Double Happiness (TV series)

Double Happiness (Chinese: 喜临门) is a Chinese drama serial on MediaCorp Channel 8 in Singapore which was screened in 2004 and ended in Jan 2005. The show has 142 episodes, the largest number of episodes MediaCorp have ever produced. It consists two parts, with 71 episodes in each part of the show. It is about a family who sells fish and chips in a renowned restaurant in East Coast Road called Happy Fish. The restaurant has its ups and downs, but eventually it will come out strong, but not without tragedies and lessons learnt.

In 2007 MediaCorp sold its rights to Chinese broadcaster CCTV8 and it was broadcast in China in 5 parts.^[1] It also had a rerun on Channel 8 in 2010.

Casts

• Ivy Lee as Situ Yaxi
• Xie Shaoguang as Luo Jialong
• Patricia Mok as Meili, Jialong's wife
• Xiang Yun as Luo Jiaxi
• Huang Yiliang as Lin Xuezhi, Jiaxi's husband
• Li Xianmin as Lin Wenwen, Jiaxu and Xuezhi's daughter
• Aileen Tan as Luo Jiayu
• Rayson Tan as Huang Yaozu, Jiayu's husband

Kimberly Wang as Lana, Yaozu and Jiayu's daughter

• Vivian Lai as Luo Jiaqian
• Edmund Chen as Luo Jiaqi
• Alan Tern as Wenjie, Wenxiong
• Priscelia Chan as Lin Meijiao, later Shirley
• Jin Yinji as Da-ma
• Hong Huifang as Luo Kaiyin, Da-ma's sister-in-law
• Zhang Wei as Luo Kaijin
• Henry Thia as Ah Gao, Meijiao's husband
• Jeff Wang as Luo Jiafu
• Chen Tianwen as William, an employee
• Yao Wenlong as Jiaming
• Clarence Neo Jia Jun as Patrick

Guest cast

• Moses Lim
• Brandon Wong

Plot

The main female character in the show is Yaxi, who has to struggle with the Luo family for the control of Happy Fish, a Fish and Chips Restaurant. Yaxi, who is married to the Luos' second son Jiaqi, is a career woman who had hardly frequents a kitchen and is asked to look after Happy Fish by her dying mother-in-law. The oldest in the Luo family is the fiery-headed and impetuous Jialong, who believes that Yaxi is corrupt and is involved in money-laundering, thus causing lots of misunderstandings, quarrels, mishaps, and adventures. Those included the beginning of an affair between Jiaxi and William, and it resulted in the deaths of Jiafu and Yaxi. Yaxi's death was due to a miscarriage, while Jiafu was killed from being assaulted by a madman who was sent by enemies of Happy Fish. Before Yaxi died, she admitted to Zibin her feelings for her husband who went overseas, and persuades Zibin not to seek revenge. During Jiafu's funeral, gunmen burst in and interrupted the ceremony, making a mess at the scene. Yaozu, the analytical one, deduced that it must have been sent by enemies of Happy Fish, one of them being the femme fatale Jiemin and her money-loving mother.

Meanwhile Jialong was forced to marry a girl named Meili. He initially thought that she was ugly, but he was delighted after seeing Meili's face. Meili's Chinese name really suited her, which means Beautiful. Jialong decides to go through with the wedding. It turned out later that Meili was infertile, which somewhat infuriated Jialong. His relationship with Meili was on the rocks when he became lazy and refused to work. He even went into human trafficking business, and narrowly avoided police arrest by seeking the help of his crime boss who has a hold on the police commissioner. Jialong resolved to change his ways for the better and decided to work part-time at Happy Fish, his family restaurant. He even adopted a child with Meili, and named him Luo Tianle, much to the family's dismay, because that was going to be the name of Yaxi's unborn (and dead) child.

Yaozu had an affair with the wife of a Taiwanese politician, and Yaozu's wife Jiayu unfortunately found out. To Yaozu's shock, Jiayu wants him to continue the affair, for she hopes to get a steady flow of cash. The politician, Ma Da, was furious when he received photos of that affair and sent gunmen to Singapore to kill Yaozu. Yaozu was lucky to avoid death, but had his spine broken from the brutal fight with them, and thus need to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Jiayu became depressed because of that. To add on to the misfortune, her daughter Lana was raped by a stranger she met online, and she committed suicide. Jiayu, with almost nothing to live on anymore, committed suicide as well. Yaozu was depressed, but became stronger and decided to live on in order to prove himself useful to the Luo family and not just all talk.

After reading the story in the Romance of Three Kingdoms, Zibin, who became insane after Yaxi's death, believed that he is Liu Bei, who is going to avenge the death of Guan Yu (Yaxi). He deduced that it must be Happy Fish restaurant that was the cause of Yaxi's death. He decides to read up on Sun Tze's Art of War to have his revenge. Yaozu noticed that Zibin was reading the book and questioned his purpose. Zibin secretly added rat poison to Yaozu's coffee to prevent him from leaking out his mission. Zibin managed to keep his mission a secret, and Yaozu died from his poisoned state. Unknown to Zibin, Yaozu had however anticipated the move, and secretly recorded his suspicions about Zibin onto a CD, slotting it together with his Music CDs, before going off to drink the poisoned coffee.

A new restaurant by the name of "Original Happy Fish" was set up by the enemies of Happy Fish. Jiaxi went over to Original Happy Fish to work, as she believed that Happy Fish no longer has profitable business after so many mishaps. She gave the secret recipe to Original Happy Fish as well, in the secret hopes of seeing a revival. Jiemin, a beautiful girl who believes herself to be smart and talented, unwittingly had a relationship with Perry, who in secret was having an affair with her mother as well. Perry's mission was to cheat all of Original Happy Fish's money away. He paid gangsters to beat up Jiaxi's ex-husband who tried to stop his ex-wife from working at Original Happy Fish. Jiaxi, although hated her ex-husband, was shocked at Perry's actions and thus informed Jialong of the crimes Perry committed. Jialong in his drunken state told his bosom friends of all the mess that the family caused. Jiaxi also left Original Happy Fish, convinced that she was wrong to work there.

Jialong's blood brothers ganged up together with guns illegally imported overseas, and took down Happy Fish's rivals, the so-called "Original Happy Fish", in revenge. Jiemin was scarred from the incident, and was sent to a mental hospital to be treated for depression. Her gossiping mother had her leg broken instead, and she was furious at Jialong, accusing him of causing this mess. Jialong was shocked at his blood brothers' actions, and decided to report on them. All but one were arrested and sentenced to death, and to avoid revenge, Jialong underwent surgery to change his face, much to the chagrin of his wife Meili. The final tragedy appeared, where the final blood brother who avoided capture showed up and torched Happy Fish. William sacrificed himself in order to put out the fires. A mourning Jiaxi, who was rummaging through Yaozu's Music CDs accidentally discovered the CD that had Yaozu's confession, and that finally exposed Zibin. Zibin turned out to be the final blood brother himself, and was sent to a mental hospital, where he finally committed suicide by taking the remaining rat poison he had with him.

Yaxi was also revealed to be alive, that although she really did suffered a miscarriage, her death was just a set-up to test the Luo family's sibling ties. The revelation shocked the Luo family, and out of respect to Yaxi's abilities and resourcefulness, decided to let her take control of Happy Fish. With that, it also strengthened the entire family's resolution to carry on the Happy Fish restaurant business without causing anymore tragedies. A miracle, however, occurred: Jiaqi, previously thought to have died in Afghanistan as a volunteer, turned out alive and well, and re-married another woman. Happy Fish's business improved and it expanded overseas, where Jialong's twin brother Goulong took charge. In the finale, Goulong revealed that he was the one who resorted to divine intervenation to rescue the family from breaking up after hearing Jialong's prayers, killed and resurrected Yaxi for the plan to put the family through trials and tribulations.

Accolades

• Edmund Chen and Ivy Lee (as Luo Jiaqi and Situ Yaxi respectively) were named the Top 5 Favourite On-screen Partners/Couple at the Star Awards 2007 special celebrating 25 years of Chinese drama.

References

External links

• Double Happiness (Chinese)