One story, a bajillion versions
I’m Hana Yori Dango’ed OUT, people.
In the last two weeks, I’ve watched most of Meteor Garden and re-skimmed Hana Yori Dango. I’m not gonna lie — I’m doing studious, intricate prepping for Kkot Boda Namja. After this post, I’m gonna go watch me episode 1 of Kkot Boda Namja. ;)
Phew, where to start?
I tried to come up with a reason why this particular story of one girl and four boys is so damn popular as there continues to be yet another version of it made. And at the end of the day, I think the biggest reason is that a majority of the largely female audience of the HYD story likes the idea of a girl being a boys’ world — where she is not only an active participant in it, but where she’s the center of it. The idea of one normal girl being chosen from a bunch of girls who already have the appropriate “credentials” to satisfy rich, good-looking boys is a tried-and-true fairytale plotline; HYD is a modern spin of it.
I’ll preface this by saying that I didn’t thoroughly watch Meteor Garden yet and haven’t finished, but I’ve watched enough to make some comparisons between the Taiwanese adaptation and Japanese adaptation.
First, Meteor Garden is obviously, obviously not on par with the Japanese one in terms of the production budget — the set, props, costuming, etcetera — and on top of that, it’s dated. Jerry Yan’s outfits literally cause me physical pain when I see them and the banquet outfits during certain scenes make my eye twitch ferociously. Dramas have gotten more grandiose over time and I’m positive that if Taiwan were to make an updated drama version of the Hanadan story, it’d be comparable to that of the Japanese and Korean.
Aesthetics aside, I enjoyed what I watched of Meteor Garden and I can see it standing its own as a good adaptation of the original story. I don’t know the original manga version of Hanadan, but Meteor Garden adapted most — if not all — of the story points that the Japanese dorama version adapted so I don’t think adaptation is a good point of comparison between the two.
What is a point of comparison is how the writers and director chose to emotionally invest into each of the story points. I have a general problem with Japanese problems being a little bit too short, and I think that mangas turned into dramas need to have a bit of padding to the storylines, or they become way too unrealistic and not believable. I know the first time I watched Hana Yori Dango, I was frustrated at how non-plausible the Sakurako storyline was, how it moved way too fast and felt choppy.
On the other hand, Meteor Garden was 20 episodes and was meant to include a longer story arch, whereas the Japanese version just broke the story up into season 1 and season 2. I appreciated that there was more sequence and explanation in Meteor Garden, but some times the episodes dragged. (What would be perfect would be a 14-16 episode story, a la traditional Kdrama style, but Kkot Boda Namja is doing 24 eps, so I’m a little bit worried.)
And because if I were to compare every little thing, I’d be writing forever, so I’ll just talk about the three leads in the two versions. I’m using the characters’ names in Japanese because that’s what the original characters were, and the funny thing is that in the Taiwanese version, the characters names were just what the Kanji of the Japanese names were, with the exception of Makino’s character. Jerry Yan’s name was 道明寺 and Matsumoto Jun’s name was 道明寺; only diff is that 道明寺 in Chinese is “Dao Ming Si” and in Japanese it’s “Domyouji,” hee.
Barbie Xu and Inoue Mao as 牧野 つくし
One very noticeable thing about the cast of MG is that for the three leads, this is their very first official drama project as part of the main cast. The cast of Jp. Hanadan has all had plenty of acting experience before Hanadan. But, with that said, I think Barbie did a pretty admirable job as Shan Cai. The female lead in the Hanadan story is pretty hard to hate because I’ve pretty much NEVER encountered a really kickass, badass girl lead in all the Asian dramas I’ve watched — someone who doesn’t take shit from anybody; someone who doesn’t go into a weepy, drooly mess whenever the romance isn’t going the way it’s supposed to; and most importantly, someone who sticks by what she says.
Barbie and Inoue are both suitable actresses on that front and if I were to pick on one tiny thing, it’s only that the Japanese and Taiwanese acting style are different — and this, I think, stems from the difference in cultures. The Japanese version was much more closely tied to the manga version, so a lot of the language and mannerisms are like those in the manga, which in turn means that it’s a lot more exaggerated, cartoonish, outlandish. I don’t mind much the cartoonishness, but I personally do not like listening to the Japanese language being spoken for extended periods of time, so that took away from my enjoyment of the portrayal of some characters.
Jerry Yan and Matsumoto Jun as 道明寺 司
It really pains me to say this, but Matsumoto Jun was leaps and leaps ahead of Jerry in playing the Domyouji character. Matsujun really IS that guy — way too proud of himself, a little bit retarded, and thinks he’s waaay hotter than he actually is. I think the Domyouji character is kind of loveable in the way he’s really stupid with his own language, but he also is someone who really alternates between extremely hot-headed and astonishingly warm-hearted. Matsujun got that down but Jerry…not so much. He wasn’t strong enough for the strong emotions and a little bit too weak on the softer emotions. Can’t believe I’m praising Matsujun.
Vic Zhou and Oguri Shun as 花沢 類
The Rui character is probably universally regarded as better than Domyouji’s character :P
So it’s mighty crucial who plays him and in this, I gotta give it again to the Japanese actor. Shun got this role DOWN. Rui is supposed to be quiet, sentimental and thoughtful, but all I thought of Vic’s Hua Zi Lei was that he was downright depressing and slightly morbid. Vic’s drastically improved as an actor, but for the Rui in the Hanadan story, props all the way for Shun.
The only thing I wished for is that he were more assertive with his position in F4. Souljiro and .. the other guy are obviously there as sidekicks, but Rui is actually the other person Domyouji considers as an equal and thus I wished Rui were more enunciated with his actions sometimes. But that’s something for the Rui character and not really something for the actors, seeing as they just do as the story tells them to do.
