I just cannot tahan the female lead 侯佩岑!!!!!! For some reason, she just doesn't seem at all like the sweet innocent girl the character is supposed to be, & it gets on my nerves to see her pretend to be one.
Too bad couldn't finish this Vic Chou show..........but when the drama focus around the female lead, even the best male actor would find it difficult to overcome such a great barrier.............
Watched 4 episodes of Change back-to-back till 3:30am yesterday night, or rather this morning. Partly was because got very irritated with son's repeated night wakenings that interrupted my viewing of episode 4 four times in an hour, so 'retaliated' by watching a further 2 shows.
Partly was, because, the show turns out to be quite fun to watch! 木村拓哉's character a bit similar to the one in Hero, where he's the idealist out on the job based on his dreams & not succumb to the unreasonable workings of the system.
This time, the system is the Japanese political scene, & though it's a world different from what I'm familiar with, luckily the main character is also a newbie to politics, & hence the female lead have to explain the innings to him (& thus the audience).
It's quite fun to watch how 木村拓哉 reformed the people working with him one by one. Though I know this is not really possible in the real world, the script is relatively well-written, such that the reasonings were all sensible & believeable, & if the audience haven't been hit by a cynical world, they may well believe that such a scenario may occur in real life.............
A fun plot was how 木村拓哉 became the youngest prime minister in Jap history: all the female voters were smitten by the new 'Parliment Prince', a single, good-looking 35 yr old ex-primary school teacher who's willing to follow his strong moral values & not submit to the 'evils' of the political world. Thinking he'll be an easy puppet to manipulate, the bad guy of the show pushed him to the post of prime minister, so as to secure his party's standing in parliment & enable him to seize real power. Of course, in subsequent episodes, 木村拓哉 showed he's not the mindless puppet he was thought to be.
This plot would be easily accepted if you forget the Japanese culture & imagine the Japanese adopt certain American traits. ;P
Can't wait to see how 木村拓哉 reform the bad guy...............oh, pretty sure this will be the way the story goes, it's that type of fairy tale, see?
Finding the show more & more drag-gy............hubby has given up on it & rather play his PSP.
Really, we both agree, the show's low ratings were definitely not simply due to 朱孝天's "肥帅" image. True, he does look a bit too plump for most people's image of the character, even though he does have the charm (well, enough to be convincing anyway).
But the real pitfall is the script. In the beginning I was chasing the show like crazy, cos to miss even 5 min means losing thread of the mystery & plot.
But 16 episodes down, I'm doing my household chores while waiting for the draggy lovey dovey talking scenes to be over, so that the plot can continue. The scriptwriter for these parts must be from one of those taiwanese 琼瑶 shows!!!!!!!!!
Thank goodness for the impressive sets & backgrounds, & 2 rather lovely female leads. Otherwise, I don't think I can even sit through the show on 8TV..............
Motivation to watch: Thought will be interesting to see how this drama is supposed to help the Taiwanese tourism board promote Taiwan overseas. Besides, the lead is 仔仔, & I had a good impression of the female lead 陈妍希 from her 1st show Why Why Love.
Sypnosis: The 3 male leads were close friends from high school. 10 years since, 王传一 is helping out in his family's hotel business & 仔仔 became a popular novelist, who turned to driving a taxi to get inspiration for his new novel. Thus he met 朱孝天, whom they've lost contact after the latter migrated to the USA after graduation.
The show revolves around the friendship & love stories of the 3 men, with flashbacks to their high school days, detailing how 朱孝天 & 王传一 gained the friendship of recluse 仔仔.
陈妍希 is the subodinate of 王传一, & initially had a crush on the dashing PR manager. She later became the love interest of 仔仔, whom she mistaken to be a suicide attempt while the latter tried to get back his inspiration from her. 陈妍希 is also a family friend of dejected 朱孝天, who rejected the love of 陈妍希's sister, since he still couldn't forgive himself for failing to save his father's business.
Another subplot in 关颖, dream girl of 王传一, ex-fiance of 朱孝天.
Loves: Got interested in Taiwan's 阿里山 after watching the show!!!!!!! The place was filmed so beautifully & seemed rather interesting. I had thought it was simply another nature reserve/mountain, but think the place is rather well developed as a tourist spot. Wanna go visit!!!!!
Oh, & they did a rather good showcase of the 101 building: the fireworks on New Year's Eve looks wonderful! Have never knew it possible to have fireworks of a building like that! And now I know, if visiting the building, must post a letter from the post office there, cos will have a unique 101 building postmark!!!!!
Hates: the slipshod ending. Can't stand how all the characters repent/made decision in the last few minutes of their stories, when they've spent >10 previous episodes rejecting the other party.
Oh! the last 3 episodes were such a drag!!!!!!! Sooooooo predictable of taiwanese idol dramas to come up with some miserable twist to the story near the end, so that there'll be a happy end in the last episode.
And the last episode is so different from the rest of the show!!!!! They spent the 1st 15 episodes building up all the characters, only to have the main character repent in the last episode without any explanation of why he so suddenly 'gain enlightenment' & became the ideal good son & boyfriend. Did they have a different scriptwriter for the last episode or what???? Or maybe it was like the scenario in "On Air", where the last episode was filmed 1st before the prior episodes' script were written?????
Sigh!!! I guess can't expect too much. After all, I did have an enjoyable 13 episodes before the story developed downhill.
Especially around episodes 6~7, when the 2 leads started falling in love, it was soooooo sweet!!!! And so funny to see 仔仔's character get jealous in episodes 10~12! Really think 仔仔's acting has improved, watching the show mainly for him! ;) Pity he's so thin, would have been perfect if he looks a bit more healthy...........looking forward to see his next show!
陈妍希 was not bad, I thought. Even hubby noticed her across the room. She really reminded me of 大S. Wonder why she got so much bad press????????
Nearly every drama serial I loved has a good OST. Shows need good songs to bring the audience into the mood. And the story will help bring out the essence of the song.
So though I wasn't expecting much from the OST, since didn't really like the show's starting song by F4, I got to notice this song played whenever the female leads were having a sad time with their love life:
I believe in Love, by WOW 头号人物
The MTV for the song itself is actually rather boring. It was much more touching to hear the song when you're watching the drama's love story unfold..........really heart melting!!!!!! Kinda wish I can make my own mtv from the drama scenes to show you what I mean!!!!
Surprisingly, the rest of the OST used for the show are not bad, rather suitable for the drama. Don't think it's good enough to listen on its own, but as the soundtrack it did a very good job, I thought!
Vic Chou's 白 was not bad too.......well, at least I noticed the song when watching the show. Don't think much of the singing, but the tune & lyrics did the show justice, touching enough for me to actually find out about the song. So I guess it's a 'success'. ;)
Turns out to be not bad, funnier than I expected. 仔仔's character quite amusing, doing all sorts of weird interpretations of others' advice to him in his hunt for inspiration to write his novel. And 仔仔's acting really improved, now is less exaggerated & more believable when he acts like the crazed novelist. Only dislike is that he's gotten too thin!!! Not so nice!!!!!
王传一 is so cool in the show as a 花花公子! Much more good looking that 朱孝天, who looks fat in the show & has such a strange lopside hairdo. Looks like 王传一 got a more meaty role than 朱孝天, since the former appeared in the 1st episode already, while the latter only turned up from 2nd half of episode 2. Looking forward to see how 王传一 will chase the girl of his dreams......
