So I knew about Liu Shi Shi and Ming Dao filming Happiness of an Angel late last year, a modern C-drama where he plays a doctor and she’s a single mom with a young daughter. They filmed the drama on Hainan Island, which is very picturesque, so I saw lots of stills with beach scenes and a pretty looking bed and breakfast. I figured this was a standard C-drama with all the requisite tropes, but when I watched the just released 15-minute trailer, my jaw dropped at the one-minute mark. I started screaming “OMFG, this drama is a remake of Thank You!” I don’t know which genius decided to remake TY, which was an absolutely stellar K-drama starring Jang Hyuk (in his first post-MS role and he was brilliant in it) as the doctor who has given up and Gong Hyo Jin as the single mom on the remote Blue Island who is raising a daughter who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion as well as taking care of her increasingly senile grandfather.

TY was written by Lee Kyung Hee, and is my second favorite of her dramas (I thought her best work was Sang Doo, Let’s Go to School). While its a given that there is no way in hell that Ming Dao can even touch Hyukie’s performance, and Liu Shi Shi is no Gong Hyo Jin either, the trailer is actually not godawful. It’s comparatively terrible, but taken by itself has its own charm. I can’t say this drama will be good, but since its based on the story written by Lee Kyung Hee already, at least the premise won’t suck. If you’ve watched TY before, watching this trailer below will be like getting a highlights reel of the same story. At least this time around the second male lead is so mealy there is no way he’ll have chemistry with Liu Shi Shi, which was one of the weaknesses in TY since Gong Hyo Jin had much better chemistry with second male lead Shin Sung Rok, while Jang Hyuk sizzled with Choi Kang Hee in a cameo appearance. Continue reading →