TW & C dramas

The Story of Pearl Girl with Zhao Lu Si and Liu Yu Ning One Ups a Lackluster Run with a Terrible and Dumb Ending

If I were a professor I would absolutely be an easy grader. If you try hard sincerely and the output shows that effort I would acknowledge it, in that sense I’m not very black/white in life or in entertainment offerings. I’ve liked plenty of objectively bad movies and dramas because I enjoyed certain elements of it enough to overlook the deficiencies. I needed to preface with this because the entirety of C-drama The Story of Pearl Girl was so lackluster it saddened me but didn’t elicit any further stronger emotions, until now because the ending is so bad IT NEEDS TO DIE IN HELLFIRE. I can’t believe a drama this un-exciting can actually one-up itself in the wrong direction at the very end and deliver one of the worst endings in recent drama memory.

Basically Zhao Lu Si and Liu Yu Ning still tried to give some semblance of a romance for the last few episodes but it was as lame as the thumb almost kiss scene above, talk about foreshadowing. He’s still got an incurable poison in him and leaves her to go die somewhere else I presume, but not before they have one night together on a tiny boat and she begs him not to leave and then scene cut and she’s standing in front of her entire jewelry company announcing that she’s leaving others in charge and going to travel the world (i.e. “live life” in that Eat, Love, Pray mantra). Then scene cut to a desert caravan with an older woman narrating that Zhao Lu Si’s character LIVED LIFE for 40 years and had no regrets and hopes that commerce and exploration and jewelry making continues to thrive. THE END. If I could punch a drama in the face it would be this one for wasting two stars I love, and also the investors who allegedly watched the drama and loved it so much to pump more investment into it. They are either money laundering or absolutely addled in the brain.

ockoala

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  • Ah no wonder they promoted it as female empowerment story lol, so they really didn’t end up together. But why would they make the romance so halfhearted? It would be better to make it intense then bam he died it would be much more memorable ending

    • It's probably the silly obsession with "big female lead" stories at work. Like they want to make it seem like the FL is independent, but they can't find a way to make it work without the ML giving her all sorts of help. Then they have to find a reason for the ML to want to help her and they can only think of romance as the reason. But to "save face" they keep the romance to the minimum. LOL.

      • I do wish C-ent can stop with the fake female empowerment dramas. I still can't get over my major disappointment with The Legend of Mi Yue because the original Mi Yue from the novel is a true independent FL, but the drama version changed her to the usual kind righteous pretty damsel who rose to the top with the help of her romantically involved men who were willing to sacrifice for her.

    • This is really a huge shame. I believe many if theur fans really looked forward to this drama. But bad endings is becoming very common in Cdramas. I dont understand why...really dont.

      • There are C-dramas with good endings, it just so happens that the recent two dramas LGIEF and TSOPG have unsatisfactory endings (though personally I'm satisfied with LGIEF's ending).

      • I have yet to watch Fangs of Fortune, I read that ending is not great too. However that drama does not interest me.

  • Is that why she sent nearly 100K RMB worth of red envelopes to her fans?? LMAO!!! Just so funny. There's this one international fan who keeps insisting this drama is affirmed by renowned experts or academia for being a great drama *eye roll*

      • I thought that was partly due to the bad ending of the drama, and the other part was in reaction to Esther's Cosmo cover (300000+ issues sold; 14.09M rmb in 24 hrs) which became the #2 in domestic entertainment (second to WYB) and #1 among the female artists surpassing Reba's September 2024 cover.

    • Common lol that not a lot of money for her and it's Black Friday, money envelopes are best gift for the new year to shop.

      • DD fans and EY fans fought, it's a fact. Not only coz of magazine sells, also coz of shading the acting skills.DD fans couldnt take it anymore. The black HS of XK counted as LGIFE drama data. That fandom fought with WYB fans coz EY fans claimed 9521 WYB title. Now they bought HS about WHD and ZLS cooperation. But their fandoms united and promoted their fav dramas
        What popularity...it's a huge IP which cant reach 37 mil/ep as TLI had, about that fandom said it flopped. If it was hyped doesnt mean it really is a huge hit. Lets be real, when 3-4 most awaited dramas are aired in the same time, audience is split. None drama exploded
        Do I look mad?:) I enjoy the show

    • @ace: how can fish fans surpass DD fans? magazine sells show fandom power. DD not only has a bigger fandom than EY, but many ppl buy her magazines coz she's a real beauty. Very...fishy.
      That fandom stepped on XK, DD, WYB. I wonder if they are really silly in their arrogance or they received orders to keep the heat. Fandoms are fighting for a couple of days.
      That drama ended airing +3 mil/ep ahead Pearl Girl (yunhe Nov 22nd)
      What that fan said about the good reviews Pearl Girl received is true.

      • Oh please. Yes Reba has a huge fan base, but passersby bought the magazine too due to Love Game's popularity. Her fandom contributed as a birthday gift, costars, staff, and friends did their parts too. The fandom did not "step on" other fandoms. You should be happy there is growth in China's domestic entertainment instead of being suspicious. Reba fans and YSX fans were getting along well because they all knew which fandom was trying to sow discord lmao. Don't be sour grapes just because Nov 2024's cosmo cover didn't get traction even though that fandom had more time to prepare to buy their idol's magazine. What a joke.

      • There’s no stepped on between ysx fans and reba fans. They both are queens w/ fandom respect each other. You know who are the ones that tries to meddle other fandom affair.

        Typically fandom w/ full victim mentality.

        Treating other that more popular w/ contempt and adamant that their fave is the best, nobody could surpass her, the data is bought, fake etc.

        Newflash, lgief domestically really more popular with many viral merch and moment. Show me your fave viral video when campus doing flashmob dance and song for the drama.
        They always talking about sabotage and karma that ysx will get. And guess what, ysx only get more popular, breaking many record and getting more fans, proving the good karma ysx got after years of misunderstanding and hatred she got.
        The bad karma that they wish will only got back to them coz of the imagenary agenda that their fave is cinderella with many enemy try to suppress her growth and not makes her take the responsibility as the ones that choosing her own script.

      • There’s no stepped on between ysx fans and reba fans. They both are queens w/ fandom respect each other. You know who are the ones that tries to meddle other fandom affair.

        Typically fandom w/ full victim mentality.

        Treating other that more popular w/ contempt and adamant that their fave is the best, nobody could surpass her, the data is bought, fake etc.

        Newflash, lgief domestically really more popular with many viral merch and moment. Show me your fave viral video when campus doing flashmob dance and song for the drama.
        They always talking about sabotage and karma that ysx will get. And guess what, ysx only get more popular, breaking many record and getting more fans, proving the good karma ysx got after years of misunderstanding and hatred she got.
        The bad karma that they wish will only got back to them coz of the imagenary agenda that their fave is cinderella with many enemy try to suppress her growth and not makes her take the responsibility as the ones that choosing her own script.

      • The thing is, other fandoms like DD are chill about it. Of course Alice would only congratulate Reba but that's given. They don't shade on anyone and just focus on their idol which is good.

  • It's probably the silly obsession with "big female lead" stories at work. Like they want to make it seem like the FL is independent, but they can't find a way to make it work without the ML giving her all sorts of help. Then they have to find a reason for the ML to want to help her and they can only think of romance as the reason. But to "save face" they keep the romance to the minimum. LOL.

  • I also think the ending is dumb. If you want to kill the ML and have a sad ending, just have the gut and do it on screen. And I find it unbelievable that she got voted as the head of the jewelry guild but passed it on to someone else so casually, and no one object to it??

    • I hated the ending too. If we saw all the deaths before onscreen, why not the male lead's? I'm going to be disappointed for a long time with how weak the second half was for the ML's character, and the plot holes, although overall I liked the characters and the story. ZLS and LYN have good chemistry, and it feels there could have been a good romance and her success...it feels like a wasted story line. I agree about the jewelry guild and her handing it casually over....so everyone voted yes, is this her empowerment? Then she spends 40 years wandering? And we don't know where he died, with her or not? Koala is right, this is one of the worst drama endings in some time. I still think I Will Never Let You Go, which has the honour of being my first Chinese drama ever, has the worst ending ever in a drama. TSOPG ending rates slightly higher.

    • This script is major flawed and the ending not good obviously but aleast check it out for the good performance the actors did with their roles , If u love any of them. U don't have to watch it now with all this noise but let it be on your watchlist just in case. It all about preferences, u might actually like it, who knows.

  • And yet her fans kept insisting that it’s the best drama ever and called everyone who said it’s average a hater.

    • According to her fans, she is apparently the most victimized woman to ever exist. Everyone is out to get her for no reason other than her being too outstanding lol...

  • I dont wanna hear anyone blaming LYN for this failure drama, saying he doesn't have any chemistry with her when they clearly didn't intend to make any.

  • I will be the lone voice here and say I enjoyed the drama, even though the last half hour was badly edited WTH, even though his death was telegraphed for episodes. There was just no emotional payoff because they made everything happen offstage. Even the final villains’ comeuppance.

    Terrible execution. I had a good chuckle at your outrage this morn, Koala.

    • I wonder if there was a outrage online with the ending in China? Do you know if the rating was good? I guess it is the end...ratings or not...it no longer matter. Very unprofessional.

      • Anything over 10,000 on Youku is a hit. I read that it's 10,400 heat index today. So, no matter how it's denigrated here, it's what the heat index says (I'm not going to add on to the incoming "but it's all bought" comments). Also, it's on the top of many current Netflix index internationally, so it's making money and not exactly a flop. I'm rewatching it on Netflix and it's beautiful on a big screen.

      • I think there was a trending topic about the ending but I didn't click on it and read comments because I wasn't interested in the first place so I'm not sure if there were dissonant voices in the sea of most likely positive comments from her fans. Also, her giving out red envelopes was the most eye-catching so it was probably done to drown out any discussion of the ending (not that I think any passersby was interested how it ended). Interesting though that Douban ratings fell from 6.3 to 6.1 yesterday, and I checked just now it's 6.0 already.

    • @Ace, yes bad unsatisfactory endings will do that. On MDL KMLM was 8.9 until the ending and within two days it dropped to 8.0

    • @Ace I was just using it as a reference to drop in ratings due to the ending. I don’t see why not since it did happen the way I described it.

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