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

Gifts

This is a story that starts out very sadly, so if you're depressed by the holidays you might want to skip the first part. As far back as I can remember I've dreaded the holidays. Being poor, having constant family troubles and belonging to a strict religion made that time of year always pretty unhappy. I just hunkered down and hoped to get through without being yelled at or punished because I didn't do something I was expected to do, like sit in church for hours without moving or making a sound while a priest spoke mass in Latin. Gifts were uniformly disappointing, too. My mother usually gave me dolls or socks or underwear for Christmas. I understand now as an adult that she was doing the best she could, and trying to save money at the same time, but as a kid I'd been told good children got what they wanted for Christmas. I was a pretty good kid, but while my friends received new bikes and cool toys and lots of treats from Santa, I didn't. I thought San
Post a Comment
Read more

We Have Backsplash!

Yesterday my guy and I decided to chose this natural stone as the backsplash tiles for our new kitchen counters (which will be in the same quartz I'm holding at the bottom of the photo.) Since all the bids for installing the backsplash came in very high my guy is going to put it in himself; he's done a bit of tile work in the past, too. I swear there is nothing this guy can't do. :)
Post a Comment
Read more

Detoxing Results

For twenty-four hours I left these five vintage cigar boxes sit with detoxing agents (baking soda, coffee grinds, dryer sheets, vinegar and Febreze) inside them to see which worked best to remove the tobacco/storage odors that came with them. I then removed the agents and did a sniff test. Before we get into the results, a reminder: none of what I do is ever meant to be expert advice, as I am certainly not an expert at anything. Follow my methods at your own risk, and please first consult an actual antique expert conservator or restorer to detox items that have value for you. Okay, let's see how my experiment worked. Baking soda (left) did nothing to remove the odors. I think if I let it sit for a longer period of time it might have done something, but for a 24-hour test it was a complete fail. Coffee grinds (right) removed 100% of the odors, and left behind definite coffee scent. I like that and think it goes very well with wood, but if you don't like the smel
Post a Comment
Read more