Angel Lover

English Name: Angel Lover
Chinese Name: Tian Shi Qing Ren
Cast:
* Bianca Bai as Li Xi Ai 黎希艾
* Ming Dao as Yang Tian You 楊天佑
* Coco Jiang as Angelina
* Alex To as Yu Tai 宇泰
* Ix Shen as MARS
* Ramus Kam as Han Shao Xi 韓少熙
* TAE as Sunny
* Kagami Tomohisa as the angel
Extended Cast:
* Tian Li as Lin Fang Hua 林芳華
* Janel Tsai as Sun Jin 孫瑾
* Cheryl Yang as Vivian
* Chamder Tsai as Hao Yun 郝韻
* Li Jia Ying as Xiao Jing 小靜
* Da Ya as Xiao Jun 小君
* Phyllis Quek as Li Shu Yun 李書芸
* Dai Jun Zhu as Tang Tang 糖糖

Storyline: (Spoilers!!)

Angel Lover is an organization founded by a 28 year old woman called Angelina. When she was going through heartbreak and got into a car accident, she had no courage to wake up and keep living. At this time, a wonderful man came into her life and gave her courage to live again. She fell in love with him, but he had to leave her because he was an angel. He told her to keep on loving and spread love around her. In remembrance of his kindness and love, she started Angel Lover to help other men and women who are in need of a new direction in life, need help healing a broken heart, or just need a friend to be there for them. This is where the story begins...

Character Analysis:

Ming Dao as Yang Tian You
Tian You is a countryside boy who is trying to make some money in the city. He finds a job in an amusement park dressed up as spiderman. He is kind hearted, pure, and optimistic. The best thing about this character is that he is able to touch everyone he meets with his words. In the first episode he saves a woman who wants to commit suicide because she was hurt in love, but Tian You saves her life and encourages her to live again. He ends up on TV because of this incident and that's how Angelina discovers him. She recruits him as one of her team members. Tian You is the best Angel Lover. Throughout the show is he able to touch the hearts of countless women. This is not only a job for him— helping others is in his true nature. He is naturally good at reaching out to people who are lost and who need his friendship, and he is able to heal them so well with his smile, his words, and his genuine care and affection. Tian You often repeats the words of wisdom said to him by his grandmother, like the time he tells Xi Ai that good seeds will grow up to become beautiful flowers no matter what. He was referring to the fact that if a person is good hearted inside, no matter what their environment is, they will stay true to themselves and be beautiful. Tian You is willing to sacrifice even his life to touch another, and his is definitely the most likable character in the show. He is the drive of the entire series, and the audience cannot help but be enthralled by his kindness and charms.

This is by far the best performance by Ming Dao. He has showed that he can act in Prince Turned into Frog, but in Angel Lover he has reached another level of acting. In an interview he says that the character Tian You is so far a character that he played that resembles most closely to his true self. Tian You is innocent and kind, a countryside boy who hasn’t had much education, but he has the biggest heart. Ming Dao can be funny as the sometimes clueless and innocent Tian You who doesn’t know how to express his love for Xi Ai, touching when he tries to reach out to people in need, moving when he expressing his true feelings for Xi Ai, sad when he is in doubt of whether or not he deserves to be by her side, caring to everyone he meets, determined when he sets a goal to help someone, and very self-sacrificing in all shapes and forms. Ming Dao played a simple character, but a character who is able to permeate a dynamic of emotions to the viewers. He is handsome and cute, and the audience is completely captivated by him. The audience can see that Ming Dao has put in 100% effort into this character to make him look so real and so likable. He is a truly amazing actor and I hope everyone will support him by watching this show!

Bianca Bai as Li Xi Ai
Xi Ai is from a very rich family. She is Angelina’s sister, and their father is a very successful business man. However, when she graduated from university, she discovered that her mother is not her biological mother, and she was born from her father’s past lover, who has abandoned her. When she found out, she could not face her family and moved out. Finding her biological mother will be a major part in the plot of the story. Xi Ai, living by herself, is a reporter. She is often forced to chase celebrities and famous people and write stories about their ugly private lives. What she really wants to do is write real reports, but right now she is stuck with this job. Xi Ai is drawn by Tian You from the first episode, when she sees him in his spiderman suit kissing and playing with a little girl on the bus. She later meets him when she is on her way to find her mother and the two bond immediately. They coincidentally become neighbours and their relationship becomes closer and closer. Xi Ai is a very likable character as well and she is very compatible with the innocent Tian You. Although she is more educated than he is, she never once looked down on him. Instead she admires the kindness in him and later loves him deeply.

Bianca is a relatively inexperienced model turned actress. She is very tall and pretty, and she looks very good in her role. Bianca impressed me with her emotional scenes because she is able to portray her sadness and emotional turmoil very well when required. For example, when she finally finds her mother towards the end of the series, she certainly gave a superb performance. At other times she is curious, independent, fun, and very cute with Ming Dao. The two really make an impressive onscreen couple because not only do they look good together, one can tell that their hearts really connect. She can be weak in certain moments with her facial expressions but she has a lot of potential. She looks like she had lots of fun filming the series too. Overall, an excellent performance, and I’m looking forward to her future projects.

Coco Jiang as Angelina
Angelina, as stated previously, started the whole Angel Lover organization. She is the team’s leader, although she doesn’t usually participate in the helping process. Angelina not only looks like an angel, she is as kind and generous as an angel and many people admire her. She shows that she is strong in overcoming a broken heart and she has strong faith in the angel Michael that she falls in love with even when he leaves her.

Coco does a passable job in this role. When she smiles, she can take your breath away because she is truly a very beautiful woman. She is also very tall, has an awesome figure, and when she wears those dresses you cannot take your eyes away from her. She was probably chosen for this role for her looks. At times when she needs to deliver emotions, she is a bit stiff. Overall, I think she tried, but she’s not quite there.

Alex To as Yu Tai
This character only appears in the first half of the show. He is the oldest team member of Angel Lover and seems to have feelings for Angelina in the beginning. He also acts as a mentor for Tian You when he first starts out. Yu Tai is a mature and nice man who also tries his best to help others. He is at his best when he acts like a father to a little boy who never had a father. Later in the show we find out that inside him lives Michael the angel, but I never really got the whole point of this story. It seemed like they had to kill Yu Tai off somehow and found this excuse. He had to return to the heavens and Yu Tai disappeared from the plotline.

Alex To does a good job in this role, although it is quite limited. He is very good as a father to a little boy, so it was a little sad to see him severed from the plotline, but I guess his role as a mentor was over. He looked like he would be a good couple with Angelina, and I don’t know why they didn’t just keep them together.

Ix Shen as MARS
Mars is another member of Angel Lover. In the beginning he had a very little role, but later he became actively involved in curing a number of women. The best performance of him is seen when he helps a young girl who is very sick fulfill her dream of dancing on the stage. He makes a good friend to Tian You. I have never seen this actor act before, but he does a relatively good job since playing his character should not be too difficult.

Ramus Kam as Han Shao Xi 韓少熙
Han Shao is like a member of the F4. He is an heir to a very wealthy empire—charming, handsome, and a bit conceited. However, during one of the cases, Han Shao shows that he is not just a one dimensional character. His misunderstanding and lack of communication with his father makes him quite an angry person at times. I loved the part where Tian You lives in Han Shao’s house and makes the father and the son bond for the first time in many years. Tian You not only saves the women he gets assigned from Angel Lover, but he also touches the hearts of his friends.

Ramus Kam is certainly handsome. When he smiles, I melted away. He did a very good job portraying this character, even though it was a small role.

TAE as Sunny
I don’t know what the use was for the character to be in the show at all. His screen time was less than ten minutes in the entire series. I thought the director did a good job trying to develop every other member of Angel Lover but the character Sunny was neglected. He did pretty much nothing. I thought the last case that Mars did should have been given to Sunny to develop this character, but alas, he got nothing. It was a little disappointing since Tae is very cute.

Kagami Tomohisa as the angel
This angel always makes me smile. He has no lines in the show but every time he shows up he lights up the entire series. When he magically gives the Angel Lover cards to the various women, the viewer can sense his goodness. He is mysterious but extremely kind. Every time he smiles it seems that the world is okay. This guy did an excellent job playing the angel because his facial expressions were superb. I look forward in seeing him in other shows… I heard that he speaks a little bit of Mandarin but he is Japanese.

Tian Li as Lin Fang Hua 林芳華
This is the first woman that Angel Lover saves. I thought her arc was a little unnecessary and it was the most unbelievable story in the whole show. She is a middle aged woman who is slowly losing her memories and the only thing she can remember is that she had an appointment with a previous boyfriend of hers but that boyfriend never showed up. She waits at the train station every day, thinking that she is still in her twenties. Her daughter is extremely worried, so she hires Angel Lover to help her mother. I think the only good part of this arc is that Tian You understands what being an Angel Lover entails (he originally thought it was male prostitution), and he also got to bond with Xi Ai on his way to find the guy that this woman longed for. Xi Ai was looking for her mother, so the two teamed up. Other than this, the arc was unbelievable because somehow after finding the guy the woman is cured of her illness… which doesn’t make sense.

Janel Tsai as Sun Jin 孫瑾
I think this arc truly gave a very good beginning to what the rest of the series would be like. Sun Jin is a workaholic. She is very in control of her business, highly educated, and extremely cold. She is the ice queen. Her employees decided to call Angel Lover in order to melt her ice cold heart. This was Tian You’s first independent assignment, and he did an amazing job. It truly shows how well he can touch others. In a short time he brought out all the womanly and lovable qualities about Sun Jin, and they were very cute together (even though it was his job). Later he directed her toward a person who truly cared about her, her secretary, and she is finally able to live a happier life as a woman in love as well as a woman who is extremely capable at work. The actress did a very good job portraying her coldness in the beginning, her slow transformation, but was a little bad at delivering her crying scene. Overall, this is a very good arc.

Cheryl Yang as Vivian
This arc is among the most touching of the series. Vivian is a famous actress, but before she became popular she worked at a pub and posed for nude photos. This was because her father died very early so she could not complete her education and was forced to make money to support her family. Her mother is blind. Vivian as a famous actress is having an affair with a very powerful man who made her popular. Scandal arises when the two are photographed outside her house in an intimate pose. She hires an Angel Lover to act as her fiancée so she can avoid the bad publicity. Tian You is able to let Vivian see that fame and fortune is not the most valuable thing in the world. He sees how much she hates being in the centre of attention where one bad move can ruin her entire career. He sees the old Vivian who could do anything for her family. He sees the love she has for her blind mother. Vivian later announces that she is leaving the entertainment industry to return home. It was truly a touching moment when she stands outside her mother’s house, afraid to go in. Even though her mother is blind, she senses her daughter and tells her to come inside. This arc made me cry buckets. One of the best arcs of the series.

Chamder Tsai as Hao Yun 郝韻
This arc was extremely funny. Hao Yun (the name sounds like good luck) actually has very bad luck. She cannot help but get others or herself into a mess. Every guy she has dated has left her because she is the queen of the worst luck ever. She tries to commit suicide many times, and every times she fails in a very humorous way. She is actually the woman Tian You meets in the first episode when he tries to save her and ends up on TV. The two later meet again and many funny things happen, especially when Mars pretends to be a fortune teller. Tian You is eventually able to show her to value her own life. She meets another man who also has a very lucky name but has tons of bad luck. However, when the two are together, they are full of good luck! In the end, the two lived happily ever after (really, the show actually says this). It was a very entertaining and light hearted arc.

Li Jia Ying as Xiao Jing 小靜
This arc involved a young girl who is very sick but fights for life. I didn’t watch too much of this because I thought it was very generic, but it does have its touching moments. The father of the young girl is actually played by the director! He gave an excellent performance. Mars is this girl’s Angel lover. Mars’s sister is a notable character in this arc, where she gets tricked by a man who she thought she was in love with. It was Tian You that prevented her from losing all of her money and property. This was a very good arc in allowing Tian You and Xi Ai to become develop more feelings for each other because they investigated the case of Mars’s sister together. Overall, a really good arc with lots of cute romantic moments.

Da Ya as Xiao Jun 小君
This arc was the shortest. Xiao Jun is a coworker of Xi Ai’s at the publishing house. She wants to investigate this organization called Angel Lover and ends up becoming a customer. Coincidentally, Tian You is assigned this job! The major use of this arc is that the misunderstanding between Xi Ai and Tian You is cleared and the two really get together as a couple. This is around the middle of the series.

Phyllis Quek as Li Shu Yun 李書芸
Shu Yun is a completely boring housewife. Her husband does not come home very often, and every day she stays inside the house thinking what things she would cook for him. She doesn’t have many friends, and she is very conservative. She is also Mars’s aunt. I thought the character Sunny could be developed here to be Shu Yun’s nephew instead. Later she finds out that her husband is having an affair with another woman and does not know how to deal with her feelings. Tian You was assigned this job to help her gain strength and realize what she really wants for herself in life, and not for others. Overall, a decent arc with a good ending.

Dai Jun Zhu as Tang Tang 糖糖
This was the darkest of all arcs and another very touching one. Tang Tang is a woman that works at a night club, and she is a very miserable character. Money has ruined everything in her life. Her family is torn apart by money, and her parents abandoned her. Her previous boyfriend spent all of her money and even beat her when she didn’t have any more. Now she is making money in her sketchy night life, and her life seems to have no direction. Tang Tang meets a man from many years ago that she had a crush on and the two fall in love. However, this man is also part of a gang organization, so he did not want to express his love for her in order to protect her. He keeps rejecting her, and she falls more and more depressed. Tian You and Xi Ai worked together in this final arc to help Tang Tang rediscover her direction in love and to love courageously. The ending was bittersweet, but extremely touching. All the actors did an excellent job. Tang Tang and her boyfriend make a very enduring couple.

Other notable characters and stories:
- The little boy that wished he had a father
- Xi Ai’s fake mother
- Xi Ai’s real mother who appears at the end of the series
- Tian You’s last case, when he helps the other daughter of Xi Ai’s real mother finally deal with the death of her boyfriend
- Xi Ai’s old love interest appears, but he is not stereotypically evil. He is actually a very decent and practical person who helps Xi Ai’s family a lot. He also gives her an awesome opportunity to succeed in her career.
- Xi Ai’s family big crisis marked an exciting and thrilling ending. I won’t spoil it for you. Very good stuff.
- Xi Ai’s decision to travel around the world, but she doesn’t want to leave because she loves Tian You.
- Tian You’s confidence in their love. His marriage proposal to Xi Ai.
- The final scene with the angel wings.

Final Thoughts:
This is by far the best Taiwanese idol series I’ve watched, and it motivated me to write this review. I’ve seen quite of few idol dramas, and all of them are not as realistic and as touching as this one. Angel Lover has a cast of beautiful actresses and actors who, for the most part, do amazing jobs in the portrayal of their characters. I give this series 4.5 only because there are tiny plot holes here and there but nothing really serious that ruins the enjoyment of the series. There are some cliché things, but overall the plotline was original and entertaining. The music was also extremely well done and things were played at just the right moments. I recognized a few pieces that are recycled from other series (Taiwanese series tend to do this a lot), but they fit in with the mood so I was fine with it.

I’m looking forward to more works from some of these actors and actresses as well as this director. The series make me cry, laugh and truly understand what goodness means. There are many life lessons that can be learned here. The love story is sweet and realistic. Tian You and Xi Ai don’t have tons of love rivals and unbelievable things that stand in their way. They love openly, and they treat each other with such respect and care as a couple. The other love stories in the series are equally captivating. As for the plotline, I found myself caring so much about some of these characters that I didn’t want the series to end even though it was 40 episodes long. The ending, however, was spectacular. I would definitely recommend Angel Lover to anyone.