Easy Fortune Happy Life: Taiwanese Drama
2009, TV-14, 27 Episodes ★★★★☆ SYNOPSIS Yan Da Feng's grandfather was a hunter who had been injured. He survived because he was treated by Huang Chun Xiang, an herbalist who treated him with herbal medicine. He fell in love with her, and promised he would come back for her. Years passed and Da Feng's grandfather never did come to get Chun Xiang. Chun Xiang grew old, but never gave up. She still waited for him to come get her. Chun Xiang was also raising her daughter's kids, Xie Fu An and Xie Pi Dan with their loyal dog Anthony. Xie Fu An also studied herbs. One day as she was treating patients in the local hospital, Da Feng's grandfather was rushed to the hospital due to a heart attack. Fu An gave him herbs which helped him regain consciousness. After he woke up, Fu An face looked very similar to Chun Xiang. He announced that he would give away his fortune to the one who marries Fu An. Da Fengs doesn't like this and sends out a killer to end her (not knowing who Fu An is). Realizing that Fu An was the girl he met in the village, he agrees to marry her for the money. When Da Feng has feelings for Fu An, he regrets setting all his traps to send her away. With their feeling starting to grow, will Han Dong Jie and Jiang Zhen Zhen come in their way? Will Xie Fu An and Yan Da Feng be together for eternal love? Or will they separate their ways... REVIEW My friend got me hooked on Asian Dramas and this is my latest watch. I found four reasons to like this drama and only one reason to hate it, thus the four star rating. The Good:
The Bad:
I mean. The male lead can be a real jerk sometimes. In fact, in most rich guy learns to love poor girl stories, he is always a jerk. But Yan Da Feng really takes the cake here. Not only does he try to prevent an operation to save his grandfather’s life (ok, well, let’s be honest. The whole family wanted the guy to die so then spurring forth the story), he runs over an innocent bike (ok, that’s a normal jerk-guy thing to do I suppose), but here it is: he tries to get a person killed, causes a person’s death, takes advantage of the nice country bumpkin girl, has a girlfriend while trying to trick the bumpkin into marrying him, and has an all out bad attitude. Like. Bad guy! No one wants to be friends with this person, and for good reason. And to be honest, we’re not given much time to change our mind about him when he does finally make his turn around. Putting aside the whole cliché archetypes and plot, the hero sucked, and the girl chose the wrong guy. There always seems to be a really nice alternative for the poor girl, and yet she chooses the jerk. You know its coming because the opening sequence makes it very clear who this story is about. But it doesn’t dampen the frustration one feels when she’s being treated so good by one guy, and yet chooses the one whose been an *insert curse here* to her. Though ultimately the male lead does learn his lesson, and comes to deserve the girl he’s learned to love (though not as satisfactorily as most awful rich guy characters), I keep on wishing these super nice girls would stop choosing the “bad boy” and finally see the light. But to give credit to the actor playing said bad boy, he did a really good job of disgusting me and making me hate him, and wish (even after he made his change) that she would have picked the other guy. The other guy, Han Dong Jie, had me from the beginning, and the more time went on, the nicer he got, and the more I wanted our leading lady to pick him over Da Feng. Many props to the actor in this position also. He made me fall in love with him, and that’s what the leading man ought to do! Though I feel he got jilted due to some poor production. Ending my rant there on the male characters. I’ll admit, there were some awkward bits throughout the story. Though some of them I can understand. While our leading couple is trapped in an amusing foreshadowing situation, grandma is trapped in a burning house. Though I see the irony in this, it was unsettling to cut back and forth from a cute romantic scene to a dramatic one that ended in death. In conjunction with that, the quality of production was so-so. Not quite your B-Movie, but still lacking in filming, editing, and cinematography (where were you when the couple’s car changed from red to white in one of the final scenes? Did you think I wouldn’t notice because I was reading subtitles?) And let’s be honest, though some martial art skills were put to use, the filming and stunting was so bad I giggled when I should have been at the edge of my seat hoping the bad guy wouldn’t overtake the “good guy”. Ok. So I was hoping Da Feng would die when he was trying to save the girl (and he only did that because if she died he wouldn’t get any money), or when that knife came down through his kiwi suit, and if not then, then I really hoped he wasn’t going to make it when he so hilariously stumbled off the cliff and went rolling down into some forest. Even Dong Jie’s fight scenes were disappointing, and it seemed he might actually have been able to produce solid stuff if it weren’t for the poor production value. Aside from my disappointment with the same old choose the bad boy over the nice guy (I guess nice guys do finish last in these dramas), some awkward editing choices, and even poorer post-production quality, I really did enjoy this drama. Some others may disagree, but ignoring the same old storyline of the many rom-com ventures, this one had some freshness that was enjoyable. The sense of loss was real, the humor was well placed and fun, the characters had a well developed arch, and there was a satisfactory conclusion even if it wasn’t the one I wanted.
0 Comments
|
OTHER BLOGS
CHARACTER ARGUMENTS Archives
May 2016
Categories
All
|