#bian jiang

[dragonsandphoenix]

A Bit of Appreciation for Voice Actors

Initially wanted to post this on reddit, but for some reason I can't so what the heck.

It's a well-known fact that many Cdramas, usually period dramas, are dubbed by voice actors. I'm probably an outlier here in that I'm not a diehard Cdrama fan (have only watched NiF, TU and Empresses in the Palace to completion, great shows btw) and I'm more of a Chinese audio drama listener. So while there is overlap in these industries and fandoms, I'm way more interested in the voice actors than the live action actors. And since they don't get as much recognition here I'd like to give a shoutout to them.

I like to joke that there are like 30 people in the Chinese voice acting industry. Once you recognize some of them you'll start to hear them in everything. According to an AvenueX video it's apparently a bad habit of Cdrama land to cast the same popular voice actor to all the leads, thereby making their voices indistinguishable. I initially noticed this with Bian Jiang for a time, who voiced Lan Wangji in The Untamed (and the MDZS donghua) and the ML from Ten Miles of Peach Blossom among other things. I remember just noticing him in nearly everything I watched from then on.

Another standout voice actor I've noticed recently is Gu Jiangshan who voiced Zhou Zishu in Word of Honor and Jin Zixuan in the MDZS (aka TU) donghua. Didn't really take note of him in those roles until I listened to him as Yuan Yang in the Beloved Enemy audio drama (there's also a Cdrama but he's not in that). He's really good in that. Like really good. I would have hated the red flag ML way more if it weren't for his voice acting. Side note, an Indonesian fan sent their regards to him during a fan signing and he was so surprised to learn he had overseas fans, which I think is so cute given that I am now one of those fans.

Another thing is I don't think live action dramas are the best medium to bring out these voice actors' skills, though I am happy it keeps them employed haha. It's not really to do with acting ability, but different mediums require different skills, and for voice acting, matching their performances to the actors must come with its own challenges. This is why I prefer audio dramas, as they have more freedom. A go-to example I have is that one devastating scene from The Untamed (I know, there are so many). Keep in my mind that Wei Wuxian in the live action and the audio drama are voiced by the same guy and just listen to the difference. I wanted to cry the first time I listened to the audio drama.

All in all, I'm not uplifting one style of acting over another, though I do have my preferences. I just like good stories and appreciate those stories being delivered in the best way possible.

[oddishblossom]

Xianyun (羡云) (To Adore the Wandering Life of a Free Individual) as sung by the voice actors of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji (A Jie & Bian Jiang)! 💖

I love this version of the song so much, I added english lyrics to this video for fun. I only did the typesetting, the translation is not mine! I mainly used the translation by gravitydefyingtears and the one by shinocchidesu.

Original source for the video on weibo

Full version of this song

[luminouslumity]

❤ ZHANG JIE AND BIAN JIANG SING FULL VERSION OF XIANYUN ❤

[piglia-mosche]

Some bian lian themed sketch/illustration because I just fell in love with this art.

[chi-zi]

Shout out to Lan Wangji's voice actor, Bian Jiang, for saying Wei Ying with such gusto that it's actually impossible for me to mispronounce it.

[xingxueyue]

Finally!!! Bian Jiang's singing!!!!

[manggaetteokkie]

Wei Ying getting kissed by Lan Zhan

Read this post if you wanna understand the title, because I can’t just jump to the end without explaining things first. Promise it may be worth it ;)

So, some people may be relatively new to chinese dramas so I thought I’d let you know that the voices for Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are not actually the actors’ own voices. They usually have them act out the scene and will use professional voice actors to dub the voices. There are many reasons to it (too many dialects/accents in China so they try to standardize it, audio imperfections, etc.)

As such, Yibo’s voice actor is Bian Jiang (he’s really fkn famous and did the dubbing for so many well-known series), who is also the voice actor behind the donghua Lan Zhan. As for Xiao Zhan, his voice actor is Lu Zhi Xing, who is also behind the audio drama Wei Ying.

Basically, in the 3 adaptations (donghua, audio drama which is basically the novel in audio format and live action), Wei Ying and Lan Zhan each have 2 voice actors. For WY, one person does his donghua voice and the other does both the live action and the audio drama. For LZ, one person does his audio drama voice and the other does the donghua and live action.

Now the “fun” part: if y’all want to hear Wei Ying getting forcefully kissed by Lan Zhan, all you have to do is hop onto the audio drama (chapter 69 of novel). While LZ’s voice won’t be the same as in the live action, both voice actors’ timbre is still relatively similar so it won’t feel too out of place or jarring. Meanwhile, WY’s voice actor is the same (and he talks the most anyways) so if y’all close your eyes, you can basically picture the scene in live action :^)

(If it’s anything, I lowkey have a hard time listening to the scene without making weird noises and wanting to die, because I get embarrassed REALLY easily and the sounds WY makes are quite 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶)

((Totally not trying to promote the audio novel because I feel like no one knows about its existence or anything hahahaha-))

[softweilan]

THEIR POWER