He Yan-kai

BLGLFlix editorial view

The character on screen carries his real name. That happens less often than you would think, and it says a great deal about what the production was actually buying.

He Yan-kai came out of Atom Boyz II, the Taiwanese survival competition that produced ARKis, the group he debuted in under TPOP Entertainment in December 2024. Two years later he leads Smile After Tears as He Yan-kai, called Xiao He, the lead singer of a school music club.

Writing an idol’s real name onto the character is a decision about what the audience is coming for. It collapses the distance between performer and part deliberately, so that viewers who followed him through the competition are watching someone they already know rather than meeting a stranger. It also makes the acting debut easier, because he is asked to sing on screen as himself.

Whether that becomes a career is an open question this page will not answer prematurely. One scripted credit, a group two years old, and a survival show behind him. Taiwanese BL leans on idol groups the way Thai BL leans on studio-contracted pairs, and both systems produce plenty of people with exactly one drama to their name.