General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Falling before Fireworks (最食人间烟火色)

Falling before Fireworks (最食人间烟火色, Zui Shi Ren Jian Yan Huo Se) is a 2023 Chinese urban romance web drama about a bank loan manager and a traditional craftsman who enter a flash marriage and fall in love during their divorce cooling-off period. It ran for 23 episodes on iQiyi from March 31, 2023, directed by Liang Guoguan and Wang Hui and written by Wang Xiaocui.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Native and English titles	最食人间烟火色 / Zui Shi Ren Jian Yan Huo Se; English title Falling Before Fireworks¹
Broadcast	23 episodes on iQiyi from March 31, 2023; members received all episodes at once, non-members two episodes each Friday and Saturday¹^•³
Main cast	Lu Yangyang as Si Qing; Chen Xinhai as Jing Chen; Nan Sheng, Zhao Zhenting, Ji Hao, and Qian Xuanying in supporting roles¹
Production	Directors Liang Guoguan and Wang Hui; screenwriter Wang Xiaocui; produced by Shanghai Jingzhuo Culture Media²
Setting	Filmed almost entirely in Wuyi, Zhejiang, with the heritage garden Jingyuan (璟园) as the central location⁴
Reception	Douban score of 7.6 from 54,982 raters as of December 11, 2023; second-highest ranking historically among iQiyi pay-per-view dramas at the time³^•⁴

Spoilers

Plot

Si Qing (司清) is a client manager at a bank's loan department, a high-performing white-collar worker pursuing a car, a house, and money. Behind the polished surface she carries a broken original family, negative personal finances, substandard health, and workplace harassment, leaving her with a deep lack of security and belonging.⁵^•⁶

To recover a bad loan she visits Jingyuan (璟园), a garden estate in the countryside, where she meets Jing Chen (景琛), a traditional craftsman who built the garden with his own hands. He is her opposite: an adopted orphan, a lover of handicrafts, with no car, house, or money but an idyllic home surrounded by green mountains and water. The two initially dislike each other and clash repeatedly.⁷

The turning point comes on the winter solstice, which is also Si Qing's birthday. Forgotten by her parents and isolated by colleagues, she is near an adult breakdown. Jing Chen serves her a bowl of eggs in sweet wine, a customary winter solstice treat, which she mistakes for the only warmth offered for her birthday, and she impulsively proposes marriage. He refuses at first, but on learning that she holds the other half of a scroll inscription his grandfather has sought for years, he agrees, hoping to fulfill the ailing grandfather's last wish.⁷^•⁸

The marriage collapses on the first day under the weight of their opposite habits and values, and the two divorce the same day they register. During the 30-day divorce cooling-off period they live together, gradually fall in love, and heal each other: Si Qing's urban malaise eases in the slow rural rhythm, and Jing Chen's long-held inner wound is finally opened and resolved.⁵^•⁸

Cast and characters

The drama stars two then little-known actors. Lu Yangyang plays Si Qing, and Chen Xinhai plays Jing Chen. The supporting cast includes Nan Sheng as Yun Pian, Zhao Zhenting as Jing Musheng, Ji Hao as Chi Zhongyu, and Qian Xuanying as Jian Yue.¹ Reviewers noted that neither lead carried a strong star aura, and that the distinctive character writing and the aesthetic, classical-Chinese-styled scenery carried the show instead.⁸

Filming in Wuyi and the intangible heritage theme

Screenwriter Wang Xiaocui, a Wuyi native, wrote the script over a full year while scouting locations in her home county, and the production describes the story as built around Jingyuan as its prototype. The director Liang Guoguan said the team rejected other Jiangnan gardens because only Jingyuan gave the feeling they wanted; filming used real locations throughout, including the old Xingguang vegetable market, Yanfu Temple, Huatian Town, and the railway station.⁴

The crafts Jing Chen practices are real intangible cultural heritage projects of Wuyi: gold repair (金缮), book restoration, straw weaving, bamboo weaving, scale-making, and mortise-and-tenon joinery. To show them convincingly, the production sent the lead actor to a heritage training class in Wuyi a month before shooting; Chen Xinhai later said he spent about two and a half months, from arrival on January 5, 2022, learning mortise-and-tenon work, bamboo weaving, and gold repair until the wrap.⁴ A scholarly analysis of the series describes its heritage placement as operating through restoration of Huizhou-style architecture, ink-wash compositional principles, and dynamic interaction design.⁹

The crafts are not set dressing but the drama's argument. The series repeatedly contrasts handwork, which carries intention and an artistic soul, with machine production that turns out identical products, and draws a parallel to urban office workers who lose themselves in repetitive routines while dreaming only of financial freedom.⁵

Reception and context

The drama became an unexpected hit without big-name stars or heavy promotion. Screenwriter Wang Xiaocui said she had expected little attention, but the low-budget show, with episodes of roughly 30 minutes, broke through against competition from short dramas and short video, took a place on iQiyi's popularity chart, and ranked second in the platform's history of pay-per-view (分账) dramas; she estimated about 90 percent of viewer reviews were positive.⁴ On Douban it held 7.6 out of 10 from 54,982 raters as of December 11, 2023.³ Viewers flooded comment sections identifying the filming locations, and some joked that the drama played like a tourism promotion for Wuyi.⁴

Critics placed the show in a broader shift in Chinese romance drama. Around 2022, video platforms moved away from formulaic sweet-pet dramas and developed the pastoral romance branch, of which Falling before Fireworks is a listed representative alongside Meet Yourself and Will Love in Spring. Within that trend, the drama's male lead typifies the move from domineering CEOs to ordinary, specialized professions, a downgrade in status meant to strengthen relatability and everyday warmth.¹⁰ A Baidu encyclopedia summary credits the script with pairing a sharp, flawed urban professional woman against a "male version of Li Ziqi," and notes that the drama also touches on public welfare and contemporary marriage attitudes, with the featured heritage crafts drawing social attention after broadcast.³ Industry commentary also flagged its deliberate anti-formula choices: a heroine with real character flaws, a slow-burn emotional pace with deliberate pauses, and finely detailed visual composition, even though the slow pace ran against the usual economics of pay-per-view web content.¹¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles Cr to In

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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