I actually think it’s a good time to do another adaption of the popular shoujo manga Hana Yori Dango (Boys Before Flowers), but I wonder if the upcoming Meteor Garden 2018 will go to the source material in adapting or remake the first time Taiwan dramas made the story into Meteor Garden in 2000. It makes a difference as remaking a drama adapting a manga feels like making a copy of a copy hence the luster is dimmer, but if MG2018 goes to the source then it’s got less comparison to the original and a chance to modernize the story more for the tastes of today rather than the viewership of nearly twenty years ago.
The young leads of MG2018 have landed their second huge magazine cover in two months, this time Elle China February 2018 edition after being in the pages of Harper’s Bazaar Taiwan back in November. What’s nice is seeing adorable leading lady Shen Yue with the four boys, she was missing in the Bazaar spread and I wonder if it was because her casting wasn’t confirmed yet back them. She’s joining the new F4 of Dylan Wang, Guan Hong, Liang Jing Kang, and Wu Xi Zhe. Everyone looks fantastic and it’s also pretty cute that they have the classic curl Domyouji/Dao Ming Si hairstyle instead to Rui/Hua Zhe Lei played by cherubic Guan Hong.
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This isn’t Elle Taiwan, it’s Elle China.
I noticed you keep mentioning this series as purely a Taiwan production but it’s both TW/Mainland. I know Angie Chai is the prominently named producer since she backed the original MG but she needed the funding from C-investors since it’s where the money is at. The cast is mostly C-actors anyways, with the exception of Darren Chen and Xiao S.
This really bothers me that she keeps calling it a Taiwan production especially since only one of the five leads is Taiwanese. Angie is a famous named attached but the bulk of this is Mainland production.
See, that’s going to confuse people, we all know Tsukusa has the iconic curly hair, not Rui….so…not understanding why they switched the hair. Can’t help but think Guan Hong is Tsukasa now, not Dylan Wang.
dylan is still tsukasa given that i have been following the bts of meteor garden 2018 on twitter.
If they are really basing it off the old meteor garden…Vic Zhou’s Hua Zhe Lei does not look as smiley as Guan Hong’s Hua Zhe Lei based on that magazine…hope the drama proves otherwise.
Dylan Wang is still Tsukasa, but instead of curly hair, his hair is really gelled up and looks kinda like an anime character’s hair. It’s kinda reminiscent of Dao Mingsi’s hair in the 2001 Meteor Garden, except without the bandana.
Not even 1 of them comparable to the original casts..give me back vic and jerry!! Ahh..i miss my youth days..
Actually… it works for me that they switched the hairstyle around. In theory, I would have said no, but in execution, it really works!
Well, since Meteor Garden followed the original manga closely (I mean the first season before Dao Ming Si kidnaping arc, minus miss teen japan arc and trapped-in-snow arc), whether they go to remake route or adapting manga route will be the same right?
And as Dao Ming Si also has straigh hair most of the time (only curly in the beginning), and it make him look more menacing, it might be work, although he also has cute side and curly hair helps highlight it. Which goes to Lei’s hairsyle as well, it make him look more adorable, which he is as if Tsukasa is the spoiled brat in F4, Rui is the adorable boy, not the cool guy as in the korean version tried to show.
I hope that they will five justice to Akira character. In Meteor Garden, there’s no difference between Akira and Soujiro character except the Soujiro love line. Korean version also fail in this potrayal as well. While both is a player, Soujiro is playboy while Akira is the “aniki”, the only “adult man” in the group who always taking care and act as a glue to the other three “mankids”.
From what I can recall, this is F4’s third magazine cover, and the first one with Shen Yue. The first one is from Bazaar China and the second is from Men’s UNO Young! China.
But I’m so excited for this! Angie Chai stated that this adaptation would follow the manga rather than the original Meteor Garden. And from what I know, this would have 48 episodes (not sure) so I really hope it would. The only thing I’m worrying right now is if they would follow the forced kiss scene on the manga, lol. I hated that one and I’ll probably be uncomfortable with it, especially since the new actors are so young (though age-wise, they are the same with the manga).
The new Dao MingSi/ Tsukasa actor seems to look really handsome, maybe not photogenic, but we’ll have to see him on tv if he is a telegenic angel, hahaha. Cant wait for this. My hometown tv Network already secured the rights to air this, so excited yahoooo.