130804 Hallyu’s No.1 New Force: Kris Wu[Facts]Weibo fans: 379498
Weibo Search Ranking: “Sina Celebrities Search” 6th place
Baidu Search Ranking: Baidu “Male Singers” ranked 15th place
“Handsome Guy” ranked 18th place
Followed on Baidu with 11600 accounts
[Profile]Stage Name: Kris
Birthplace: China, Guangdong province, Guangzhou city
Height: 187cm
Weight: 70 Kg
Birthdate: 6 November 1990
Horoscope: Scorpio
Debut Date: 8 April 2012
Entertainment Company: SM Entertainment
Group: EXO-M
Position in group: Leader, rapper
Weibo Account: @Mr_凡先生
In a recent ranking of Korean idols, hugely popular boyband EXO has gotten thousands of fans’ love, and ranked 1st. As EXO-M’s leader, Wu Yifan has become the new force behind the Hallyu wave. Upon his debut, because of his handsome looks, and his proficiency in Chinese, Cantonese, English and Korean, Wu Yifan has been looked up to as a “school senior” by his fans. The “dream school senior” has also had his own sentimental school experience. Hence, this NanDu reporter has gotten an exclusive interview with Wu Yifan’s middle school form teacher, Mr Zhou, in QiZhong Middle School. According to what Mr Zhou remembers, Wu Yifan only studied in QiZhong for a year, but left a deep impression, “Back then, Wu Yifan’s name was Li JiaHeng, he studied in QiZhong in the third year, but transferred schools before graduating. He transferred to this school because of his talent in basketball, my first impression of him was ‘He’s so tall!’ and hence had to let him sit at the back of the class. ”
читать дальше[In the teachers' eyes, he was a good student who liked to learn]
Wu Yifan in Year3, had attracted many girls from the other classes because of his good looks, even his English teacher said, “Our new transfer student is a really quiet boy!” The handsome Wu Yifan was a quiet student during his middle school days, Mr Zhou had a lot to say about him, ” My deepest impression of Wu Yifan was that he was really well behaved and innocent.”
Because Wu Yifan was a sports student, and at that time the time spent on basketball training and matches was a lot, hence he couldn’t join the class and had to study alone. Everytime the teachers or classmates asked him if he could catch up in class, he would say “No problem!” Mr Zhou remembered that after school in the afternoon, Wu Yifan had gone to his office to look for him for help on studying, definitely a good senior who liked learning!
Mr Zhou told this NanDu reporter that at that time, Wu Yifan’s character was quiet and belonged to the “loyal” type. [T/N: loyal in a relationship], “Even though he didn’t really take the initiative to interact with his classmates, he was closer to his friends in the school basketball team. Even till now, when he returns to Guangzhou, he will contact his friends from that school team. Speaking about Wu Yifan’s dream, Mr Zhou was also a little shocked, his own student had actually chosen the path to the entertainment industry rather than the dream he had in middle school, “Wu Yifan told me before, he really loved basketball, I also have never heard him speak about doing music.”
In the later batches of students that Mr Zhou taught, there would be a few who directly asked Mr Zhou if he had personally taught Wu Yifan before. There was once where a group of fans with an “innocent” heart who went to find Mr Zhou last year on the eve of Wu Yifan’s birthday, asking him to write his birthday greetings to Wu Yifan. “They even sent me a photo of Wu Yifan,” Mr Zhou said, occasionally there will be students from other places specially coming to QiZhong, just to see the “path where Wu Yifan once walked”.
[In the juniors' eyes, he had the existence of a "big god"]
After debuting, Wu Yifan, who was often in the eyes of the public, would occasionally be recognized by his old acquaintances. This NanDu reporter found out during the interview that a male junior 2 school years later than Wu Yifan had always treated Wu Yifan as a “big god”, “Wu Yifan senior was not only tall and handsome, he also wore earpieces when he came to play basketball, he was totally a rare genius!” Slowly, Wu Yifan’s radiant days during his existence in QiZhong’s basketball team is put together bit by bit: he was both the school team’s captain and defender, and even led the team to get the ’2005 Youth CBA Middle School Basketball League” in the HuaNan region. The junior mentioned earlier praised Wu Yifan to be a leader who deserved respect, “Without him we wouldn’t have gotten the championship in the HuaNan region basketball league, he really is the ‘core Li JiaHeng (Wu Yifan’s original name)’.
The Wu Yifan after debut hasn’t forgotten about basketball. He once expressed in a broadcast programme, “I previously really wanted to be a basketball player, that is the dream which I had and wanted when I was younger.” Even though being a singer was not his childhood dream, he still happily added that he prefers to ‘live in the moment’, “Even though I still miss basketball, I still enjoy what I am doing now as a celebrity.” Regarding this, his teammates have something to say, “After debut, Kris contacts us frequently to play basketball, I have nothing to say about his skills, his ability is as good as a professional player’s.”
[In the fans' eyes, he is a "warm guy" who loves confessing]
Wu Yifan, who is devoted to his “old friends” (QiZhong basketball team) and “old love” (basketball), is privately a gentle ‘warm guy’, and frequently and thoughtfully gives fanservice to his fans. Previously, Wu Yifan used his own RenRen account to ‘confess’ to his fans, “I like every one of you, and can’t let go every one of you.”. All the young girls’ hearts melted, and immediately called themselves梅格妮 (mei ge ni, a play on how ‘every one of you’ sounds in chinese.)!
On 18th July, Wu Yifan opened his own weibo account, and gained over 370 thousand fans in a short period of two weeks. Even as of date he has only posted twice on weibo, they have gotten over 130 thousand retweets and over 520 thousand of comments! Every day on the weibo search ranking his name will be in the top 10, and he also ranks in the first few of the baidu search rankings. Compared to posting weibos, it seems like he prefers to ‘write essays’ in his profile. Wu Yifan, who made his own slogan “I’m a dragon, I can fly” after his debut, initially wrote “Can fly” in his profile, and made fans squeal over his cuteness. Recently, Wu Yifan updated his weibo with “Nothing….Being calm with endurance is my life goal, fighting!” and some fans exclaimed that the this ‘flying’ dragon is going the inspirational path! 2 months earlier, the group EXO which Wu Yifan is part of released their brand new album and on Thursday EXO released their followup track ‘Growl’.
[Who is Wu Yifan? He's a Guangzhou boy!]
Wu Yifan(Kris) debuted in the group EXO-M and is part of SM Entertainment’s ambitious plans. Among the 12 members of EXO, they are split into 2 groups of 6 (EXO-K and EXO-M) and each of them has a special ability, adding on to the 3 months of the 22 teaser releases, this is SM’s way of making people curious about the 12 ‘aliens’ from EXO Planet. Among which, the EXO-M leader Kris who appeared in a long white robe, spread open his arms and jumped from the building, captured the fangirls’ attention as the new “male god”. In the official mv, a dragon accompanied him and opened its wings with the special effect of it spitting fire, till now this scene is still many fangirls’ favourite: “Kris opened the sky with his right hand and transformed into a dragon!”
SM Entertainment seems to have a tradition, all good looking trainees before their debut will have a guest appearance in their seniors’ mvs, to make them more ‘familiar’. Looking at Wu Yifan’s predebut profile, there’s an item ‘Appeared in SNSD’s Taiwan Concert Tour VCR’ , and fans realised: So that long haired guy who looked like a mysterious prince in dreamland was Wu Yifan!
The increase in interviews following EXO’s debut has allowed fans to know this mysterious prince’s real self, Kris is actually a chinese boy with a good background, and even grew up in Guangzhou! Apparently after he studied in the 3rd grade in QiZhong Middle School, he immigrated to Vancouver in Canada and studied in Sir Winston Churchill High School. In 2007 after studying in the 11th grade (equivalent to China’s Highschool year 2), he took part in SM’s global auditions and became a trainee, and after 5 years of training, finally made his debut.
Source: 南都全娱乐, 一般不搞笑 @ weibo
Translated by: WeiTing @ 901106.net
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