Zhang Rui Kun (張瑞坤) is the main antagonist[1] of The Love Story in Banana Orchard. He returned as the initial main antagonist of Proud of You[2], where he renamed himself as Zhang Jia Liang (張嘉良) and also one of the main protagonists.
Relations
Family
- Mother: Zhang Yan Hong
- Father: Peng Qi Xian
Fang Family (In-law)
- Father: Fang Chong Fa
- Aunt: Fang Bao Zhen
- Younger Brother: Fang Wen Xian
- Younger sister-in-law: Qiu Rui Hua
- Niece: Zhi Tian Ai (adoptive), Li Yu Fei (biological)
- Nephew-in-law: Gao Tian Hao (adoptive), Gao Tian You (biological)
Jiang Family (adoptive)
As per finale of The Love Story in Banana Orchard, he became archenemies with them (except for XiuYu).
- Father: Jiang Zheng Hui
- Younger sister: Jiang Xiu Lian
- Younger brother-in-law: Gao Zhi Hong
- Youngest sister and initial lover: Jiang Xiu Yu
Descendants
- Eldest daughter + Cousin-in-law: Gao Ren Mei
- Eldest son-in-law + Cousin-in-law: Zhao Shang Hao
- Elder daughter: Zhang Ren Xin
- Elder son-in-law: Xiao Zheng Yan
- Youngest daughter: Zhang Zi Ting
- Youngest son-in-law: Yan Sheng Yuan
- Younger son: Zhang Zi Xiang
Former Enemies
- Ke Shu Jun (past lover)
Personality
In The Love Story in Banana Orchard, he was a major contributor towards the successful state of JiangFamily's business with the experiences he learnt from ZhengHui. While XiuYu rejected and sees him as an elder brother, he developed an irreplaceable affection for her, whose intensive hatred and dislike of him was the starting point for him to lose his conscience and turning amoral in his viewpoints. Once attaining recognition for his efforts as well as expanding his reputation and ambitions became his priority, he turned against ZhengHui to become the rightful successor of his assets and as revenge after knowing his past with YanHong. Although ShuJun was the only person who embraced his loneliness and knew what he wanted, his feelings for XiuYu greatly surpassed his affection for her and deeply wished to compensate their conjoined twin daughters. As a result, those became the reasons for him to approach WenLing instead of reconciling with ShuJun.
In the beginning episodes of Proud of You, he was dedicated to give WenLing the best happiness and personally managed the everyday needs of her and their children, and taking the fullest responsibility towards the family. Despite the noteworthy redeeming qualities, he retained his manipulative traits from the prequel drama, showing them through his despicable morals and taking the fastest route to achieve his goals as well as hurting the lives of others. He was also capable of twisting truths and blackmailing the innocence of others and creating a heroic image instead of being seen as the mastermind of his antagonism, this was confirmed when he admitted that WenLing's initial encounter and subsequent interactions with him were carefully planned by him. After taking advantage of hatred within individual relationships, he drove his victims to fall out and backstabbing each another. Throughout the drama's progression and revealing of his past, the lack of respect, trust and contradicting beliefs eventually turned the deep affection between him and WenLing into merely delusions after the short-lived sense of normalcy in their relationship had created an irrecoverable rift. As he valued his personal opinions before showing consideration to the feelings of others, he viewed himself as a victim and used WenLing setting up RenXin as an excuse to take advantage of her background to the fullest instead of improving their falling marriage. He also neglected the fact that WenLing and ShuJun even betrayed their closed ones to secure their own relationships with him. With FangFamily's distrustful and unwillingness to approve his relationship with WenLing, he viewed her love as a form of humiliation and becoming intolerant of her personality and saw his affairs with ShuJun as salvation. As his feelings for the latter were more of an unhealthy obsession instead of genuine affection, and as a result, he was "guided" by her and turned remorseless towards hurting WenLing and her family. This puts aside his confidence and perception in understanding the personalities of others, having failed to anticipate ShuJun only approached him out of revenge motives as well as the impossibility of recovering the past relationship with her, who further exploited WenLing's hatred of JiaLiang and becoming the vital factor that drove him into a downfall of losing everything. At the conclusion of separating with WenLing, he believed FangFamily had looked down on him, similar to his past relationship with ZhengHui and lost himself in the idea of true heart and love.
As a father, he deemed his children were his bottom line and was willing to unconditionally sacrifice his life for them, but was eager to manipulate his kinship with them to fuel his own benefits. This was further highlighted through his relationships with his daughters, which invoked an extreme sense of narcissism, having targeted their lovers after deeming them unsuitable as their romantic partners. He retained his long-lasting hatred for GaoFamily; especially ZhiHong for earning XiuYu's feelings in their youth, instead of appreciating them for raising RenMei and RenXin in his absence but for once, he was willing to discard his hostility of them during the latter's marriage with ZhengYan. He strays further from his lifetime wishes of getting a complete family full of kinship and love, as RenMei was unable to acknowledge him for his antagonism while facing the verge of losing his bonds with ZiTing and RenXin, as the former sided with WenLing against his affairs with ShuJun and while the latter appreciated him for saving her life, he became obsessed with making a comeback to prove his worth to his children instead of admitting his failures.
History
The Love Story In Banana Orchard
During his childhood, he lived alone in the streets when his biological mother YanHong abandoned him after QiXian was unable to openly accept both of them to protect the reputation of PengFamily and coincidentally saved XiuYu from danger and remained affectionate of her. Many years later, he became an important supporting pillar for ZhengHui's business, who also entrusted him to take care of XiuYu. He debuted in episode 1, where he discussed with ZhengHui over the falling prices of banana and went on to protect XiuYu as ZhengHui fended off against a group of dissatisfied banana farmers, including JunXiong and his close friend. Following ZhengHui's announcement to expand his business, he properly introduced ZhiHong to XiuYu, who later rejected the confession of his feelings and tasked an underling to keep an eye on the latter. He comforted ZhengHui, who was infuriated with his clients for wanting more commission from his business and targeted GaoFamily. With JunXiong's death in an occurence of fire, he reluctantly took care of AhCao's family and wanted him to take responsibility but was punished by ZhengHui for his involvement in taking down of GaoFamily's business. Under XiuYu's request, he helped ZhongYi and XiuLian to bail out ShuJun, who was known as Ke Mei Juan (柯美娟) at that time and ZhiHui from getting abducted by HeiMian. He manipulated ZhengHui to witness ZhiHong and XiuLian's romantic relationship and took advantage of ZhengHui's rejection attitude for them, which caused his relationship with XiuYu to fall apart. He attempted to force the latter into accepting his feelings and almost ruined her innocence, he became the adoptive son of ZhengHui. He later mistaken ShuJun as XiuYu, but refused to take responsibility for engaging romantically with her and forced her to apologize in front of the villagers. After surviving ZhengHui's attempted murder, he remeets YanHong, he decided to impersonate as his biological son and knew of his elder brother Zhang Ah Di (張阿弟)'s death and the fact that ZhengHui had neglected YanHong's feelings in the past. He willingly allowed XiuYu to engage romantically with him, who used that to secure her relationship with ZhiHong and caused him to forcibly separate from XiuLian. During the former's wedding ceremony with XiuYu, he caused ZhengHui to suffer from a stroke and demanded him to give his entire assets. (episode 1-13)
He subsequently restarted his affairs with ShuJun, having clashed with HeiMian several times and relentlessly assaulted and humiliated ZhiLong. As he failed to see XiuYu in her dying breath, he attempted take over their newborn conjoined twin daughters but was prevented by ZhiHong and XiuLian, whom reconciled with each other under blessings from XiuYu and ZhongYi.
After ZhiHong defeated him in business, he convinced ShuJun to backstab her childhood lover ZhiLong and GaoFamily while accusing ZhiHong for receiving bribes in his position and forced him to flee overseas. As revenge against the latter and his wife, he purposely left XiaoAn at an orphanage and leaving her with only TianYou. Such actions were secretly observed by YanHong, who raised XiaoAn as her own grandson to compensate GaoFamily in the future while venturing overseas to establish GuangRong(Group) (光榮集團
). In the finale, he attempted to abduct XiuLian, who confronted him for his antagonism on her closed ones, he was fatally wounded and arrested for his crimes. His daughters were raised by ZhiHong and XiuLian, while ShuJun survived her punishment thanks to ChangYan sacrificing his own life. (episode 14-22)Proud of You
Becoming part of FangFamily
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JiaLiang severing his ties with ShuJun
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JiaLiang and WenLing first encounter
Facing his past and falling relationship with WenLing
JiaLiang remeets his conjoined twin daughters
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JiaLiang confronting ZhiHong and XiuLian
"My daughters were seriously injured from an accident, and the person responsible was also my daughter. This is like stabbing my right hand with my left hand, and I am unable to complain of the pain. I cannot be mad, I cannot have my own emotions?!"
- ―JiaLiang to WenLing, episode 17
"Don't slap my face again! Our marriage of 23 years, not even half month past our wedding anniversary, all this 8447 days, you have slapped me 3078 times and I have remembered all of them clearly in my heart! From now onwards, we better respect each other and don't hit me again."
- ―JiaLiang to WenLing, episode 47.[3]
he indirectly caused MingHui's death and putting WanDai(Group) at the risk of closing down. However, he ended his affection for WenLing, who caused ShengYuan to be fired from the media firm and manipulated RenXin's kinship with GaoFamily and revealed the truth behind their initial encounter. (episode 30-47)
Romantic Affairs with ShuJun
Once ShuJun proved his innocence over DaLi's attempted murder, he was devastated when RenMei only approached him to seek justice for GaoFamily. Although WenLing bailed him out from custody, he demanded her to give RenXin an apology. As ShengYuan used his daughters' safety to avenge his deceased father and indirectly caused YanZi to suffer from amentia, JiaLiang managed to escape death as ShuJun and ZiTing were seemingly successful in reaching the inner conscience of ShengYuan. As RenXin restored her bonds with RenMei and GaoFamily, he unwillingly returned to WenLing's side and reluctantly accepted ShengYuan's marriage with ZiTing. Although he punished the former for infiltrating into YiDai(Group) on several occasions, he gave him the sense of recognition for stealing the trademark of Milk Dance (牛奶跳舞) steamboat. While engaging romantically with ShuJun, he received backlash from her as ShengYuan caused GuanZhong's affairs with XiaoQing to resurface again. Once LiFamily reclaimed back the ownership of Milk Dance, which restored the reputation of WanDai(Group), he entrusted all his assets to ShuJun. This was how he responded towards compensating for his losses and wanting ShuJun to firstly prioritize him in her heart, the latter proceeded with her plans of avenging MingHui and ZhiLong.
"Jia Liang: Don't tell me all this time, you have not truly loved me?
Shu Jun: No, but is surprising you will ask me this question. What you are concerned is not my love to you, is whether there are any returning benefits from the feelings you contributed. If not, you will feel very disappointed and even dislike the other person, just like Fang WenLing and you will abandon her aside once there are no benefits for you. I am really naïve, if I already knew this point, I would not have let ZhiLong sacrificed."- ―JiaLiang and ShuJun, episode 114
Gallery
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Trivia
- Due to sharing the same actor in Proud of You, he was widely compared to Zhao Tian Yu from The Sound of Happiness whose portrayal of said character had positive receptions and was introduced as an extreme antagonist (激烈惡人), said traits were carried over from The Love Story in Banana Orchard.
References