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Sunny Happiness Episode 3 Recap — 19 Comments

  1. But self-control is no fun! I, for one, kinda enjoy being in the throes of a drama-crack addiction because it means that it is that good. It adds to the excitement and the experience!

    I’m not blaming you….more like, am very grateful you did a SH pimp post in the first place because it is awesome!

  2. Wan Lan is TOTALLY mental. You’re exactly right, koala-unni, who in their right mind would give a hot, totally adoring, baby-wanting man an ultimatum like “I want an abortion” and then divorce him? Clearly crazy. Wan Lan, if you’re going to continue being crazy like that…I’ll take him. ^v^

    One of the things I love most about Mike He’s portrayal of Yun Jie is that you can just see on his face and in his every move how much he desperately wanted his baby. In the only other drama with a kid I can think of, Autumn Concerto, I did like Vanness Wu, and the kid was too adorable for words, but I think that Mike He has Vanness beat all holy in that regard. He has great chemistry with the little boy who plays his son, and it really shows. I think I remember watching somewhere that he put a lot of time into trying to understand being a parent, even talking with his “son”‘s parents. I really admire that, that the kid isn’t just a prop and a motivation.

    Like I said, Wan Lan = mental. ~shakes head~

  3. Hey, we not blaming you but thanking you.. And thanking you some more lol

    I like this drama because even though I watched so many episodes at once.. It never felt boring.. It flowed smoothly w/o many boring scenes. Omg!!! totally loved the reunion…so sweet.. And mike he was awesome!!

    I think the second leads suit each other.. And Wang lan is the one our hateneeds to be directed at..ughh her logic is screwed up!!

  4. Psh, who would blame you? I think we’re all getting in line to thank you for bringing this gem of a drama to us. God, just thinking about SH brings a huge smile to my face. There are very few dramas out there that I can easily write about. I’m such a snail when it comes to organizing my thoughts. It doesn’t help that I get impatient if I think too long, which is why a lot of my rants have been put aside because I just can’t force myself to say anything about it. I may like the drama, and I may be able to talk about it a lot, but when it comes to actually writing my thoughts, that’s a totally different story. The fact that I’m leaving you a comment on your recap and how my thoughts aren’t as jumbled as usual means that Sunny Happiness has made an everlasting impression on me to the point that even I cannot ignore its awesomeness. I must now share why I love this drama to the world.

    I’ve been a fan of Mike He for a long time, but my love for him dwindled in the past two years because of his horrible project choices. I enjoyed watching him in Bullfighting with S.H.E’s Hebe Tien but suffered through Why Why Love and Devil’s Beside You. His projects tend to be misses for me. I liked him for very shallow reasons and thought his acting was passable. It wasn’t until I saw him in SH that I realized just how much his acting has matured. He’s still not great, but he’s not bad either. What makes this drama Mike’s best performance is his natural chemistry with his co-star Janine and his ease with the camera. But I guess that’ll be more apparent later on, so I’ll save that for later.

    Anyway, in this episode, Yun Jie’s reunion with Xiao Nian is absolutely well done. It was an emotional and happy scene, convincing enough and smoothly executed. It’s not everyday a father finds out that his aborted child wasn’t actually aborted but alive. I would never have believed that Mike would be able to carry out the emotions needed in that scene if I hadn’t seen it myself.

    As for Wang Lan, I hate her. Yes, I can understand her motives and whatnot, but that doesn’t excuse her from keeping her child a secret from YJ. I loathe her self-pitying and find it quite aggravating. I don’t even see how one can place blame on YJ at all, since he assumed that she didn’t care enough for their child.

    On the other hand, I am so glad I discovered Li Yi Feng. He was perfectly casted as Yun Chao and is a compelling leg in the love triangle. I spoke to soon when I said that I relinquished any claims on him. Can I take care of him on the weekends? I’ll just borrow him and return him to you. Let me know when his next drama airs. (The one where he’s the main lead. Was it “White Lies”?) I will be watching the first episode for him so I can stare at his awesomeness some more. Now I need to find a thesaurus ’cause I can’t think of any other adjective besides “awesome” to describe this drama. Heehee. For all you people who haven’t tried out SH, do so when you get the chance! Why? Because it’s awesome!

  5. I don’t like Wang Lan since her show up in episode 2 (mainly because what her appearance looks like), but seeing her in episode 3 is the ultimate thing that makes me, like everyone here think : “Lady, are you mental?”

    I really like how the drama reveal piece by piece that Yun Jie actually not THAT cold hearted man everyone in the drama think he is. And may I say that I really surprise to see the real Mike He in BTS, he is so cheerful that making him potraying Yun Jie even more awesome than I already think. His facial expression is making my heart ache inside when his sad and teary moment regarding his son is so breathtaking!

  6. I think I’m in the minority for the fact that in the first four or five episodes (of the C-version) my sympathy was with Wan Lan, and not Yun Jie. My understanding is that in public arenas such as the media, Wan Lan wouldn’t have gotten very far had she been a divorced single mother. I was willing to accept her mother-as-aunt cover as the remnants of a rash decision from the start of her career, and one she couldn’t undo now that she’d reached some security. With Yun Jie walking in like he was Mr Entitlement and summarily demanding custody, it hit too many of my buttons of wealthy men using their wealth to run roughshod over ex-wives, who — as the way this world turns, unfortunately — are more likely to have less financial security/resources to fight their ex-husbands. With the lawyer playing major hardball (and questionably ethical, at that), I had real trouble seeing any good in Yun Jie even as I did empathize with his grief/regret/anger over having been left ignorant.

    What clinched it for me — in my sympathy for Wan Lan — was in the flashback, where Yun Jie greets her pregnancy with an apparent one-sided decision that they should head to Taibei, where he’ll work for his father’s company and Wan Lan will be, if not in so many words, a good little chairman’s wife. I respected the fact that Wan Lan wanted her own career, and wanted respect for that, and I’m also aware of the environment in many countries in Asia that her pregnancy would’ve been seen as grounds for immediate termination — and there would go her dreams. Her reaction, of wanting an abortion, seemed mature, if difficult. His reaction was to throw a temper tantrum and run away.

    I also spent several episodes coming this close to ditching any respect for Yong Yong, that she’d willingly go along with Yun Jie’s plans to effectively destroy an existing family. His wish to be part of his son’s life meant he was willing to destroy his ex-wife’s career and reputation, and I was frustrated that the show never had anyone call him on it. Not even Wan Lan, who by rights should have, the same way she never called Yun Jie on the way he treats their kid like he’s some kind of possession. Wan Lan implies it, but she never comes outright and says that Xiao Nian is not a prize in a cracker-jack box, and the script/characterization was really begging for that, I thought.

    (I might’ve accepted it better if Yun Jie had, say, been willing to compromise with seasonal visits but the lawyer had turned it into hardball, which would’ve displaced the gender issues onto a lawyer-scum rather than letting Yun Jie look like an entitled, spoiled, pig.)

    Given Yong Yong’s supposed sensitivity to Family, I couldn’t swallow that she’d be so blind to the apparent, if not easily assumable, distress such spoiled behavior on Yun Jie’s part was causing his own ex-wife and son. Sure, sympathize with the wish to know one’s child, but that doesn’t grant one the right to destroy another person’s entire life. Yong Yong had no fear of calling Yun Jie on his other flaws, so it made for a huge characterization hole on her part that she remained blissfully blind to the ramifications of her involvement. That, though, I might’ve forgiven had there been a bit more emphasis on what Yun Jie held over her — or if I’d seen a little more rationalization on her part, ie, “what is one wealthy child in the course of things, compared to forty orphans? it’s not like he’ll ever go hungry,” or some such.

    All that said, I still adore Janine, and enjoy that she’s getting to play someone with a bit more range. I absolutely loved her kick-ass character in Black & White (rescues herself — twice, no, three times!!) but in general, that character was both strongly introverted and restrained, so her characterization had to be very subtle. Here, she gets to show a little bit more liveliness, and it’s really thanks to her very humane portrayal (despite script flaws) that kept me watching through the problematic parts.

    • I see your point about Yun Jie. And while I don’t think he was entirely in the right to do what he did, I also think that the reaction is both in character and not that extreme, given the circumstances. Going back to when Xiao Nian was conceived, if Wan Lan didn’t like the “Let’s move back to Taipei” idea, she could have negotiated — it’s not like anything he says, goes. I’m sure he would have been willing to work with her on it. Relationships are two-way streets, after all, and Yun Jie seems pretty well adjusted, not to mention totally in love with Wan Lan (at that point). I think her demand that he let her get an abortion solely for her career is a horribly selfish thing to do — really, you’re going to “terminate” aka kill, a life so you can have the career you want? Especially when your husband desperately wants the baby?

      For as badly as Yun Jie wanted to be a father, I wonder if he wouldn’t have agreed to stay at home and take care of the baby while Wan Lan got on her feet career-wise. Or they could have hired a nanny and both worked. Whatever. In the end, I think they both overreacted, but given how deeply they each felt about their point of view, it doesn’t really surprise me.

      • By the 5th/6th episode, Yun Jie was starting to get more of my sympathy, because the show did emphasize more the rather… questionable notion of pretending to be the kid’s aunt, and refusing to tell anyone that she was a single mother. After hammering on that (and downplaying Yun Jie’s own possessive approach), it did start to tilt things. Plus, the more you think about the premise — that she wanted career, not kid — the less and less it made any sense for her to have the kid after all. I mean, if the entire point was that pregnancy = no work, didn’t she completely disprove her own argument by having the kid anyway? That just made no sense, and we don’t even get a tossed-off, I don’t know, something mental like, “I had the kid to spite you!”

        Me, I ended up revising the original argument in my head to something like:
        WL: I’m pregnant.
        YJ: Great! Give up your career and we’ll move home and you can be a housewife.
        WL: But I want a career.
        YJ: Your career is to be a mommy.
        WL: I can be both!
        YJ: No mother of my children will work. You must be housewife! My way or the highway!
        WL: Fine, then I’m getting an abortion!
        YJ: *reluctantly agrees, storms off, whatever*
        WL: *tears up abortion agreement once YJ’s out of the picture*

        Because then she wouldn’t have necessarily chosen to get an abortion except as the lesser of two evils (being trapped in no-career for the rest of her life), and having the kid anyway would’ve been proof of her own argument, that she could have career AND kid. Instead, having kid effectively guts her entire argument.

        Do screenwriters not think these things through? Or is it just (as I get the impression sometimes) that they think women don’t make sense anyway, so they don’t see reason to apply logic to a female character’s backstory or motivation?

  7. Just finished watching this drama. I gotta say, I loved it a lot. I think I’ll probably go back and rewatch it during Spring Break, because I really can’t get enough of it 😛

    Thanks for the recaps! Even though I’ve seen everything already, I still will look forward to reminiscing of my favorite scenes from SH 🙂

  8. i’ve been on the prowl for a TW embroidered crack pipe and when i saw you were recapping this drama, i hoped i had found it. i watched ep1 last night and i wasn’t sure if this pipe was the style and shape i wanted, until just now. i’m in the middle of ep2, exhausted, thinking i need to see ep3, knowing i will regret it in the morning, because you are right: “There is a flow to the drama, a sense of steady forward momentum that drives this bus.”
    there is definitely something great about the pace and flow of this show. i truly appreciate you recapping it.
    thank you.
    i’m going to the counter to make a purchase:)

  9. yeah, you’re right, maybe yong yong really doesn’t care if yun jie terminates her or not. i guess, it’s so easy for her to get a new job once she gets fired. she doesn’t have big responsibility after all so nothing to fear really.

    i’m somewhat confused. i’m watching it in viki and the episode doesn’t seem to match with your recap. your latest recap is ep 3 but in viki, this is already ep 4 and 5. i dunno, am really at lost!

  10. Hi Okcoala, since you posted this drama i check it out and recommended to my mom and she likes it. But i just have one question maybe you can help me…is there a websites that i can download the whole drama? So i can watch it marathon..i know its in viikii but somehow my connection is not that good it keeps on dropping and hanging…anyways only if you know a websites that they offer download for free.
    Thanks again…and more power….

  11. just finished SH after 2 days of marathon…
    I was highly entertained and loved every moment of it, well that is until around ep19. that is where the story spiraled from bland to irritating for me.
    the onscreen chemistry between the leads wereAWESOMEtastic during their bickering stages that I had very VERY high hopes that it would be GREAT, but when it came to the dramaric side i can clearly feel the disconnection or the lack of dramatic talent of the leads, especially Mike HE. he was a real disappointment in the pull for me to root for them. IN the end I rooted for the brother, though only a little cause he was such an ass to his GF. I clearly put major blame on him for his fiancee going jealous bitch commando style. I mean he kind of ruined her with her inattention and scheming to get ahead of his brother. he was such a user. I mean truthfully at the start I so LOVE them together, bickering in their i-am-a-spoiled-brat vs i-am-the-BEST-guy-elitist attitudes.
    anyway I am Not saying it was only Mike’s fault but the whole run around with the whole broken legs scenario or the ex-wife was really awful, they really needed to shoot the writer for that badly formulated scenario…

    hmmnnn, I so wanted to love THIS drama based from ockoala’s enthusiasm but I have to say, I had hoped that they didnt pull the broken legs-irritating dramatics of the ex wife couple with the fated to love you scenario. THat just killed it for me story wise.

    still think that in TW dramas that i have watched so far, autumn’s concerto, mars and fated to love you rocked my world. coming next are smiling pasta, meteor garden and It started with a kiss…

    • additionally the whole fake marriage, get the child at all cost annoyed be a bit but then that was what lead together so i let it pass…
      but still there are so many loopholes in the whole writing that lead me to believe that the writing was way off the line in reality.
      the selfishness in both sides of WL and XY was so obvious that i was pulling hairs every time they have a scene, the only redeeming quality was the chemistry between YY and XY and additionally XC. and in the end they cut that off, hmmnnn, i am a little let down about this drama…
      TT___TT

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