Cruel Romance (Chinese: 锦绣缘华丽冒险) is a 2015 Chinese television series starring Huang Xiaoming and Joe Chen. It is based on the republican novel The Fate of Jinxiu (锦绣缘) by Yu Yi. The series aired on Hunan TV from 3 March to 26 March 2015.
The series is a commercial success,[1] and became second highest rated television drama for the first half of 2015. It also has over 5 billion views online. Broadcasting rights of the drama were sold to America, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Vietnam.
Set in the 1930s, Rong Jinxiu (Joe Chen) was born in a renowned medical family. When her father saves her teacher Mr Chen from a gunshot wound, her entire family was killed by the Japanese. With only a piece of watch as evidence, Jin Xiu heads to Shanghai to search for her enemies. On the ferry there, she meets the famous triad leader Zuo Zhen (Huang Xiaoming) of Shanghai's Huang Pu commerce. Through some entanglement, the watch ends up with Zuo Zhen. In order to retrieve her watch, Jin Xiu heads to Bai Le dance hall to look for him. There, she meets her long-lost half-sister Yin Mingzhu (Lv Jiarong), who is currently a famous dancer and the lover of Shanghai's wealthiest businessman, Xiang Hanchuan (Tse Kwan-ho). However, Ming Zhu still harbours hatred for the Rong family because they abandoned Mingzhu and her sickly mother many years before.
At the dance hall, Jin Xiu gets injured in the midst of a fight between Zuo Zhen and his enemies. Zuo Zhen rescues her and then brings her to Lion Forest hotel, which he had gifted to Xiang Yingdong, the brother of Xiang Hanchuan. While Zuo Zhen finds Jin Xiu annoying, he can't help but find himself attracted towards her and keeps helping her in the shadows, making sure that she is safe and comfortable in Shanghai. Jin Xiu remains clueless and continues to believe that the comfort and safety she has is because of sheer luck.
With all that happening, Mr Maeda, the one behind the murder of Jin Xiu's family, came to Shanghai posed as a businessman from Japan, with plans to execute all the anti-Japanese rebel groups in Shanghai and make Shanghai's business Japan's.