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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.

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