Liu Yan

Before she was a fixture in Chinese fantasy blockbusters, Liu Yan was a broadcaster. Born in Hengyang, Hunan, in 1980, she made her name in television hosting and in music, picking up a best new artist prize at the Top Chinese Music Awards and enough hosting recognition to land on national best-of lists by 2010. She carried that public persona into film rather than leaving it at the studio door.

That persona is the interesting thing about her filmography. She is repeatedly cast as a heightened version of the celebrity she already was: she plays a character called Liu Yan in Jian Bing Man, and the credit for The Breakup Guru lists her under her own name too. Comedy directors hire her for the joke of her image, martial-arts directors for poise. She has been Lady Fog across The Four 2 and The Four 3, a patroness in Painted Skin, and Julia in Master Z: Ip Man Legacy, where the job is to hold the screen between fights.

The corrective came from television. A Dream of Splendor handed her Sun Sanniang, a role with weight and continuity instead of a glamorous cameo, and it is the credit that gives the whole list a centre of gravity. Costume drama has kept her busy since, through The Immortal Ascension and a steady line of period series.