2026-09-30
Wang Yantong on Zheng Musheng’s Devotion
Why can Zheng Musheng hold on to one love for more than ten years? Wang Yantong’s own explanation gives a direct answer: he did not understand that devotion at first, until he encountered the line “love is often feeling indebted.” That turns Musheng’s waiting into a question of debt, memory, and responsibility, not just a romantic pose.
Musheng’s choice begins with separation
Wang Yantong plays Zheng Musheng in Dear You. The character’s devotion belongs to a specific story situation: Ye Shurou and Zheng Musheng marry for love before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, giving their relationship a chosen beginning rather than a purely arranged or symbolic one.
The story then sends Musheng away. A May 2026 Southern Media Group article describes him going to Nanyang to make a living after avoiding forced conscription during wartime. The film sets his Nanyang destination in Thailand, so the long wait is tied to war, migration, and cross-sea distance.
Wang Yantong’s key to the character
In a June 2026 Hong Kong 01 interview, Wang Yantong said he initially could not understand how Musheng remained faithful to one love for more than ten years. That admission matters because it keeps the role from becoming an automatic image of perfect faithfulness.
The line that opened the role for him was “love is often feeling indebted.” Read through that line, Musheng’s devotion is not simply emotional intensity lasting a long time. It can be read as a sense that leaving created an unfinished debt: time not spent together, care not given, and words never delivered in ordinary daily life.
Lan Hongchun’s casting view is separate
Director Lan Hongchun’s comments add another layer, but they are not the same as Wang’s own explanation. In the Hong Kong 01 interview, Lan said his casting standard was that an actor’s underlying quality had to fit the role. He also praised Wang as straightforward and said he was seventy to eighty percent similar to Musheng.
That judgment helps explain why Musheng’s waiting does not need to be played as grand melodrama. If the role rests on straightforwardness and a tendency to keep account of what one owes, then the devotion can appear quiet, stubborn, and credible rather than ornamental.
Preparation moved Wang closer to Musheng
The casting path also shows why the part was not built on surface appeal. A 21st Century Business Herald interview notes that Wang had previously worked with Lan on an advertisement. Hong Kong 01 reports that Wang was once considered too clean-cut for Musheng, then entered the crew with the mindset of helping on set.
A 1905 feature adds that Lan first found Wang too delicate-looking for the forceful image of Musheng. Wang later trained, helped with on-set tasks, carried things, and became darker from the sun. The feature says Lan and Zheng Xuanxuan eventually felt he resembled a tricycle driver, and the makeup test settled him as Musheng.
The devotion is rooted in migrant family stories
Dear You also frames Musheng and Shurou as condensed from family stories the creative team heard. Southern Media Group writes that the team visited many countries and listened to hundreds of overseas Chinese family stories before shaping the two characters.
Lan Hongchun is quoted in the 1905 feature saying the team’s principle was not to invent history or life, nor distort sentiment. Within that frame, Musheng’s long devotion is best understood as love under displacement: a bond carried by absence, work, and the feeling of owing someone a life that history interrupted.