In the morning of February 10, 2024 I stumbled upon Hindi dubbing of the first episode of Once We Get Married (OWGM). It was uploaded the previous evening around 5:00 PM Indian Standard time on February 09, 2024. I have a feeling that it is going to be a wildfire. Because it is real dubbing with real people exuding nuances of emotions unlike English Dubbing of The Love You Gave Me which sounds robotic because of the use of AI enabled English speaking over the voices of real actors that failed to exude the nuances of emotions.
I have watched OWGM and its numerous clips with or without English subtitles almost over a thousand times in the past months. Because it is a perfect bedtime story to relax nerves. It is light and funny. Even romantic situations are too funny. The unrealistic part of the story never overshadows the real conflicts and their witty presentation.
First three times I watched it to find out which characters were played by Wang Yuwen and Wang Ziqi. Before OWGM I have watched them in The Love You Gave Me. I thought that as The Love You Gave Me was trending then, the channel had put another show with hashtags of the names of the stars of the trending show to gain some views for the older forgotten show. [My bad. Apologies. 😵]
I told my husband about the clever trick of the channel, he sneered and said, “Your eyes are not accustomed to identify actors from China.”
Husbands, including mine, as always, were wrong. Because I could identify the actor who played Dr. Pu in The Love You Gave Me, also played Yin Zecheng, father of Yin Sichen, in OWGM. Director Lee of the orphanage at Shia’n Town in The Love You Gave Me and Song Ma in OWGM were played by the same actor and Wen Ran of My Little Happiness and Dr. Zhou Ruji of The Love You Gave Me were played by the same actor. Wen Shaoqing of My Little Happiness, Yu Daluo of Chase the Truth (CtT), Jian Ge of Bright Eyes in the Dark (BEitD) were played by the same actor. Also, many actors in CtT and BEitD are common like Zhang Jin (Duan Quing, Yu Qilei), Yang Shu (Dr. Mu, Mi Lan), Fu Cheng Peng (Zhou Ji, Station Master Peng) Xu Hong Hao (Pei Yin, Han Bei Yao), Zhou Hui Lin (Jiang Jiu Ping, Lin Qing Yuan) Zhao Xun (Sha Xiao Fei, Xu Jian Fei) and might be many more. How could I not identify which characters were played by Wang Yuwen and Wang Ziqi?
After watching many more times, from the faces of Gu Xixi on the bridge, between the Amusement Park and the Prairies and of Min Hui drenched in the fountains, it occurred to me that both the characters were played by Wang Yuwen. After watching a few more times, from the faces of Yin Sichen reading Gu Xixi’s Business Plan while Xixi was asleep on the table and of younger Xin Qi of five years ago serving breakfast to younger Min Hui, I found that the actors of the two characters are the same person.
I stumbled upon a video of Wang Ziqi Fan Club (International) on YouTube where Mr. Wang was roaming around the markets in Changjin and he was requested to take a photo with Yin Sichen on TV in a shop. I paused the video and showed the frame to my husband. He said that the person on the TV screen and the person standing in front of the TV could not be the same person!
I can name a few actors who had the same visual effect on viewers - Toshiro Mifune, Samuel L Jackson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, Keely Hawes, Mathew McFadyen, Allu Arjun, Vickey Kaushal, Wang Yuwen and sometimes Ben Kinglsey and Nawazuddin Siddique.
Once We Get Married had several pinning scenes like old Bollywood (Hindi) movies which later were considered to be objectionable for various reasons [😯]. But in Once We Get Married the pinned females always came out strong by protesting the act of pinning her, retaliating the pinning, breaking the act of pining and so on without breaking the comical appeal of the situation. Even male actors were pinned sometimes, yet the situation appeared funny.
Once We Get Married is special because of its details. As a viewer I could never miss the way Mo Zixin notices how Xixi pulls Sichen’s fingers when they were talking about Presidents as Store Ambassadors, or how Fei Ang was witnessing the development of a relationship between Xixi and Sichen, or the background conversations in the parties and in the restaurants.
The wonderful performances will always be remembered by the fans.
Here’s a video on birthday of one of the favorite actors Wang Ziqi :
