Diao Chan 貂蝉
In Romance of Three Kingdoms, Diao Chan helps Wang Yun turn Dong Zhuo and Lü Bu against each other. The chronicles tell of the plot against Dong Zhuo, but Diao Chan herself appears only in much later plays and novels. On stage and on screen she agrees to help Wang Yun for various reasons, and after the plot succeeds her fate takes different turns.
In Records of the Three Kingdoms, Chen Shou mentions an unnamed maidservant of Dong Zhuo who secretly met with Lü Bu. The same text recounts how the minister Wang Yun persuaded Lü Bu to join the plot against Dong Zhuo. In the chronicle, the maidservant does not help the conspirators. In later literature she is placed at the center of the plot, and already in the Yuan play The Chain Stratagem she bears the name Diao Chan (貂蟬).
In Luo Guan-Zhong's novel, Wang Yun promises the beauty to Lü Bu and then gives her to Dong Zhuo. Lü Bu considers himself deceived, Dong Zhuo is enraged to see them together, and Wang Yun exploits the quarrel. The novel describes Dong Zhuo's death in detail but does not say how Diao Chan herself died. Opera writers could dispose of her fate as they saw fit. In some plays, after Lü Bu's defeat Diao Chan falls into the power of other warlords, while in the Sichuanese Fengyi Pavilion she undertakes at the very start of the conspiracy to destroy both men.
In the Hong Kong opera film Diau Charn (1958), the heroine was played by Linda Lin Dai, who won the Best Actress award at the Asian Film Festival for this work. In Romance of Three Kingdoms (1994), Diao Chan was played by Chen Hong. She returned to the role in Lu Bu and Diao Chan (2001), where the love story came to the fore. In the 2010 adaptation, the role went to Chen Hao.
