Chloe Zhao Yi-Huan 赵奕欢
In the early 2010s, when China's online film market was only just taking shape, one of its first stars was Chloe Zhao Yi-Huan. A short high-school drama, Pubescence, grew into a film series, and Cheng Xiaoyu, whom Zhao played shortly after graduating, stayed in viewers' memories for years. Producers made one picture after another for her, and the press called her the "otaku goddess," the darling of young men who spent their free time online. Almost ten years later, Zhao had to audition three times for a role in the series Miss Crow With Mr. Lizard. Her Zhao Yan can throw a boor over her shoulder and proposes to the man she loves herself.
Zhao Yi-Huan was born on October 29, 1987, in Jilin City, in the province of the same name in northeastern China. As a child she studied dance. According to her, her family was dead set against her studying acting. Zhao nonetheless enrolled at the Xie Jin Film and Television Art Institute at Shanghai Normal University. While still a student she worked as a model and appeared in commercials. After graduating, Zhao signed with the company Guangying Huashi, which later grew into Internet Film Group (IFG). Her graduation year is usually given as 2011, though a Qingdao News publication lists 2010.
Her first leading role came from the company's founder, Guan Xiao-Jie. His film Pubescence (2011) ran under an hour and was released straight online. Zhao played Cheng Xiaoyu, a brash schoolgirl who disappears into nightclubs and believes responsibility was invented by adults for adults. The picture drew a huge audience by the standards of the time. In November, several video services simultaneously opened paid access to the sequel, Lost Paradise (2011). The third part, Pubescence 3 (2012), was made, according to producer Fan Jianghao, to promote an online game. In the third film Cheng Xiaoyu is already at university and practices boxing. Zhao enjoyed boxing on set so much that she took it up off screen as well.
Wang Yi, Zhao's co-star in all three films, played the boy in love with Xiaoyu. During the shoot for the third part, she says, they kept laughing during the bed scene and ruined more than ten takes. When an interviewer for the portal 17173 asked whether a romance had developed between them off camera, Zhao replied that she and Wang were good friends. In the same conversation she said that during explicit scenes only the director and the cinematographer remained on set besides the actors. Her parents did not object to the shoots, though they often called and asked her to take care of herself. At the time Zhao herself was most often asked about her looks and about which scenes she was willing to shoot. She wanted to be judged by her roles instead, and said that when choosing work she looked first and foremost at the script.
The next film Guan Xiao-Jie made with Zhao, Struggle (2013), was already about aspiring actresses. Her character, Li Roxi, is still studying and looking for her first decent role, while all around her are people ready to profit from it. In the office comedy Women's Enemy (2013), her Sun Xiaomei rises within a few months to become assistant to the director of a cosmetics company and makes enemies among her colleagues. As Fan Jianghao told 36Kr, the producers deliberately chose a story from the lives of office workers for Zhao. Her characters were growing up, but the lead was still written for her.
That same summer, two films by Guan Er starring Zhao and Wang Yi opened in theaters at once. In the horror film The Supernatural Events on Campus (2013), Zhao played the student Su Su, who ends up in a mountain hotel where strange things happen at night. On the day the horror film opened, Zhao sang its title song at an audience event for Women's Enemy. A few weeks later came the romantic comedy Love Story (2013), for which she also recorded songs. She was given the role of a fussy, simple-hearted advertising agency employee who takes in a stranger. In his HKCinema review, Boris Khokhlov noted that the film rested on Zhao's charm, though in his opinion the actress overdid the grimaces and mugging. He felt that even the usual romantic-comedy devices failed to work in this script.
In the comedy The Cabin Crew (2014), Guan Xiao-Jie gave her the role of a girl who dreams of becoming a flight attendant but learns that she suffers from dizzy spells. Even before the premiere, a revealing photo circulated online, passed off as a picture of Zhao at a private party. In April 2014, the portal 17173 relayed her response. According to the actress, it was a still from The Cabin Crew, and at first she intended to leave the rumor unanswered. By the middle of the decade, Zhao had left IFG. According to Fan Jianghao, the company discussed whether to sue but ultimately decided against it. Over five years at IFG, they had grown used to building films around Zhao. When she wanted to launch her own clothing brand, the producer recalled, a separate company was even set up for her.
On the set of the sci-fi series The Visioner (2017), one scene stood out especially for Zhao. Her character, Chen Mengyan, is being dragged away from her father, who turns into a zombie before her eyes. Zhao said that in that moment she wanted to hug her father, but she was already being pulled away, and she ran, looking back, with tears in her eyes. It was in that scene, by her own account, that she understood what it means to act on camera without pre-planned gestures. In the series Shining Stars in the Night (2017), she played a villain for the first time — the TV host Li Baoin, who is locked in rivalry with a more successful colleague. Zhao said she deliberately made the character funny and a little silly to add humor to an overly serious drama. And in the sci-fi series Die Now (2017), she played a bodyguard with the code name I7.
In 2020, on the second season of the show "Wow, What a Figure!" (哎呀好身材), Zhao recalled in tears how she had been turned down for roles because she had become famous for explicit scenes. When work was scarce, she said, she would travel from the outskirts of Beijing to vocal, dance and piano lessons, and in the evening study English at home. In an interview with Detawen, she said she watched a lot of films and sought out interviews with actors to understand how they prepared for their roles. She auditioned three times for the role of Zhao Yan in the romantic series Miss Crow With Mr. Lizard (2021). During filming, the director told her over the radio that if he had to choose again, he would pick her once more. Zhao recalled how much those words meant to her at the time.
In series, she was now more often given supporting roles. In the legal drama Lady of Law (2022), for instance, she played the outgoing assistant Liu Fang. In 2024, on the acting show "Unlimited Class" (无限超越班), the producers placed Zhao in the "others" group. She asked one of them outright which of her works he had seen. He remembered Pubescence. That same year, on the music competition Ride the Wind 2024, Zhao combined singing with a pole dance in her very first number. She left the competition after the third round. In the spring of 2025, the detective series Hunter Jame was released, set in 1920s Shanghai, in which she played Kang Dinghua. It had been filmed back in 2015. In May 2026, the song "Let Flowers Bloom Across the Universe" came out, which Zhao recorded as a duet with He Jianqi.
In March 2020, Zhao posted photos of herself with the Taiwanese musician and music video director Li Bo-En. He told journalists at the time that they had been together for about three years, had already met each other's parents, and had previously kept the relationship secret so that talk of a romance would not interfere with Zhao's work. That same year, the two appeared together on the second season of "Wow, What a Figure!". In November 2024, Li confirmed to TVBS that they had long since broken up and that he had a new girlfriend. In October 2026, in a preview episode of the third season of the music dating show "A Love Song With You" (有你的恋歌), Zhao recalled how hard it had been for her when her partner decided to end things.
