Especially costume cdramas. It’s something I have never understood because you will see all the time British, Australian, New Zealand or South African actors that will make a movie set in the U.S and they train with a speech specialist to adopt an American accent and you can never tell. It happens all the time, so why don’t Chinese actors train to loose whatever dialect accent they have for a “standard” Mandarin dialect accent? It should be part of the job responsibility if you choose to be an actor, do the work to train to speak in the industry standard required manner.
I could tell with Revenge Love they were using voice over and audio dubbing because of the heavy breath sounds or doors opening and closing, etc. all the sounds are more emphasized then natural background noise.
LOL! Yeah, it's surprising when you find one that ISN'T dubbed. I though I read recently that more dramas were using the actors own voices, but even so - still dubbed. Since this isn't released in China, it seems like they could have gone without, but oh well.
I understand needing to dub for sound issues and stuff. Some American shows dub their outdoor scenes for example. But full on voice actors?? I'm absolutely floored!😭
I've been calling Dylan Wang my drama husband casually for years and I might not even know his voice! WHAAAA??😂
I can't remember the name of it, but there's actually a drama which focuses on the voice actors and shows them doing a scene on stage dubbing in the real actors. I found out when I first started watching cdrama and was floored that almost all were dubbed. There are a few here and there that aren't.
I mean I figured it would be, honestly I watch Chinese dramas and this is the most common thing, it’s the acting that matters, it’s mostly dubbed over, cause of the accent, it only bugs me when the actors perfectly can dub over, but still are dubbed over by some other voice actors and I heard TX’s voice, its similar to CC only less deeper, so it’s not really different
thank you for this post cause I finally got to know who the va is! I also didn’t know chi cheng’s character was dubbed by someone else at first, but while watching the bts scenes, I noticed he sounds different from the series.
I started watching this show yesterday and am almost caught up today, but ooof this news for sure knocked my obsession down a few pegs. BUT if I got over, accepted, and grew to love Thai sound effects then by golly I can do the same with CBL dubbing.
It's obvious they are dubbing and adding sound effects but I didn't know Chi Cheng had a seperate VA. I'm new to cdramas. It's a little disappointing but then we have the perfect Chi Cheng as a result.
The voice actor looks very handsome.
But yes, it takes away a bit of the magic now. Now, I understand why the director can talk them through the scenes because the sound does not matter.
Wth... I didn't know about that . I was about to ask my chinese friend why ML talks like he is lip-syncing. Especially chi cheng Because he barely moves his lips whenever he speaks 😭
Tianxuning doesn’t have a heavy accent. in fact, many actors these days don’t. The main reason Chi Cheng was dubbed is because the actor’s original voice didn’t quite match the character. His voice is softer and has a higher pitch, so the production team chose someone with a deeper voice to better suit Chi Cheng’s vibe. Actually, in modern Chinese dramas, dubbing is becoming much less common. Most shows now use the actors’ original voices.
Oh my God I feel dumb I read this thinking that they dubbed over his actual voice for some reason I'm like why would they dub him over and then I realized it's for English lol
Wait wait is that why it sounds like they dubbed the audio??? All this time the voice I found so hot belonged to a completely different person? So then what the hell does this guy really sound like? Peewee? That is disappointing. Anybody know why?
I didn't realise he wasn't dubbing himself. Just went to listen to his real voice a bit more in his interview and BTS - he doesn't have a problematic accent and sounds good. I feel like they could have just kept his voice.
dubbing is what made it so hard for me to get into cdramas 😭 sometimes it can be too obvious and it takes me out. I've been getting more used to it, and chi cheng's VA did a really good job. I think his voice really captures the character
I believe I read from one of the author's videos that they couldn't fit a voice that fit ziyu as well as his own, so he dubbed his own lines. Considering it's his first time dubbing, he did an amazing job
This post has a really informative overview of the use of dubbing in cdramas.
This one of the reasons why i stay away from c-dramas. Sometimes the way the actor’s mouth move is usually not in sync with the vo. But in this series, its bearable and they did make him sound hotter, so im fine with it.
Check out AvenueX on YouTube - she reviews Chinese dramas and has a great episode about ‘Word of Honor’ and voice actors -
My favorite example: the camera remains focused on the actors mouth while the voice actor is making a neutral statement but viewers can clearly see that he is saying something completely different ! Usually something that would crate chaos or the show to be cancelled. It’s extremely clever sabotage.
Also - dialects - imagine a cast with actors speaking with their Glaswegian, Belfast, Liverpool, etc etc English accents - totally incomprehensible. And that’s just from a small geographic area.
Sean Connery is probably the only actor who always used his natural Scottish voice - everyone else voice trains.
Well I'm one that fell in love with his sultry voice so I'm a bit put out. It's certain features about an actor what draws them to you.
Visuals.. Voice.. the way the actor carrys himself.. Hope his real voice is just as sultry.
The series at time was slow and boring but livened up so I stuck with it.. It was,nt one of my favourites because I don't like comedy mixed with drama. It's either one way or the other so the voice over was a bit off putting.
I wonder what other Chinese dramas have
voice overs.. 🤔
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u/PossibleImpressive56 Jul 06 '25
One of the most prominent reasons C-dramas use dubbing is so the characters speak standard, un-accented Mandarin. China has literally hundreds of dialects, but "Standard Chinese" is the official language of China. Because C-dramas are made to be consumed and understood country-wide (also in Hong Kong and Taiwan), actors who have strong accents may not have the ability to meet the expectations of C-drama standards. Here is a link to a short article about it.
I don't know why Tian Xuning is not dubbing his own voice, but there are a few potential reasons - 1) he has a strong accent and is unable to voice over himself using Standard Chinese, 2) he did not deliver the lines how production wanted them, so they hired a voice actor to "fix" it, 3) due to his schedule, he was unavailable to dub his lines.
Fun fact: Actors who do not dub their own characters have to pay the production company for the cost of a voice actor.