“The Beauty of War” Finale Leaves Open Ending
Marketed as TVB’s version of popular K-drama Penthouse, The Beauty of War <美麗戰場> saw supporting cast members such as Angel Chiang (蔣家旻) stealing the limelight from the main performers. Recently airing its final 20th episode, fans were left dissatisfied by the open ending, and which left unresolved plot developments instead of wrapping up loose ends!
Hints at Sequel
Turning bone chillingly cold-hearted, central character Ka Po (Jeannie Chan 陳瀅) betrays good friend Jinger (Moon Lau 劉佩玥) for 2 billion dollars. Leaving her facing heavy reputation losses, she later offers ten million to keep her silent, and tells Jinger that she would pass her another twenty million if she is charged and jailed. Luckily, Fu Kwai (Bob Lam 林盛斌) intervenes to save Jinger and sacrifices an exorbitant sum in the process, as the two’s relationship looks set to progress.
Revealing to Yu Zeun (Karl Ting 丁子朗) that Xiaomei (Hera Chan 陳曉華) is the one who caused his right arm to be amputated many years ago, Ka Po indirectly causes Xiaomei to get stabbed. The two former friends Ka Po and Jing Er rush to the hospital where Xiaomei passes due to delayed treatment; the duo get into a conflict and slap each other under heightened emotions.
Unresolved Developments
Finally, towards the end of the episode, Zan Yu (Alex Fong 方力申) finds Ka Po and appears to seek her forgiveness, even though he should be living happily with Tong Yan (Rebecca Zhu 朱晨麗) after divorcing Ka Po…Zan Yu then learns about Tong Yan getting together with his dad Kwok Dong (David Chiang 姜大衛), before the story makes known that he disappears mysteriously while out at sea. Tong Yan is pictured saying “Didn’t I tell you to let him off?”, to either Kwok Dong or another party, adding to the mystery of Zan Yu’s circumstances.
The ultimate scene flashes back to Ka Po at the Miss Hong Kong 2022 pageant. When she approaches the car park, Ka Kei (Angel Chiang) appears again after a long absence, leaving viewers guessing if she is back for revenge or connected to Zan Yu’s disappearance, paving the way for a sequel.
Patrick Kong Defends Ending
Responding to viewers’ criticism of the dissatisfactory finale, producer Patrick Kong (葉念琛) said that he felt that open endings were a bold way to conclude a series. Emphasizing that he was not lazy to wrap up the series, he asked, “Did Vivian Chow’s (周慧敏) character die in The Greed of Man <大時代>?” and added that he was prepared for and had in fact intended for the story to flesh out as it did, and deliberately left certain gaps to be filled by viewers’ own interpretation.
Source: HK01
The Cantonese version of penthouse
I didnt watch Penthouse so no idea of what that was like. I feel I got baited in to watching this cuz I thought it had a good start and I liked the characters. I didn’t mind the acting but the story and direction was just bs, the constant time skips, lack of character bridging and horrible build up with no pay off was just such a missed opportunity… Zzzz I was completely smitten by Moon tho XD
Wow kudos to those who finished the drama. I couldn’t even finish the first episode. So dog blood. The outfits and acting was terrible. Jeannie is a miscast and Angel Chiang overacted. The only ones who seemed natural were Moon Lau and Griselda. And that’s only from the first episode! I don’t know if it’s their dialogues or what, but the rest of the cast was just terrible
I honestly didn’t care for this series…only finished it because of my ocd…i really hope there’s no sequel and was glad that it was only 20 episodes long…The acting was great, just the same tvb typical trash drama…especially a lot of twisted dark elements on that last episode…
Still need to watch 2 more episodes but I thought it was an ok series,
I was thinking how they going to resolve so many loose ends when I’m on episode 19 & 20 to watch,
I needed five more episodes. I was interested in seeing what happens when angel comes back. The story line was decent, despite the terrible acting of Jeannie and Alex, everyone out acted both of them and so it made up for it. Even Hera, who I had doubts about, was much better than Jeannie. It was so painful to watch her lol. I don;t think I have come across a more painful actress than her ever.
After reading the comments, I think everyone will hate me for this: I actually liked the drama. It’s not the best, but it’s been a while since I’ve been looking forward to one episode after the next. I learned to enjoy the process despite their time-traveling storyline. However, I recommend that anyone who has not completed it either not watch the last episode or don’t expect to find any solutions. As @nanika said, I felt baited too. It’s as if someone didn’t broadcast the other half of ep20. No closure whatsoever. I commented somewhere on YT midway, hoping that this drama wouldn’t flop in the end. I guess I jinxed myself. -_-
I just finished it & that’s one of the worst finales for a series,
Too many open issues not resolved, I feel ripped off after watching the whole series, as I quite enjoyed it to,
A sequel doesn’t make sense..
After watching it, if you haven’t watched it, don’t as it’s a waste of time with no thought out conclusion .
I didn’t get the wow factor of this series but because my dad was watching it, I watched it with him. The only characters which has potential is Bob & Moon. Everyone was hyping on how good Angel was but I thought her acting was a bit over. I actually quite like villains and dislike goody-two shoes, but I could not stand the lack of character development of the villains. A villains can do very evil things and you would hate them to the core yet you will feel that he/she is a real human being and had reasons to justify their deeds. The villains here are just jerks for no good reason and betray their friends without hesitation. Jeannie and her male stars had no chemistry at all and I did not feel for their love relationships and betrayal at all. I only like Bob and Moon’s progressive relationship, they did not have a lot of screentime but you could see why he liked her and how he supported her.
I have seen a lot of series where the story is not told in chronological order or told in flashback and still turned out great (HKTV’s Election, that Korean Kingdom zombie series, etc.. )but this series has horrible storytelling. There are so many characters and subplots being thrown at us that does not add up and makes the story more confusing. You would have thought by ep 20 some loose ends would have been tied before the open ending, but the last ep is such a mess.
I seriously do not know how Patrick Kong feels this is comparable to “The Greed Of Man”‘s ending. Whether Vivian died or not was not that important because it was only a matter of time when she succumbed to her heart disease and that was the only open plot line in the story. Where as in this series there are at least twenty unanswered plot lines.
The acting is overrated here. There is a lot of yelling and screaming but loudness does not equal acting. Jeannie was really disappointing and ineffective as the main character. She keeps forcing her lines out and I can’t understand what she is saying in some scenes. Alex did very badly as the male lead. I feel a lot of plot devices were added for the sake of it to attract attention. Some bits don’t make sense. Whilst I disliked the open ending, I don’t want a second season as I feel it is a waste of time and we would probably be left with another open ending.
Reading this article and all these comments make me so glad that I didn’t watch this series. What a waste of time and disrespect to viewers to not resolve any issues. I use to force myself to finish a series in hopes that it would get better if it was bad to begin with. But now I realized that most of the time, when a series sucks from the beginning, it’ll suck to the end and it’ll just be more time loss! So screw that.
I just finished this and I’m dropping my review here.
I agree with @elizabeth. The villains are comical. There are people who are evil for good reasons and then there are evil people just to be ***holes, and this series is FILLED with the latter, which doesn’t make good TV. I understand that villains are commonly driven by greed or lust, but the villains in this show are plain sick and annoying. From Griselda’s character, to Carlo’s, Karl Ting’s, Angel’s, Li Shing Cheong’s, Jeannie’s father, Regina’s, and the father and younger brother of Jeannie’s female manager. I get not all villains need a sympathetic backstory or should be likeable but most of the evil characters in here were soooo one-dimensional. There’s too much dogblood going on that it no longer makes it satisfying or enjoyable for viewers to follow. Characters pathetically either had ZERO morals and/or ZERO brains. It’s hard to relate to any of them or understand their motives. It’s like the scriptwriters decided “Oh, we need everyone to have devil horns so we can put a halo on our Protagonist and that’ll push her to become morally grey near the end bc morally grey protagonists are ‘in’ right now.” The only interesting characters were Moon, Joel, and Rebecca. Bob and John Chiang were ok.
Most of the cast were either overreacting or overly wooden (again, with the exception of Moon, Joel, Rebecca, Bob, and John Chiang). Jeannie’s wide-eyes were terrible. Angel tried but some scenes felt unnatural (I blame part of it being the script that caused her to overreact). The leading men were a snorefest. Is it just me but it was kind of awkward when everyone in the show was awestrickened when Jeannie appeared, like she was the most beautiful girl they’ve ever seen? Like, yeah, she’s pretty but not THAT pretty for people to be acting like Cinderella just entered the ballroom. I felt like HUGE Jeannie was a miscast for the role and I don’t even dislike her as an actress.
The “you are not like other girls” trope was used TWICE in this series. Joel towards Jeannie’s character and Bob towards Moon. In conclusion, the theme was good but the execution was horrible. Horrible script, bad casting. I would say Moon and Rebecca saved the series but Rebecca barely appeared until the end so there wasn’t much saving after all.
Also, the title is grammatically incorrect? Shouldn’t it War of Beauty (Beauties)? Beauty of War means there’s beauty in war… like troops and cannons lmao.
One of the worst series I’ve seen since Bet Hur.