Janine Chang Reunites with Peter Ho for Angsty Web Drama

I’ve made no attempt to sugarcoat just how stupid a drama Ring Ring Bell is, and conversely I am more than happy to shout from the rooftops about how winning the two leads Janine Chang and Peter Ho were in that dumber than bricks drama. But a crucial factor in their chemistry was that they played against type – Peter usually does the arrogant prick and here he played a really warm, kind, and genuinely good guy inside and out, while Janine tries out bumbling and earnest for a change rather than brainy ice queen. The role reversal worked wonders because it made him less smarmy than he usually comes off onscreen and made her much warmer and more relatable than normal. In essence, they played close to their real life personalities, and they got along so fabulously during filming there have been nonstop rumors that they turned reel into real since then. I’m totally game for them to reunite on another project and now it’s been confirmed they are about to start filming a web drama adapted from the queen of torture melo Fei Wo Si Cun’s short story Le Jun Kai. If anyone is wondering why this writer is called the queen of torture melo, her novels adapted into dramas have been the appalling Sealed with a Kiss with Ying Er and Hawick Lau (where I got flack for criticizing her weight and dowdy attire plus the entire story was simply a rape victim falls in love with her rapist apologist manifesto), the boring Girl in Blue with Chen Qiao En, Roy Qiu, and Feng Shao Feng (I knew one of the two guys was going to die), and the abusive hero creed Too Late to Say I Love you with Wallace Chung and Li Xiao Ran. The upcoming Le Jun Kai is the first short story of this author to get a drama adaptation and the description is that its chock full of emotionally torturous angsty love and hate between the OTP. Great – way to mess with the cute and healthy chemistry between Janine and Peter! God this sucks. Of course I’ll end up watching it.

The novel is about a vengeful male protagonist Le Jun Kai who marries the daughter of his fated enemy as revenge. I will never ever understand that trope or the motivation behind it. After they get married, he torments her and drives her away, though he has feelings for her and can’t love another woman since then. Year later, they meet again and he learns they have a child together. She concealed it from him and raised the child alone. During their mutual torment a startling truth is revealed. Despite his insistence that he doesn’t love his wife Ye Zi or their child, when he hears that she has been kidnapped he rushes to save her.

Turns out he is pretending that he doesn’t love her and tries to drive her away so that she leaves him. And stupid Ye Zi apparently loves this douche so much that despite all his torment of her she continues to love him. The real reason she left him is because it hurts her to watch him so sad when she is around. *headdesk* Apparently the producers thinks the characters are perfect for Janine and Peter and they have the right chemistry to make us care about this very torturous love story. I just want to take a bat and break the knees of this so-called male lead character already. My poor Peter and Janine, this is wrong to waste their chemistry on. *sobs*