Nothing separates a great actress from an average one quite like a crying scene. Some performers cry buckets and still leave audiences cold, while others just need reddened eyes and a slightly trembling voice to make viewers tear up right along with them. A wave of recent Chinese dramas, including Early Spring, This Second Catches Fire, Golden and Mo Li, have each produced a crying scene that took over social media, with actresses such as Sun Qian (孫千), Wang Churan (王楚然), Bai Lu (白鹿), Meng Ziyi (孟子義) and Xin Zhilei (辛芷蕾) all drawing attention for their emotional performances. Pulling together public reactions on Weibo and Douban along with which scenes generated the most buzz, here is a ranking of the ten strongest crying scenes in recent Chinese dramas, with Wang Churan's 170-second breakdown landing near the top and the number one spot going to a performance so raw it looked almost involuntary.
Number 10: Ren Min (任敏) In Family Court
Ren Min plays Qin Rui, a family law attorney, in Family Court, opposite Gong Jun as a young judge. The two start out on different wavelengths professionally before building a rapport as they work through cases involving marriage, parenting and support disputes. Qin Rui is blunt and straightforward but gets emotionally invested in her clients' situations, giving Ren Min plenty of room to move between steely resolve and vulnerability. Ren Min has drawn attention for her crying scenes before, and viewers of Family Court noted how she holds back tears in emotional moments, describing her shift from reddened eyes to genuine tears as feeling completely unforced, as if Qin Rui is trying to stay rational even as her emotions leak through anyway. She rarely keeps her expression composed while crying, letting her whole face react, which only makes the character's hurt feel more real.
Number 9: Zhao Jinmai (趙今麥) In Blazing Sun, Just Like Me
Zhao Jinmai plays Nie Xiguang in Blazing Sun, Just Like Me, a character who goes from an innocent schoolgirl crush to navigating rejection and misunderstanding in her professional life, eventually learning to refocus on herself. Nie Xiguang starts out bright and full of life, which makes it hit harder when she's truly hurt. Zhao Jinmai uses the character's different life stages to show a more girlish kind of hurt earlier on and a more restrained, adult version of it later. One crying scene after a misunderstanding went viral, widely described online as stunning viewers with how naturally it played out, almost like breathing. Rather than letting Nie Xiguang collapse immediately, Zhao Jinmai lets her eyes redden and her lips tremble first, still trying to sound normal, before the tears finally break through. That "clearly hurting but still trying to act fine" quality struck a chord with many viewers.
Number 8: Zhang Jingyi (張婧儀) In Wild Dog Bones
Zhang Jingyi plays Miao Jing in Wild Dog Bones, a character who meets Chen Yi, played by Song Weilong, in the city of Tengcheng, with their relationship spanning years and tangled up with family baggage, survival pressure, separation and reunion. Miao Jing looks quiet on the surface but is deeply stubborn underneath, swallowing most of her pain rather than showing it, so Zhang Jingyi's emotional scenes tend to build slowly rather than erupt all at once. A scene outside a fire in episode 28 became one of her most talked-about moments recently. With Chen Yi trapped inside and his fate uncertain, Miao Jing arrives at the scene with reddened eyes and a shaking voice, panic, anger and fear all surfacing together. Viewers said watching Zhang Jingyi cry made their own hearts ache, with some rewatching the scene repeatedly. Even as Miao Jing is barely holding on, a trace of her stubbornness stays on her face, making the moment feel fragile without ever fully collapsing, consistent with how her character has been built throughout the series.
Number 7: Tian Xiwei (田曦薇) In Genius, Girlfriend
Tian Xiwei plays Lin Zhixia in Genius, Girlfriend, a sharp, direct character who also carries the particular social difficulties that come with being a prodigy. As she moves through adolescence, friendship, romance and personal growth, she generally appears rational and self-assured, which makes the moments she truly lets her emotions out feel like a sharp break from her usual self. Lin Zhixia's crying scenes became a major talking point after the show aired, with viewers describing Tian Xiwei as sobbing, shaking and gasping all at once when the emotion finally hits, and several saying watching her cry made them want to cry too. Rather than having the character explode all at once, Tian Xiwei builds from choked-up breathing into visible trembling as the emotion spirals out of control, and the contrast with Lin Zhixia's usually composed demeanor makes the breakdown land even harder.
Number 6: Meng Ziyi (孟子義) In Hundred Flowers Kill
Meng Ziyi plays Shen Xihe in Hundred Flowers Kill, a character caught up in family, power and difficult romantic choices, who comes across as decisive and strong-willed on the surface but turns out to have a much softer side once family and love come into play. Once the story reaches her wedding, a separation and the death of an important figure, Shen Xihe's usual toughness starts to crack, giving Meng Ziyi plenty of room for heavy emotional scenes. Her wedding-day scene and the emotional beats that follow drew significant online attention, with some fans calling her crying scenes an automatic pass and describing her tears upon seeing her father and brother at the wedding as a mix of joy and being deeply moved. In another scene where Shen Xihe silently longs for the crown prince, Meng Ziyi has said she was already crying uncontrollably while rehearsing it, to the point that her co-star reportedly had to avoid eye contact because he was too affected. Many viewers felt these scenes brought out a fragility and helplessness rarely seen from the character elsewhere in the series.
Number 5: Bai Lu (白鹿) In Mo Li
Bai Lu plays Ye Li in Mo Li, a character carrying old trauma and the pressure of seeking revenge, someone who can't simply vent most of her emotions outward, so the show leans heavily on the tension between holding back tears and actually breaking down. Compared with some of Bai Lu's more outwardly emotional past roles, Ye Li's sadness in Mo Li tends to stay contained in reddened eyes, a slightly trembling body and a hoarse voice. After the show aired, "where did Bai Lu go to study crying" became something of a running compliment online for her emotional performance. Many viewers particularly liked how she holds back until she truly can't anymore, describing the sadness as building in layers rather than pouring out all at once. Several also pointed out how affecting it is to watch her eyes well up while she still tries to finish her sentence, as if Ye Li is on the verge of falling apart but still refuses to let herself lose control completely.
Number 4: Liu Haocun (劉浩存) In The Leading Role
Liu Haocun plays Yi Qin'e in The Leading Role, a character who goes from a shepherd girl in a remote village to a member of a theater troupe, gradually becoming an accomplished Qin opera performer through years of training, performing and personal hardship. Because the character's story spans such a long timeframe and involves so much loss and growth, her tears carry different weight at different points, from the hurt of youth to the pain of confronting fate as an adult. Several of Liu Haocun's crying scenes drew attention after the show aired, with viewers particularly noting how she waits for emotion to build before actually breaking into tears. Actor Sun Hao later revealed that when he rewatched the scene depicting the death of the character Gou Cunzhong, Liu Haocun's performance moved him to tears the first time he saw it, and he messaged her the next day specifically to praise how well she had acted it. From the hurt of her younger years to grappling with the loss of an important figure later on, her crying scenes clearly shift in tone, giving Yi Qin'e's sadness a distinct layer at each stage of her life.
Number 3: Sun Qian (孫千) In Early Spring
Sun Qian plays Shang Zhitao in Early Spring, an ordinary young woman trying to make it in Beijing, locked in a long professional and romantic push and pull with Luan Nian, played by Jing Boran. Shang Zhitao is used to processing her hurt from work and love internally, often still sounding normal even as her eyes give away that she's already wounded. Sun Qian has said Early Spring is the drama that gave her the strongest sense of heartbreak she has ever filmed, to the point that wrapping the shoot left her with a lingering ache similar to an actual breakup. Her recent crying scenes in the show have been widely shared, with some viewers saying the sense of heartbreak felt like it was spilling off the screen, and others describing two particular scenes as leaving them unable to shake the feeling for a long time afterward. One moment showing a single tear falling slowly also drew a lot of attention, with viewers noting how Sun Qian typically lets her eyes fill with tears first without rushing into sobbing, holding onto Shang Zhitao's need to keep her composure until the very last possible second. That restraint is part of what makes the character's heartbreak feel so close to real life.
Number 2: Wang Churan (王楚然) In This Second Catches Fire
Wang Churan plays Ren Susu in This Second Catches Fire, a character living through the turbulence of the Republican era who experiences family upheaval, romantic separation and loss in various forms throughout the story. Ren Susu typically keeps her emotions bottled up, so when she finally breaks down, the dramatic impact lands especially hard. As the show has aired, a single 170-second crying scene has become one of Wang Churan's most talked-about performances in recent memory. Viewers described the scene as moving from restraint to collapse to sheer exhaustion, with some saying the emotional aftershock lingered long after the scene ended. Wang Churan lets the tears pool in her eyes first while the character still tries to appear calm, before the tears finally fall heavily and the emotion spirals out of her control. Some viewers said she never oversells the moment, yet still fully conveys the weight of Ren Susu losing the people who matter most to her, making the 170 seconds one of the most talked-about emotional scenes since This Second Catches Fire began airing.
Number 1: Xin Zhilei (辛芷蕾) In Golden
Topping the list is Xin Zhilei. In Golden, she plays Zhang Luyao, who returns to the desert in search of the truth behind the massacre of her family's security escort business. Zhang Luyao has long since learned to hide her grief, at one point in the show even saying she had already "cried herself dry" after falling off a cliff five years earlier. So when Ping Ping, a woman who has traveled alongside her like a sworn sister, finally collapses, all of the emotion Zhang Luyao has suppressed for years comes crashing down at once. After the scene aired, viewers quickly zeroed in on how Xin Zhilei's face appeared to twitch almost involuntarily as she cried, describing it as a nearly physiological reaction. Some noted that after Ping Ping collapses, Zhang Luyao first freezes, then the muscles in her face begin twitching uncontrollably, with viewers saying her entire face seemed to convulse, and that it was hard to breathe just watching it through the screen. Rather than playing the scene as loud sobbing, Xin Zhilei lets her eyes fill with blood-red intensity, her lips tremble and her breathing lose its rhythm entirely, as if the grief has overwhelmed anything the character could consciously control, leaving her body to react before she does. Compared with simply shedding tears, this almost involuntary physical collapse has made the scene one of the most memorable emotional moments since Golden began airing.