LayarHijau — A Beautiful Lie, the drama starring Oliver Chen Xingxu and Zhang Yuxi, concluded its broadcast in 2024, leaving many viewers in China and international audiences alike angry and disappointed with its ending.
The explanation below contains spoilers.
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In the final part of the drama, Qin Fei (played by Zhang Yuxi) and psychologist Ge Wu (played by Li Mo Zhi) devise a plan to help Xing Zhizhi (played by Oliver Chen) recover from the hallucinations he has been suffering. They fabricate a lie, claiming that Jia (played by Xiao Bo Chen) is actually still alive in Suman. Xing Zhizhi then travels to the area to search for Jia, following several false clues created by Qin Fei.
Unexpectedly, this very plan turns into a disaster. Based on what is implied in the final two episodes, Xing Zhizhi is kidnapped by a group of bandits and is never heard from again.
In the end, Qin Fei ends up suffering from the same mental illness as Xing Zhizhi. Until the drama’s conclusion, viewers are given no certainty about the doctor’s fate and can only assume that he has died.
The ending sparked widespread anger and disappointment among viewers in both China and overseas. In a post by the drama’s official Weibo account promoting the finale, users flooded the comment section with protests.
Some users called the production team liars, saying the ending was completely unexpected and misleading. Several fans demanded that the team apologize to Oliver Chen over how the scriptwriters portrayed his character in the drama.
“The producers of A Beautiful Lie do not respect the medical profession, turn cancer into a joke, belittle patients with mental disorders, convey incorrect values, and only want to turn the male lead into a vulgar romance tool. A drama like this, with such wrong values, should be taken off the shelves and apologize to patients with mental illness,” one user commented.
Other viewers felt that the drama wasted the chemistry, acting skills, and visuals of Oliver Chen and Zhang Yuxi because of its ending. One Weibo user also raised suspicions that the production team cut many scenes involving the male lead while poorly designing the female lead’s character. A storyline that was initially sweet suddenly ended in something unclear, which the user described as deceptive.
International viewers also voiced their disappointment. Some users on MyDramaList gave the drama a score of only 2.5 to 4 out of 10 for its storyline.
Several viewers said they enjoyed the story and the chemistry between the two leads in the early part of the drama, even though some sections felt boring. However, they agreed that the ending completely ruined the overall experience.
“I endured several boring moments throughout this drama just to see a good ending, and instead I got a bad one. Truly disappointing,” one user wrote.
Some viewers blamed the disappointing finale on one member of the drama’s writing team. “I think the novel had a happy ending. At first I didn’t understand why they made the ending like this, but after I checked one of the scriptwriters, I think he’s just obsessed with tragic endings,” another user commented.
It has been reported that several members of the A Beautiful Lie writing team also worked on the drama Love Is Panacea, starring Luo Yunxi and Zhang Ruonan. That drama also ended tragically, with Zhang Ruonan’s character dying from her illness. The difference, viewers noted, is that from the beginning, audiences were already aware that her character suffered from a terminal disease.
This stands in contrast to A Beautiful Lie, which maintained a light and romantic tone from the beginning until close to the end.
Meanwhile, some viewers pointed out that the two supporting couples in the drama ended with happy conclusions, while the main couple met a tragic fate. This contrast was widely seen as unfair and emotionally suffocating.
One user also criticized how the drama handled the male lead’s mental illness. “Who tries to use such rotten methods full of lies to treat a mental illness? Are they crazy? I’m watching episode 35 and this is ridiculous. In my opinion, they never respected the man’s illness or truly hoped he would recover amid their constant interference. There is no instant cure for things like this,” the user wrote.
