Taiwanese Romantic Comedies of 2013

Sometimes I feel like I am all alone on my T-drama island, but this year I heard more people talking about them than ever before.

KING FLOWER



King Flower, known internationally as Substitute Princess, started out as a very standard very predictable ugly duckling/childhood love story and quickly became one of the most entertaining "will they, won't they" dramas of the year. KF lacked in a lot of ways. Actually now that I think about it the whole premise of the show is seriously jacked, but it seemed viewers were too busy yelling at the screen and swooning over the chemistry three way to care much. So what if they only liked her after she got plastic surgery to become pretty? The ending was just a smidge disappointing, but Chris Wu.  That's it just Chris Wu. He's so great in this he is a sentence.


JUST YOU



Just You was one of the most popular t dramas of the year. I don’t know who's more adorable Aaron Yan or Puff- yes the girl's name if PUFF! Just You has just about every drama cliché you can think of, and that's saying something b/c you I know you guys can think of a lot. It's light fluffy filler and not much else but it's a lot of fun most of the time, even if the last few episodes are extremely frustrating. I personally wasn’t impressed with Puff, even if I do want to carry her around in my pocket. I love Taiwanese idol dramas so I'm well versed in the acting style and she misses the mark.  Anytime anything other than cuteness was required she didn’t deliver. I will have nightmares about her crying for months.

LOVE NOW



In Love Now George Hu and Annie Chen helm a very standard but very entertaining family drama. Their chemistry is awesome, even when they are supposed to hate each other and the workers in George Hu's office sit on freakin TOLIETS.  Like most long family dramas there are an awful lot of the elders sitting around being ridiculous, but fans of the T-drama brand of romance kept coming back for the lovable couples. I'm still in the middle of watching it. It's 72 episodes, but all the MLDers who commented on the show's page say it's worth the effort. And come on, who can resist George Hu?


LOVE AROUND



Are you looking at the pictures and wondering if I did the same drama twice? No it just has the same two main actors? Love Around is one of many dramas that loses the funny. It started out refreshingly upbeat and different and then it got sucked into a depressing black hole that made me want to drink away my sorrows, and I wasn’t even depressed before I started watching each week. There were two side couples that were sweet and awesome but after the half way mark the OTP was just too depressing. Seriously if you are already feeling down, don't watch past episode 7 or so.

FABULOUS BOYS



Fabulous Boys is that latest adaptation of Hong Sister's mega hit You're Beautiful. I don’t remember hearing much about this and there seemed to be no one subbing it while it was airing so it sort of fell of my radar. I must admit I have yet to watch it but with the impressive comments on the drama's page,  I'll give it a  go once the spawn go back to school. Some MLDers said they liked this BETTER than the previous two versions, which I can totally see because objectively I actually prefer Ikemen Desu Ne to YB and you know what they say about the third time being the charm. Viewers praised the show for it's more romantic feel and  couldn’t say enough wonderful things about how well Jiro Wang did in the role. I've only seen Jiro in one other drama and though by the end I liked him, I wasn’t over the moon, so maybe watching this will put me on team Jiro.
       

There's my rundown, you know you have something to say about these dramas!