Best and Worst Taiwanese Dramas?

[fluffinduffin]

Hey there....

I'm just starting to enjoy Taiwanese Drama and just wondering if anyone could give me a clue what to watch (and also what NOT to watch).

I've seen MG1 and 2 and they seem okay, as well as some non-idol ancient dramas, which- apart froma few (i.e Chor Lau Heung 2001, Legendary Siblings 2 etc) - have also been quite good.

I'm bored with TVB and want a change. All advice welcome. Thanks

[invisible_dolphinbay]

these are some good ones
the outsiders
meteor garden
at the dolphin bay
lavender
devil besides you
it all started with a kiss

bad ones
100% senorita
tian guo de jia yi
mvp lover
xin yuan (the one with tammy chen)

potentially good ones (i've watched these)
wang zi bian qing wa
white robe of love
tokyo juilet
love contract

[foreva]

Watch

Prince to Frog
Huan Zhu Ge Ge I & II
It Started with a Kiss
Magician of Love
Silence

Not much else are really worth watching.

[Kay_Thi]

Good:
The Prince Who Turned Into a Frog
The Magicians of Love
MG 1 & 2
Mars
The Legend of Speed
Silence
and personally, I like Chinese Ghost Story

[fluffinduffin]

Brilliant.... I'll start with what you guys recommend.

Have just started watching MARS (But only the first 3 episodes).... it's pretty compelling! But saying that, most are for the first 5-10 episodes, then they start to drag.

[arachidonic]

Mars
Silence
The Rose(abit draggy but I'm recommending it because I like it)

I don't really watch Taiwan series.. so there's about the few I could recommend.

[stArXjOey]

Good one:
The Prince Who Turns Into A Frog
Silence (personally LOVE this show)
Devil Beside You
Magician Of Love

I wanting to watch Mars... Think i'm going to get the VCD soon.. Heard lot of good comments on this show.

[Gundam-Freedom]

Brilliant:
Legendary Siblings 1999
Hero Fong Sai Yuk
Chor Lau Heung 2001
MG1
ISWAK
Lavender


Ok:
MG2
Duke of Munt Deer 2000
Pearl Princess 1
Prince Turns Into A Frog


Worst/Bad:
DBY!!!!!!!!!!!
Monkey King: Quest for the Sutra
Love Storm
Pearl Princess 2

[Sparky]

GOOD
- Huan Zhu Ge Ge -- so it's old, but it's one of those series that'll always make you laugh and cry if you really like it, and total nostaglia feelings come along with it
- It Started With A Kiss -- the leads are good and have great chemistry, and this is just a fun series overall
- Meteor Garden -- Jerry Yan is quite good looking; even though this is an idol drama it has its touching moments
- Ban Sheng Yuan -- especially if you're a Zhang Ailing fan
- Smiling Pasta -- cute and fun; not a huge fan of the leads but the series is fun because of how unrealistic it is; has quite a few similarities to Full House, so if you like FH you'll probably like this one too
- The Outsiders -- Dylan and Ady! Sort of deeper than the average idol series, with still some hot guys (Guo Pinchao Guo Pinchao Guo Pinchao)

NOT-SO-ACCEPTABLE
- Meteor Garden 2
- Huan Zhu Ge Ge 3
- a lot of other sequels

[Suet Seung]

Good and Enjoyable LIST

Prince Who Turn into a Frog
Magicians of Love
Huan Zhu Ge Ge I and II


BAD ACTING LIST

Meteor Garden 1 ----I've only watched this recently and I thought their acting in this series is extremely mediocre and very poor. Jerry Yan, Vaness and Vic Zhou despite their somewhat good looks, they can't really act. Jerry Yan did poorly delivering his lines, he just didn't show much passion in his role, half of the time he seems like he's not confident in portraying his role and so he's carelessly "acting" not really making it convincing to the viewers. His facial expressions were limited too. He just didn't possess the power of authority, charm, arrogrance, charisma and all the things that make Dao Ming Si aka Domoyoji Tsukasa who he is. If Ming Dao was given the chance to take a role like Domoyoji, I think he would definitely portray the role effectively and convincingly. He's proven himself that he could take on this role if he was given the chance. Matsumoto Jun was a better Domoyoji Tsukasa too, despite his shortcoming as shorter and skinner, when the role calls for tall , strong and broad shouldered, he portrayed the character well.

Vic as Lei aka Rui - I think he overdid the solemn look and so his facial expressions seems limited too and dang, his wardrobe was also limited, I think for a long time I saw him wearing the same shirt! Although he does have the right look for the character, it seems like he wasn't so enthusiastic in portraying the role and was half asleep while doing it.

Barbie/Da S - I couldn't like her at all. I thought they could've chosen a better "actress" than her. She even had a tattoo on the back of her neck and on her hand. Which I thought was something directors or something would not like on actresses. Her acting was poor. I just didn't like it at all. She failed to move me.

Peach Girl - Another Manga/anime turn drama series gone wrong.
Had Vanness Wu and Annie Wu. Annie Wu was a walking and talking piece of wood! She looked really tensed and stiff. She sometimes slapped the male costars for no reason too. The Scenes when she was upset was just horrible. She looked like a bratty little kid shouting and crying and shouting and really just failing to make anyone convinced of her acting. This series hardly deserves a star rating. Very poor.

Legendary Siblings 1999 - Vivian Chen and Jimmy Lin exaggerated acting and butchered storyline.
Chor Lau Heung with Richie Ren - enoughed said.


Theres more but I'm going to stop here for now.

[yearning]

Good:
Toastman's Kiss ~ At first I thought it was silly, but I got hooked eventually and it WAS silly, but in a cute way. The lead actress actually has some talent and Li Wei was pretty funny in his role.

The Outsiders ~ For the first half anyway, and then it started to drag on. But I have to give credits to Ady An for her awesome acting, though Dylan Guo was mediocre, but I guess not horrible--plus he had the good looks to make up for it haha.



HORRIBLE:
Magic Ring: (w/ Joe Cheng and this horrible actress): Honestly, I wanted to crack up everytime it was on TV--felt like a high school drama club gone bad.

Meteor Garden I: I agree w/ Suet Seung--Barbie's "brave, defiant girl" was really forced and instead made her seem like a know-it-all (at least to me) while Jerry Yan could not act PERIOD (I heard he improved in the Hospital, but I gotta see it to believe it).

MVP Valentine: Again, bad acting and pointless idol show.

Reaching for the Stars: Ella annoyed the hell out of me with her reprisal of the stupid, idiotic girl who can't get anything right, yet somehow all the guys end up having the hots for her...right. She doesn't seem so clueless in interviews, dunno why she does this to herself. Hebe was okay in it, nothing special, and Selina was downright annoying.

Love on the Aegean Sea: Don't even get me started on this one. Chae Rim was a complete disaster, and Alec Su's acting still hasn't improved much. I have no idea how they continued for 40 episodes.

I guess I really don't like Taiwanese dramas much lol.

[Suet Seung]

Decent

Smiling Pasta - So far although Nicholas Teo and Cyndi Wang aren't really actors to begin with, and to be honest their acting isn't all that great, the storyline and how they do in portraying the characters, I suppose its passable and decent, they do manage to invoke some feeling and sympathy from me. Yes, their acting isn't perfect. Gino, who've I've seen in Prince Who Turn into a Frog, is quite good and decent in seeing him act. Although I thought his role in Prince was more stable but we'll see.



Worst and Bad Acting Continued

I thought Tokyo Juliet was a very bad drama. It bored me to tears and the main couple, omg, I wanted to strangle them. They were just not mature enough to be in a relationship period!

more later...

[Suet Seung]

HORRIBLE:

Meteor Garden I: I agree w/ Suet Seung--Barbie's "brave, defiant girl" was really forced and instead made her seem like a know-it-all (at least to me) while Jerry Yan could not act PERIOD (I heard he improved in the Hospital, but I gotta see it to believe it).
.

Hahaha I know right? Barbie seems more like a bad gangster girl yelling and cursing at Dao Ming Si's mom. Don't even get me started with the way she punches DaoMing Si. It's just so horrible. At least the Japanese actress in the J-Drama could throw a better punch and even though her boxer jumping looks really silly, she made a more believeable Makino Tsukushi than Barbie. Ugh, when Barbie fights back, seems like she's sneering and scowling aiyoh, Jerry and Barbie ruin story for me.

Word to the Wise, Watch the Anime adaptation and the J-Drama adaptation and definitely read the manga, its definitely worth your time.

I felt the Taiwanese adaptation went through the scenes too quickly, leaving no deep impression on the audience and really, really, failing to touch or move the viewers. I was not impressed. The deviations although at times are nice, just not great.

[fluffinduffin]

So many recommendations!! Thanks everybody!

But so many contradictions??!! So I still can't decide. It also depends on what I could actually get dubbed (Cantonese) or w/English subtitles. So far, I'm trying learn to pace myself and not watch the entire series in one go (believe me, this often occurs- where i dissapear from life for a few days and camp in front of the TV. It inevitably ends with me emerging from a darkened room looking like I'm going through rehab....)

So far, I'm going through MARS... and from all the generous recommendations, I think either It started w/a kiss or magician of love next. (But definitely looking forward to Silence, too).

In the case of meteor Garden... now that I've seen the Japanese Version, Big S's portrayal of SanCai was really rubbish. When Makino hit Dominoji (or however its spelt), you could really 'feel' the anger and the force. WOW. That's spunk, my friends....

Does any body else have any other recommendations for non-idol based dramas - perhaps ancient costume, or something different?

Which brings me to the point of why Chinese dramas are primarily based around Love....? No Crime(whodunnits), No Thriller, No Horror, No Sci-Fi?? Not just Taiwan but also TVB?? Why is that?

[Kay_Thi]

Bump Off Lover was a murder series.

[Suet Seung]

S
Does any body else have any other recommendations for non-idol based dramas - perhaps ancient costume, or something different?

Which brings me to the point of why Chinese dramas are primarily based around Love....? No Crime(whodunnits), No Thriller, No Horror, No Sci-Fi?? Not just Taiwan but also TVB?? Why is that?

TVB had its detective mystery series and thriller sci-fi ones (a good example is Mystery Files with Maggie Cheung Ho Yee and Gallen Lo as stars), I think the good TVB series are found in the 1990s for that genre. Of course they're some law and crime solving, perhaps you're not looking at the right places for series from TVB.

Taiwan is known for its melodramatic/romance dramas. I've yet to see any thing different.

[invisible_dolphinbay]

non idol dramas? meaning martial arts>

return of condor heroes
tian wai fei xian
proud of twins
tian long ba bu

[raila]

worst: "JUST MY OWN OPINION"

love of the aegean sea
HSDS
Meteor Garden

dat all i can think of rite now...

opps i forgot dat HSDS is a CHINA series not taiwan...

hea more to dah list

Legendary siblings
love at the dolphin bay
devils beside you

[kamx2]

So many recommendations!! Thanks everybody!



Does any body else have any other recommendations for non-idol based dramas - perhaps ancient costume, or something different?

emerald on the roof has a good-wide plot, it's not ancient though. But it's got tons of heartwarming, funny and romantic scenes. If you like romantic-bitter-sweet love stories, I suggest that you watch it. The ending was really heart stirring, I didn't find it heavy nor draggy tho. Wallace, Sun Li and Yvonne Yao were great.LMAOO The entire production was great as well... (it's actually a little similar with dolphinbay, it's just that it's more sentimental and romantic--i meant the real one and not the lighthearted one)

I don't know if the kid from heaven is of any good, but the scenery looks cool.


the worst?
Watching Magic Ring right now.. and so far I'm not liking it....
Heaven's Wedding Gown (I thought it was really draggy)

[foreva]

hmm.. actually I think if you thought prince to frog was juvenile, i'm not really sure if you will like magician of love, it started with a kiss or devil beside you etc.