Skip to main content

The Fab Four

There is a cultural school romance phenom in Asia that has been churning out heartthrobs for the last twenty years, and yet remains virtually unknown in the West. Boys Over Flowers, based on the 1992 Japanese manga Hana yori Dango by Yoko Kamio, is that star maker. This story is also so beloved that it's been turned into romantic drama series not only in Japan, but also in China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan and now Thailand with F4 Thailand: Boys Over Flowers.

The basic premise is a poor girl on scholarship to a rich kid high school tries to stop the top elite four male students (teen rockstar types known as F4 or the Flower 4) from bullying a friend, and instead becomes their target. That she fights back and refuses to give in and bow down to these guys is more wishful thinking than anything (did the writer even go to high school?) but that defiance helps the story evolve as not one but two of the guys fall for her. The play of group versus outsider dynamics is pretty interesting, and the poor girl is a heroine to basically every adolescent girl who wistfully looks at a rich guy and wishes she were pretty/well-dressed/popular enough to have a chance with him.

I've watched the Japanese and Korean versions, so I was expecting more of the same, but the Thai version has some nice differences. All of the actors are extremely attractive, so it's kind of hard to know who to root for (and you do even when you know how it will end like me.) The characters are portrayed with more complexity in this production, and emotions run much higher. It's more serious than goofy, and there are some really amazing moments between the poor girl and one of the four who ends up broken-hearted from failing to win his first love. I'm only about halfway through the series, so I can't give you a final verdict yet, but this very well may be the best production yet. Available to watch on Viki.com.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Love Triangle

The Inheritors (also known as The Heirs ) is an older k-drama that is more like an American soap opera, and yet has one of the best high-school love triangles I've ever seen. As the illegitimate son of a wealthy conglomerate chairman, Kim Tan (Lee Min-ho) was exiled to study in California so that his older half-brother could be groomed to step into their father's shoes. Instead he mostly surfs and goofs off. He meets Cha Eun-sang (Park Shin-hye), who comes to LA in order to escape her dismal life in Korea while bringing wedding money to her older sister, only to find out her sister has lied about her marriage, and is living in squalor. After the sister takes the money and runs off, leaving Eun-sang with no place to stay, Tan ends up alternately taking care of her and making her situation worse. He also falls for her, but she finally connects with a friend and returns to Korea. The money her sister took ends up forcing Eun-sang and her speech-impaired mom to mov...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pretties

While at the antique mall where my donated throws were being sold I saw this pretty portait of a frog made out of beads, brooches, necklaces and other bling, and had to take a photo of it. This artist is so clever with how they recycle vintage jewelry and findings into new art. That day this little guy came home with me. He was cheap, made from a very old crazy quilt, very shabby, and has a serene quality that primitives sometimes possess. He'll be hanging out with me in the sewing room. Was it necessary to buy this? Nope. Do I regret the purchase? Nope. I also bought this apothecary jar filled with buttons, threads and other wonders. If you want to sort through it with me, check out more pics here .
Post a Comment
Read more

Glorious. Kinda

Writing up my thoughts on the Chinese drama You are my Glory is going to be one of those head-scratchers; I liked it, it got annoying, I liked it anyway, it got more annoying. In the end I was left feeling like most of the last third of the series was smacking me on the nose for being a romantic and wishing, not for the first time, I was a screenwriter who could get hired to fix this script. Anyway, okay. The premise for this series is actually pretty good: poor but brilliant aerospace engineer Yu Tu (played by the fabulously handsome Yang Yang) crosses paths with fabulously wealth but not-too-bright actress Qiao Jingjing (portrayed by the genuinely pretty Dilraba Dilmurat) who was his high school classmate. He's looking for a new job that pays better; she's in hot water due to an inappropriate product endorsement snafu, and they end up spending a lot of time together. It's a cross between Notting Hill and Apollo Thirteen, sorta kinda. Yu Tu is in a life crisis ...
Post a Comment
Read more