A Brief Review of the TV Drama The Finest Taste in the World Is Qinghuan

While aimlessly browsing the internet I discovered this drama was currently airing. Seeing that the cast included both goddess Chen Qiaoen and warm guy Tong Dawei, I resolutely decided to start a binge-watching journey.

Today The Finest Taste in the World Is Qinghuan updated with its final episode. After watching the finale, I have to say this drama is a bit of a tiger's head and a snake's tail. The ending seems like a cobbled-together Chinese-style happy ending.

This drama is about a post-70s man who, after getting divorced, falls in love with a beautiful post-80s white-collar woman, while his career also flourishes; he defeats his former rival and reaches the peak of his life.

Actually when I first started watching, the plot was still pretty good. The protagonist Ding Renjian (played by Tong Dawei) is a man down on his luck, his career going nowhere. His wife Lin Yue keeps complaining that he has no ability and can't buy a house of their own. And Ding Renjian has been working hard all along to buy a house.

Between Lin Yue and Ding Renjian there is another person, Tang Xiaogang. He is a college classmate of both of them, and he has another identity as well: Lin Yue's college ex-boyfriend. Tang Xiaogang is successful in his career and rolling in wealth.

Not only that, Tang Xiaogang is also a man of enormous ambition. He firmly believes there is nothing in the world he cannot get; even if it belongs to someone else, he will snatch it and make it his own.

So in this drama, from Zhai Zhiwei's game company and his father's Zhenpin Club, down to Ding Renjian's wife Lin Yue—that is, Tang Xiaogang's ex-girlfriend—he stops at nothing to seize them all.

Of course Tang Xiaogang's ending is also rather miserable; because of all kinds of unspeakable dealings behind the scenes, he finally ends up in prison.

The other two protagonists are An Qinghuan, an urban white-collar worker, and Zhai Zhiwei, a young rich-second-generation CEO. An Qinghuan is young and beautiful, smart and capable, but has always lived in the shadow of being dumped by her ex-boyfriend. Through her time with Ding Renjian in Budapest, the two fall for each other, and she grows once more. Zhai Zhiwei has been pampered since childhood and is a bit arrogant; after going through great ups and downs he finally matures, switches careers, and throws himself into the entertainment industry.

The protagonists' personalities are all quite distinct, and the supporting characters each have their own traits. For example, Ding Renjian's wife Lin Yue is, in this drama, a selfish, vain woman. That their family would be destroyed by Tang Xiaogang is in fact inevitable: when a middle-aged household faces all kinds of problems like finances and illness, immediate interests go to their heads.

I think the characterizations in this drama are all pretty good, except for the protagonist Ding Renjian. This protagonist's changes from beginning to end are truly baffling—his personality is suddenly proactive, then suddenly passive, back and forth; he doesn't feel like a realistic person.

In terms of plot, the first half is all pretty good and quite engaging, but the editing in the later part is truly too awful to watch. The plot jumps are huge; after watching it you feel completely dumbfounded, as if overnight the villains have either all come to ruin, or all had an epiphany and turned into good people. It feels entirely like a plot designed to forcibly cobble together a Chinese-style happy ending, very unreasonable.

I looked at this drama's Douban rating, and it doesn't seem low. But aside from this drama's actor gods and goddesses, you could say there's nothing much worth watching.