Taiwan shows its awesomeness

[dangermousie]

I stole this from uisceros because it was too good not to pass up.

Korean Boys Over Flowers apparently not doing too hot in Taiwan.

The comments to the article are especially comedy gold.

I don't know why it makes me so gleeful - I don't know why I loathe BOF on such a deeply visceral, personal level - I've certainly seen plenty of dramas which were "meh" and I never loathed them. Perhaps it's because they took a story I loved and after a promising beginning* turned it not just into something poorly written and acted, but an exact antithesis of everything BOF was supposed to be - tough as nails heroine, hero who would never give up, a sense of humor even. UGH. Instead we got spineless dishrags.

So I am glad it's not doing well in Taiwan - I would take the Taiwanese adaptation, which was done on a tenth of Korean budget, at most, over this mess any day. Meteor Garden was actually well-written. *gasp shock*. I think they took the already incredibly awesome toughness of Makino, turned it up a notch or eleven and got Shan Cai.

I think what irritates me the most is that BOF was so successful - I don't begrduge either Meteor Garden or Hanadan its success because both were wonderful. But BOF got better ratings than Mawang, Capital Scandal, and Return of Iljimae put together so don't even get me started on that.

* I should have known BOF was going to be a total disaster after they managed to mess up arguably the second-most famous scene in all of it - Domyouji allowing the goons to beat him up without resisting because otherwise they'd hurt Makino. I was willing to let go that due to script-mucking they were already a couple at the time (a guy protecting his girlfriend is wonderful but I loved that in Hanadan they weren't a couple at all - in fact she told him previously she never wanted to see him again) or that this version's Domyouji didn't have either huge violence issues or major impulse-control problems (which made it both fitting and impressive, as a scene, for him to be beaten himself, and for him not to fight back). Fine! But they messed up the biggest part of it because the goons never offered a bragain of this sort. They were all just "huh, you are here, let's beat on you." OK, way to miss the point of the scene - which is how much he can change for her and how much he is willing to endure for her. Not that this version's Domyouji was willing to endure anything for her in the first place, to be fair...

OK, this turned into a rant, sorry!

Comments

[boycottbananas.livejournal.com]

I think if I had watched it and ended up despising it, part of the reason would definitely be because of it's huge success despite it being so...crap.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It just seems to undeserved.

[seven-trees.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHA! REJECTED!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh yes!

[sodahands.livejournal.com]

Every time I remember BOF now I throw up a little in my mouth.

[sodahands.livejournal.com]

I just read the comments and I love how the only reason it's failing is because Taiwan had Meteor Garden and the fact that BOF majorly sucks has nothing to do with the crappy ratings.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. I am bitter bitter about the giant waste of time. I am even bitter at the actors :)

[uisceros.livejournal.com]

Hehe! It's like the Taiwanese DO NOT ACCEPT fancy substitues for quality. I did like BBF, but it was too bogged down in production and caring too much about how it looked. Meteor Garden was simple, and worked about a billion times better.

I love twdramas for their (usually) simple production, and well thought out characters and stories.

Ah ratings. I've learned to not trust them. I mean, look at the highest rated American tv show for the last 5 years; American Idol. A show, whicvh in my opinion, is horrible, contrived, and ill-willed.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Meteor Garden was simple, and worked about a billion times better.

They stuck to the manga pretty slavishly which also helped - that manga was popular for a reason :)

[mishane.livejournal.com]

I think the thing that annoyed me most about the success of BOF (even though I never watched it) was that I felt like most of the crazy fangirls were just Lee Min Ho fangirls. Like, yes, he's good looking, but good looking doesn't make a drama good!

For example, I'm the biggest Clive Owen fangirl but even I realize that he's made craptastic movies. You don't see me raving about crap. Good looking crap, but crap nonetheless.

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

Both Clive Owen and Lee Min Ho: word. Could not agree more.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Exactly. According to that logic most kdramas are pure gold as they star goodlooking guys. WTF

[fivil.livejournal.com]

I definitely felt the affects of BOF's insane popularity when I was in SKorea last month. I didn't even take a picture of every place where I spotted Lee Min-ho, Kim Bum or er, whoever played the Rui character - they were all over advertising clothes, cosmetics (kind of quizzical - girls use the cosmetics whose poster boys are ..boys! wth!), and my favourite because it was just so weird; F4 signature burritos/fajitas at a Tex-Mex/Mexican restaurant.

It makes me sad, kind of, because the last drama that got this sort of insane popularity was Coffee Prince, and that drama was actually really good, well-written, with compelling characters and it also pushed the acceptance of homosexuality onto the front, in an odd way. BOF is so overrated when compared to CP.

I think dramabeans mentioned recent drama popularity showing signs that these dumb, overly melodramatic and not necessarily logical dramas seem to fair well among Korean audiences. Sigh. Or maybe it's a purely superficial thing; cute, young cast = popularity! I wonder what kind of Korean dramas have been popular in Taiwan, though..

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Signature burritos? LOLOLOL.

I wonder what kind of Korean dramas have been popular in Taiwan, though..
(Reply to this)



I am going to research that

[syrenstar.livejournal.com]

Heh so happy the country that gave me Fated To Love You is totally rejecting the crap fest that is BOF.

I'm bitter that BOF manged to sour me on asian dramas. At this point it's going to take my favourite actors and a irresistible sounding plotline to get me to watch something.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Icon!

Oh - that sucks about BOF. Try Black & White, it's really good.

[aliterati.livejournal.com]

Eh, I think hatred makes sense, since the very beginning actually seemed kind of awesome.

Also: so what actually happens at the end of this version?

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

hahaha I would love to reply to that question but bitterness consumes me to the point of incoherence so I'm just gonna say: it ended as it had gone on - in sheer, unadulterated stupidity. Pretty stupidity, but still. dangermousie can answer the rest.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

OK, after a lot of vaccilation and boringness and people weeping non-stop, D gets amnesia while saving Rui from a maniac. Makino decides it's a good time to give up and wanders around weeping while Rui encourages her to try to continue. She decides best way is to jump into a pool and attempt to drown so D would fish her out and remember her. Bingo, it works. Also, D's father comes back from the dead and mother becomes nice. (YES, really).

D goes to study to get smarter or whatever, and comes back to propose to M who has become a doctor and so has Rui (why he becomes a doctor seems unexplained - probably to eternally sigh after M).

Sojiro and Yuuki hook up for good once he finishes studying ceramics in Sweden.

Nobody knows what happens to Akira as he is not important enough for TPTB to care.

Theee eeeend. These are 25+ hours of my life I will never get back

[pho50.livejournal.com]

OMG OMG OMGAAAWWWWDDDD!!!!! I never watched the ending. I can't even form words... OMG. I would have been a nutcase if I had finished watching it. I'm only recently able to watch kdramas again... I was scarred enough by the episodes I watched. ***mmmmm tries to forget again mmmmm***

[aliterati.livejournal.com]

Hahahahah.

Okay, I'm sorry you had to watch that. But it was pretty entertaining to read.

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

hahahahaha!! I'm actually more super amused by how quickly you got drawn into BOF bash again than by the article, though I did read it and was quite glad too(see WHY I'm moving to Taiwan and not Korea after college??). But you're completely right as always, and you just made me remember that it wasn't just Meteor Garden that single-handedly converted me to Taiwanese dramas, but that scene in particular - all my life I'd dreamed of something as cheesy, over-the-top romantic, and AMAZING as a guy getting terribly beaten up in front of a girl for her sake - but I thought it was just too romantic - and then MG went and put it into the most awesome reality before my eyes. The BOF scene left me so cold that I was actually confused - it was blink-and-you-miss it and I was like huh? Was that supposed to be the epic Domyoji-saves-the girl and Shancai finally falls for him-scene?

Oh BOF. How I love to hate you.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh BOF. How I love to hate you.

Oh, me too, me too. Such a darn wasted opportunity - good cast, lots of money, awesome original story - and then what do we get? That mess!I think I don't even want to watch GHS or even LMH in anything else because I have residual bitterness.

that scene in particular - all my life I'd dreamed of something as cheesy, over-the-top romantic, and AMAZING as a guy getting terribly beaten up in front of a girl for her sake - but I thought it was just too romantic

Oh yes, me too! I think it's my favorite scene in all of dramas

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

me too:( you know how some actors are so defined in a good way by their roles that you can really only ever see them as that character? ie I think it's that way with Gong Yoo and Yoon Eun-hye for me - I'll always see them as their adorable CP characters, and I'm pretty sure that for me, Barbie Xu, although I love her in everything, is pretty much defined by Qi Luo in Mars and to some extent Shancai in MG. Well, GHS and LMH are like that, but the opposite. I was loving GHS for a good part of BOF, but now I think I'm so scarred but how frightfully, dreadfully awful her character was, the character so beloved and well-defined by other actresses, that I cringe at the sight of her. As for LMH, well, he never really pushed my hot-buttons anyway.

[moth5dream.livejournal.com]

I just finished BOF and yeah...it was just ok. I'm now starting to watch A Man's Story. I think it'll be better, from what I've read.

I guess I don't get too invested in dramas. I've never hated one.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

AMS is very very good.

[salimbol.livejournal.com]

I should have known BOF was going to be a total disaster after they managed to mess up arguably the second-most famous scene in all of it
You're right! I didn't watch this scene too closely because I was a hair's breadth away from quitting the series entirely anyway (and indeed I did; I couldn't even finish episode 12 ;-) - but what a total balls-up that was.
Just out of interest, which scene are you counting as the most famous of all? :-)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Just out of interest, which scene are you counting as the most famous of all? :-)

The one where she knocks him out, of course :)

Icon!!!

[salimbol.livejournal.com]

Ah, but of course! (Though knowing you, I was also suspecting the rain scene ;-).
The icon is the result of an abortive joint re-watch of MG a few months ago. The very clever selphish pointed out that DMS's face in that scene was the :-) smiley brought to life, and the lovely girlgamer obligingly created an icon for it!

[bae-mac.livejournal.com]

OHOHO! DUMPED!

:D

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

LOL

[timescout.livejournal.com]

Sooo... I gather you are still bitter about how it all went down? ;P

I've loved a few dramas but I honestly can't say I've ever hated one. BoF.... I don't really care one way or the other any more. There are loads of far better k-dramas to watch out there, so I've moved on.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I think I am bitter because I loved it so much at the start only to be disappointed so - hanadan is a fave manga of mine so I was so bitter they got such a perfect cast and wasted it.

[silchi.livejournal.com]

Guess I can strike BOF off my list, then, and skip right to Meteor Garden.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yup. One word of warning though - MG doesn't have the hugest budget. It doesn't bug me but be warned :)

[silchi.livejournal.com]

Ehh, that probably won't bug me, either. I'm more interested in the acting and the fact that it seems like they haven't cut out the touchy feely stuff. Like, the bed scene early on. That most definitely wasn't in the jdrama.

[village.livejournal.com]

What it comes down to for me is this, it started off with so much promise that the way it turned out actually made me resentful. I just stopped watching about half way through and have no plans on picking it up ... ever. I guess when it comes down to it, we got the old bait and switch. We wanted some variation of HYD and got no such thing. It actually turned me off Kdramas for like half a second but I couldn't stay away. ;)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I think those are my biggest resentments - the way it started well and lured me in only to fall apart and also not being hanadan...