Taiwan Drama: Down With Love 2010

I am currently watching Down With Love starring Jerry Yan (of Meteor Garden) and Ella Chen (of the female band S.H.E.). This is Jerry Yan's best idol drama since Meteor Garden. Needless to say, Jerry provides the eye-candy while Ella Chen lends the cutest comic relief in the series.

Down With Love is yet another Cinderella story - leveled up to the max, with Ella Chen playing Yang Guo, a poor, hardworking, tomboyish girl with the most emphatic facial expressions, and Jerry Yan as Xiang Yu Ping, the cold-hearted, cynical divorce lawyer who doesn't trust girls.

I like the themes of the series which include some child psychology, same-sex issues, and tough love on errant parents (so far) - which is a refreshing change from the "magical thinking" mechanisms usual for Asian TV series. Of course, as it is, Down With Love, with the central Cinderella motif is magical thinking in itself, but I highly appreciate how the writers peppered the fairytale storyline with pressing issues of the day (ahem, here I am again defending my beloved Jerry Yan dramas).

I thought I wouldn't like Ella Chen as Jerry Yan's leading lady. Being used to the likes of Janine Chang and Barbie Hsu, willowy and dreamy, Ella Chen is a refreshing difference. I like how natural her beauty is, with the apple hairdo only some fashion mavericks would dare to sport. She has this cute stray cowlick that makes her look anime perfect! What makes her stand out is her acting abilities - slapstick but not awkward, downright funny, you can't help but love her! She shifts from silly facial expressions to a more serious appearance with natural grace. Ella Chen's Yang Guo grew on me after 2 segments, I could actually empathize with her character.

If you're looking for a good laugh and a live-action-anime-style series, Down With Love is it!!

Hot Shot/ Basketball of Fire 2008 - Review

Jerry Yan will be my hottie forever (according to my fan-heart)... And wow! Has the packaging of his stardom improved by meteorical measures since Meteor Garden (no pun intended). For one, his fashion sense has greatly, astoundingly improved...If in Meteor Garden I, he was up against his tacky clothes and reliant on his amazing looks, in Hot Shot, Jerry has become a real star!

But since this is not mainly about Jerry, let me get to the "review" part of this post.

All in all, I highly enjoyed the series. Surprisingly, it got lower ratings compared to high ones of Fated to Love You. Perhaps it's because Hot Shot wasn't all that emotionally sensational - again, compared to Fated to Love You. In fact, Hot Shot is a very easygoing watch, with its fair share of intriguing twists and turns and spectacular scene sequences (especially when they play basket!). I also love how they interspersed the comedy and drama of it.

But then again, my son and I were looking out for an important sequence at the end, which would have tied up the whole series and make the title truly worth being called "Hot Shot". The sequence we had in mind wasn't there.

Other than that, I should say it was worth watching. It was not sensational, but I must say it was really good!

Image from Crunchyroll.

Jerry F4ever ;-D

Sigh. It's past my bedtime and I just finished wrapping some presents for friends: a mother (her birthday tomorrow) and daughter (the latter being my godchild, whose Christmas present I ordered and just arrived). I thoroughly enjoyed wrapping the gifts - but it took me one hour to find the perfect motif for the ribbons and charms. So now, it is past my bedtime and tomorrow is the last day of the working week (yahoo!) -

To watch or not to watch? I'm now at episode 10 of The Hospital starring dreamy Jerry as Dr. Su Yihua, and am I having a ball!

This time around, I am enjoying my eye candy sans the anger and violence of Dau Ming Sz (of my all-time favorite Meteor Garden). In The Hospital, Jerry's character is more subdued as the underdog (ahem!!!). His acting is more dynamic than as he was in Magic Kitchen (where his acting was subject to criticisms, i.e., Jerry just smoldered. [lol!] - and I have to agree, his acting in Magic Kitchen was flat). But this time around, the variety of facial expressions of Dr. Su is absolutely - sigh - heartmelting.

Overall impact? Mushy in an Asian sort of way. I was thinking before that The Hospital was another poor imitation of Grey's Anatomy (which I avidly watched until I couldn't stand the musical chairs of romantic and sexual partners). Well, the producers of The Hospital, also known as White Tower, did follow the Western suit of creating TV serieses based on lives of professionals in the medical field, and though not an original concept (what's original these days, anyway?!), The Hospital is highly watchable (I'm biased :D).

Eye candy is number one, second is the Asian flavor of dealing with the issues (the ceremonies behind transactions, blind respect for hierarchy, the awkward fight for idealism which is a "new" concept for "obedient" Asians, to name some), and the assimilation of Western "values" into the Asian context is quite interesting. I would like to say I'm in it for the story. Well, maybe, but definitely I'm in it for the pleasure of watching Jerry move haha - and okay,I admit, to see the unfolding of the subplots, which are well, Asian kinda good.

And I love that, Asian kinda good...

To watch or not to watch. I'll decide while I take a bath (which reminds me, Jerry has a safe and sexy bath scene which almost made me faint! hahah!)

More on this latah!

P.S. Love his team up with Janine Chang! Sweet!

Got the image from tsinoy.com

Hot Shot - Taiwanese Series

Oh yeah!!! I have recently bought the DVD of Hot Shot, the Taiwanese series, starring none other but Jerry Yan. It took me awhile to buy another Jerry Yan series (I am/was fixated to Meteor Garden), and when I was about to launch into another MG marathon, I decided, enough!

So, I got a copy of Hot Shot and my son and I are enjoying the first two episodes so far. The director has done a great job so far (episodes 1 & 2), very watchable. Also, I love the comic relief of the movie.

Well, I have to admit, that though I am a Barbie Xu as Shan Cai fan, the girls in Hot Shot nice looking too. Oh, well, this is it for now.