With King Flower being one of the lowest rated SETTV Sunday night dramas in recent memory (thought its not as bad as Miss Rose or Love Forward and those garnered higher ratings), SETTV must be thrilled its follow up drama is sure to rake back in the viewers. Starring the hottest Taiwanese drama couple du jour George Hu and Annie Chen from Love, Now (真愛趁現在 True Love is Right Now), the upcoming Love Around (真愛黑白配 True Love Black & White Pair) is clearly banking on the great ratings from the daily dramas LN and its even earlier predecessor Inborn Pair (真愛找麻煩 True Love Looks For Trouble) which starred Annie and Chris Wang. The two leads for Love Around attended the first media day event for the drama which has just started filming last week. Annie lopped off her long hair and sports the first short wavy bob since she did Happy and Love Forever with Ming Dao back in 2008. I said it before and I’ll say it again, Annie and George definitely have great chemistry but the intense media love for them baffles me since we’ve seen other onscreen couples in Taiwan dramas pull off equally if not better sizzle. Take Ariel Lin and Joe Cheng, or Mike He and Rainie Yang, or even Barbie Hsu and Vic Zhou. I think the media loves George-Annie because they come with the whole are-they-dating-in-real-life speculation that adds more grist to gnaw over. In Love Around, George plays the son and heir of a gangster overlord and has a very extreme personality whereby he can’t stand seeing anything weak get picked on. Annie plays a upbeat and cheerful DJ, so he’s the black and she’s the white of the title. SETTV has not announced the rest of the cast but I’m expecting the usual suspects as the character actors and as long as Chris Wu doesn’t play the second male lead here then I can care less who gets roped in to be the sacrificial lamb on the altar of Annie and George’s repeat romancing. I actually like them but LN was just such a deadly dull drama that I’m a tad annoyed it got such high ratings. Here’s to hoping Love Around has a fun story to go with guaranteed co-star chemistry, and perhaps when it premieres I will be ready to move on from my King Flower heartbreak.
I gotta say that I also don’t really get the intense media love for them over there either. I think they’d be a great real life couple but LN turned sooo incredibly boring for me after ep 25 or something. I will comment that my mom loved it – and thought it was funny. I’m sure this series will do really well in the ratings. Really well. It’s actually the first one that I’m skipping in awhile. Maybe it will WOW me. 🙂
I’m still reeling from the fact that KF couldn’t have been as awesome that it could have been. What the heck happened?! Sigh.
SETTV daily-8 is consecutively hit-and-miss. Inborn Pair was pretty good, and the middle section doldrums was staved off by the arrival of Chris Wu to steam things up. Ti Amo Chocolate was booooring. Love Now was okay initially but once she got back to Taiwan it was booooooorrring and then some. But Two Fathers is fantastic. So cute and sweet and funny. I’m behind but have enjoyed how breezy and cheeky it is. Even Megan Lai has come alive in there.
I agree. It’s definitely a hit or miss for my tastes. I am kinda following A Hint of You – but it’s definitely on the lackluster boring side. Two Fathers – I agree, it’s very very cute. This is one of the better roles I have seen Megan in. Leroy is much better here than LF. YYN is too cute in his role. I like him best. I followed it daily for awhile, but I’m behind now too. I am also following one of the taiwanese dailies (makjang galore of course).
The only mandarin one that I have been following day by day is non-SETTV – Dandelion Love that was filmed quite some time ago. I’m not even sure why cause it’s not very good and I don’t have a particular love for any of the actors. But for some reason I’m just curious to know what happens each episode.
BTW – with all your posts on Fabulous Boys, I decided to check it out for kicks. It was entertaining to see the TW version of it. Goodness, Jiro looked much better pre-PS. The side characters are funny as usual (the managers etc). I will watch ep 2 to tamper the flames from KF and JOJ.
I’m surprised I’m not behind for Two Fathers 🙂 Although I really just skim 1 hour into 20 minutes, not that it’s boring but just not enough time to make it. Wendy/Wen Di is too adorable and I like the dynamics in the families and the OTPs they’re setting up. I’ve had a pretty positive impression of Zhang Tian Lin from a couple previous dramas, and he’s always fun to watch though I think there’s something missing from his loveline to be good.
love now its not that really bad.you have high expectation.as long annie chen and george hu are the best
I’m dreading the end of KF because, I kid you not, the thought of not having my Chris Wu fix every week is already giving me withdrawal symptoms.
I’ve been looking for Inborn Pair with english subs and having such a hard time finding it. Anyone know if it even exists with eng subs?
There were subs on viki when it first aired, but I scoured the internet and I’m fairly certain they are no longer to be found.
I honestly don’t get the media fanfare either. Personally, I don’t find them sizzling. They have chemistry; but its just like every other random couple being paired. It’s not in the level of say… Ming Dao and Joe Chen. So the love just rubs me the wrong way in that I so don’t wanna see them again after their show just ended.
But I guess they’re taiwan’s rising stars given all the previous famous actors are mostly heading either to china or military. Here’s hoping this is a good show, because I haven’t see a single good Taiwanese drama since… God knows when.
I agree, there are other Pairings out there with just as much, if not more “sizzle”. But for me there was an underlying sweetness with these two that was just too hard to resist. Not sure I’ll watch the new drama though, been so disappointed with TW dramas lately I just don’t have the heart to start another one.
Riding on their popularity it is no surprise to see George Hu and Annie Chen teaming together. Hopefully The story line would be more interesting than LN.
Two Fathers is so much fun! For those behind, it is still rocking 🙂
It’s funny actually as the follow up to this first media day, the entire cast was announced to the media, and til now, I still don’t know who the second male lead is as the media focused purely on the three pretty female leads. Even George hardly got a mention! Haha..
Hoping this is going to be good, though the Ady An/Mike He and the Sonia Sui competing dramas should be great fun too!
Just as an aside, I don’t think LN’s rating was that high?! Maybe better than the likes of Ti Amo Chocolate but wasn’t amazing. Also, they are axing the daily-9’s after A hint of you!
They’re getting rid of daily-9s? That’s sad, it used to be my hope that at least one of the 8s or 9s would be decent enough to watch. TT I totally agree that Two Fathers is super cute but A Hint of You is pretty boring on its own and terrible in comparison.
Is anyone watching Happy 300 Days?
yup, im watching happy 300 days too and i find it the most awesome drama for this year! full of anticipation for each episode!!
If you didn’t watch all of Love, Now then you really missed what the drama was about. The seriousness of her ovarian cancer/having the baby and maybe risking her life was not boring, neither was it trite. Families who faced or are facing real life threatening illnesses could get comfort from the characters…true the other love interests were not as compelling as GH and AC’s, but the family interactions were as real as daily life. Their portrayal as parents to be were very true to life and sometimes hilarious. OK, this is drama land with its share of drama antics, but thousands of people, and lots of Chinese all over the world,myself included, loved this drama. The media isn’t all what it’s cracked up to be. But, thousands upon thousands of watchers were touched by it, so my suggestion is, if you haven’t seen it through, don’t judge it by just a few episodes, or by the fact that you may not be too fond of a certain actor/pairing.
True. Been watching Love Now for 3 days and now having drama withdrawal symptoms.. even though 72 episodes kinda long but been enjoying every bit of it.
Yep.iam hundred percent agree with you.that right. Love now drama start to untill end that never boring for me and give me perfect feeling of happy, sad, loving..i love them so much..they are lovely together.fighting forever nini and goergu…
Love now good, but too many stupid characters!!!