"Meteor Garden
2018 Review: The Phoenix from The Ashes"
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Nabil Bakri
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Key
Abbreviations: MG (Original Meteor Garden/2001), MG18 (Meteor Garden
Remake/2018), BOF (Boys Over Flowers or Boys Before Flowers/2009)
M I G H T.C O N
T A I N.S P O I L E R
INTRODUCTION
As usual, a very long introduction…
2018 is a very bizarre year for me because I do not like TV shows, soap operas, TV series, you name it. I do not like to be put to a situation in which I have to wait for days and months just to know the ending of a story. Even with such a blessing like Netflix that introduced the new trend of binge-watching, I still hate to wait the next season to be released. I stopped watching Game of Thrones, Kyle XY, Smallville, and several other series simply because I hate to wait. This does not mean that these are bad programs, but just a personal vendetta concerning endless episodes of a show. I even hate popular anime, at the time, such as Naruto, One Piece, and Detective Conan, simply because I find myself unable to wait any longer and decided to just let go. It’s frustrating how I could fall for an anime so easily but then just hate them because the ending seems so far and far away. But I love shorter series or mini-series like Ghost at School (20 eps), Trouble Chocolate (20 eps), Mildred Pierce (5 eps), and many other series. I also love sitcoms like Friends or series/shorts like Doraemon and Tom & Jerry, basically shows that you can enjoy without a proper knowledge of every episode listed in the entire show. I can watch an episode of Tom & Jerry without asking why they attack each other. But I need to know how can a small boy becomes a detective in Detective Conan.
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| (*) |
And as I said, 2018 is so bizarre. Not only I finally saw popular TV series, but they are dramas made for teen girls. I was like “wtf’s happening to me!?” Earlier this year I decided to give Korean drama a try because I hate K-drama so much. I thought, how can I judge a drama before I saw it? Then I decided to try watching K-dramas. Nothing worked. The one that I remember the most was I am Not a Robot which I failed to view to the end because I just hate it but not because of my sentimentality, but because these kind of shows are plain illogical and nonsensical. I am not here for the beautiful girls and handsome boys, I want an affirmatively solid story. But here I am, presenting to you my thoughts on the 2018 Meteor Garden. It could only means that I’ve seen the entire show, but why? I think I mentioned the reason in my previous articles already (“Meteor Garden (2001): Looking Back to the Sensation of a Generation” and “Boys Over Flowers, A Retrospect”) and if you’ve been there, I don’t think you want to read a recap on that. However, the more objective reason is that this show is popular and I think I need to share my thoughts as a continuation to this kind of article in the ‘series’ I like to call ‘Cinderella Stories in Popular Culture’ or simply the last entry (so far) to the trilogy of articles concerning the worldwide phenomenon of Hana Yori Dango TV adaptations. Let’s just begin…
FIRST IMPRESSION
When I knew that MG18 consists of 49 episodes (50 on TV), I was shocked. I think the love story between Shan Cai and Dao Ming Si is indeed interesting, but perhaps, does not need a whopping 49 episodes to convey. The original MG takes 27 episodes and the Korean version, BOF, takes 25 episodes to complete, and I already think that BOF is somewhat dragged. I was afraid that prolonging the episodes will resulting in unnecessary plots being added to the show. The new faces were unable to excite me. Shen, Dylan, Darren, Caesar, Connor, and many other characters were unable to impress me in my very first impression, judging the show at a glimpse. The songs were also less memorable and I thought it’s going to fit the shoes of BOF instead of the original MG. But that’s the first impression. There were still 48 episodes to go. Even though I think the quality gets better as more episodes went through, I do think that it’s going to be better if the show could deliver a more impressive pilot. There are many viewers decided not to continue watching MG18 simply because the pilot fails to impress them.
F4 BUT NOT F4
I think MG18 tried to fix the flaws of the original’s storyline but ended up fixing nothing and adding more problems. This is the very problem that plagued Disney’s live action version of Beauty and the Beast (2016) in which the movie tries to answer some old questions by adding new questions and in the end, those changes are pointless. MG18 decided to add more realistic quality of F4 (apart from the fact that this series should follow China’s censorship rules) but in the end, the effort is just degrading the charm that made the original F4 in MG so powerful. These are spoiled young men who know nothing about hard work, respect, and sacrifice. This is F4. Now bear in mind that the exaggerated features of F4 members make the group stands out from the rest of the world. These are naturally handsome, born-rich guys who don’t understand (the value of) life and therefore, Shan Cai’s involvement in their lives is necessary and thus moves the story forward.
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| (Dylan Wang as Dao Ming Si) |
Dao Ming Si, in MG18 is indeed rich, but he does not need his family’s wealth to support him financially because he knows how to make money since he was 18. He, and his F4 friends, are also very smart and accepted by the university as students not because of their parents’ influence, but because they study hard and become very smart. If Dao Ming Si (and his friends) are so mature already, what is the point of the story? The point is how Shan Cai change Si, and since Si is mature already, why do we still need Shan Cai? And, if Dao Ming Si is actually immature and needs Shan Cai to change him, how come he knows the meaning of hard work and responsibility that he could be accepted by such a respected university and makes money since he was 18? See, the effort to make Dao Ming Si more ‘realistic’ is actually dragging him away from ‘realistic’. The 2001-established story behind Dao Ming Si is the most appropriate gasoline to fuel the story forward.
Dao Ming Si is selfish and spoiled. He knows nothing about hard work, he is unable to sustain his own life financially without the support from his family and the only reason he’s accepted to such a respectable university is because his family ‘owns’ it. This is what makes Shan Cai’s character so important, the Beauty that able to drag the Beast away to become the Prince. I found one disturbing flaw of MG18 concerning this issue. Dao Ming Si is actually financially independent from his mother, but why, when his mother decided to block all of his credit card accounts, he seems powerless. If he makes money on his own, he should have a separated account that has no connection to his mother. Plus, getting inside the stock market is not something that does not require any smart decisions, so being unable to access his inheritance should not be a problem. But this is a problem of its own. Dao Ming Si is supposed to be freaked out because he knows nothing of how to sustain his own life financially, that’s why his mother’s decision to block all the access to her money is a huge deal to the overall story. Of course, this is not the only case of inconsistency I found throughout the show, but I just want to say that if something is not broken to begin with, you should never try to fix it.
I also want to point out how MG18 F4 is not as popular nor as powerful as MG or even BOF. This way, we are unable to comprehend how serious it is when you get a Red Card or, in MG18 case, a Joker Card. Students and lecturers are afraid of the F4 because they really are powerful and mean and their parents let them to act whatever they want. They don’t understand important aspects of life such as compassion and understanding, so no matter what you say, when you got yourself in their way, there’s nothing you can do but pray. See? This is serious!
LESS IS LESS
The violence in MG18 is seriously toned down. They said it’s because of China’s censorship. But we had DVDs since 1996 that enables studios to release ‘uncut’, ‘unrated’, or ‘extended’ versions of their shows. Certainly, with digital platforms we have today, we can do the same thing: presenting the violent-free free viewing on TV and presenting the unrated version for a DVD or Digital purchase. This is important simply because violence is essential in MG. This way we know how powerful F4 is and how strong Shan Cai is. In this case, Less is not More, but Less is Less. One crucial flaw of this decision is when Dao Ming Si lets the punks beat him to save Shan Cai. In the original, the scene where Shan Cai sacrifices herself to protect Dao Ming Si is indeed very powerful and moves the story one huge leap forward. The violence is necessary, the violence is meaningful. That Shan Cai cares a lot about Dao Ming Si she covers him from the knock of a wooden chair is meaningful. How can you not include this scene, to me, is painful.
SONGS
The English songs River (Bishop Brigg) and Say Something (A Great Big World) are misplaced, in all over the place. Why not adding more Chinese songs or make new songs to fit the vibe of a particular scene? Plus, MG18 relies on the original MG songs way too much. It’s good, actually, especially for people like me who find MG fascinating and know all of its songs. But at the same time, it’s bad because it relies on the success of its predecessor and it offers nothing new, really.
PRODUCT PLACEMENT
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| (Craig advertising SONY VAIO/copyright MGM Pictures) |
I know that you need the money to produce the movie, but if you want to put some product placements in your program, please be reasonable. Product placement really ruins the feel of MG18 to me because eventually, it’s all about business and money. I know that the production needed money and the final product means to make money, but please make it less obvious. MG18 does not only show vibrant scenes involving a product placement, but exaggerating it, as if the whole scene is DEDICATED for a commercial. You could see a lot of Mercedes cars in Jurassic World, but that does not make you stop to think that you’re watching a car commercial. From beverages to anti-dandruff shampoo, MG18 is a 50 episodes-long commercial. Even in the most endearing or saddening scenes, there are product placements and that angers me all the time.
FLASHBACK
Few flashbacks are wonderful and sometimes necessary, underlying a specific important scene that affects the previous scenes and the present scene. It means that “this scene is important, let me remind you about it, and don’t forget about it next time!” But too many flashbacks is a pain and there are too many flashbacks in MG18. Plus, a similar flashback would be presented in multiple scenes in multiple episodes and took a lot of time to finish. An unnecessary flashback could prolong a 2-minutes of a scene to a painful dragged 5-7 minutes of junk. I bet if they combine all the flashback scenes together, it could fit the duration of two episodes meaning that they could decrease the 49 episodes to just 47 (not a big difference, still) if they just delete all the unnecessary flashbacks.
DAO MING FENG
&
HUA ZE LEI
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| (Wang Lin as Dao Ming Feng) |
The characters Dao Ming Feng and Hua Ze Lei are the two that I praised the most in the original MG, so if there’s a let-down in MG18, I could tell. I have no objection to the choices for actors playing these two characters and I think Wang Ling plays the role of Dao Ming Feng elegantly. However, there’s a quality in Zhen Xiu as the original Dao Ming Feng that’s missing in Ling’s portrayal. The new Feng is less nasty, less smart (The Dao Ming Group is in the brink of bankruptcy), and although she is intimidating, the original Feng is way more intimidating and plain bitter. I appreciate the effort to show more dimensions of Dao Ming Feng, but then again, I think the change of her personality should be a different story for a different time. My favourite new look on her character, however, is when she screams hopelessly at Dao Ming Si, bragging about how the Dao Ming Group would be gone if Si refuses to marry He Yuan Zi. As interesting as it might be, the change in Dao Ming Feng’s personality is very fishy because I suspect that it’s simply an excuse to make a happy ending for each and every character in the MG18.
Now about Hua Ze Lei. I think Darren Chen is a good choice for portraying Lei, but I do not like the way it is portrayed that Lei does not love Shan Cai romantically. The original MG shows us how Lei actually love Shan Cai, but he’s missing the chance and thus making his decision to support A Si the ultimate sacrifice. MG18 kept me guessing whether or not Lei is romantically in love with Shan Cai because if he does, it will make his sacrifice even harder, more painful, more realistic, and more meaningful. But no, it’s uncertain but probably Lei does not really love Shan Cai that way. He’s just a friend, now move on to the next point!
MEI ZUO AND CAINA
This is the suspect for the crime of prolonging a simple story to 49-long episodes. I appreciate how they added the story of a cooking competition in order to, at least, fill Shan Cai’s CV as a possible daughter in-law for Dao Ming Feng. This addition also helps the story move away from focusing too much on Shan Cai family’s financial problems because her success in the competition helps her family to start a restaurant, so the time for talking about their financial problems can be used for telling us something else that is, hopefully, more important. Now this is exciting!
Sadly, NO! They added a very unimportant love story between Mei Zuo and Caina. My problem is not to this kind of addition per se, but because such addition DISTRACT the story away from Dao Ming Si and Shan Cai to these two characters. Yes, they are important characters, but we want to know the progress of A Si and Shan Cai’s relationship, not this, because ultimately, it affects nothing between A Si and Shan Cai. This is why I think it’s a good story but it’s a different story for a different time. Make a spin-off or something, Cooking Meteor, Meteor Soup, The Milky Way Garden, or something!
XI MEN AND XIAOYOU
My complain is similar to mine in BOF, you might want to read it HERE
THE ENDING
Towards the ending, I could see everything started to fall apart. It’s a mess. It is plain illogical, the opposite of the original. One might say that MG is illogical, but I dare to say that MG18 is way more illogical. I’ve said many times about logical versus illogical and plausibility in a story. MG18 shows that Shan Cai has to stand against the wild weather for a very long time while in reality, she would never be able to sustain such action for such a long time. In the original MG, Shan Cai has to do the same thing, but in a shorter period of time and resulting in a more logical closure. Dao Ming Feng watches Shan Cai’s determination and after a debate with her daughter, she finally decided to step back and let Shan Cai be with Dao Ming Si. Her decision, however, does not change her overall personality.
In order to make everything happy in the end or achieving a ‘happily ever after ending’, MG18 sacrifices more of its potential to achieve a more realistic ending the way its predecessor does. In MG, not everyone gets the happily ever after ending and not everyone has changed throughout the show. If you want to make a story more believable, making a happy ending for every single character is not the right choice, it’s just making the show another childish cartoon. MG18 shows us an unrealistic portrayal of a wedding in which everyone gets a true love, even this character named Thomas gets a soul mate. Geez, might as well give the old lady Yi a Gandalf or something. Now, why is the original MG more realistic? Well, because in real life, not everybody can enjoy the privilege of living happily ever after AT THE SAME TIME. You should fail the test to that dream job so someone else could be happy accepted by the company. That does not mean you can never achieve that. You might, but maybe in a different time, in the next job opening. And when you’re accepted, remember that someone else should fail so that you can take the position. Hua Ze Lei, Xi Men, and Mei Zuo do not get their soul mates in MG, but that does not mean they won’t, it’s just a different story for a different time, but this time is all about Dao Ming Si and Shan Cai.
But the end scene pays it all off. It’s an endearing scene but does not wipe out the previous mistakes like that messy wedding scene, like really!? A wedding like that!? That’s plain unrealistic because not even Lady Diana or Kate Middleton’s wedding were such imaginative. Am I watching a Meteor Garden or My Little Pony? I can’t tell the difference right now.
KOREANIZING METEOR GARDEN
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| (* K-drama, taken from https://www.dramafever.com/news/the-10-k-dramas-we-cant-wait-to-watch-in-2016/) |
The thing that I like most from the original MG is that it is essentially different from Boys Over Flowers or any other K-dramas. It’s somewhat more realistic and serious and logical. Similar with what happened between DC and Marvel, I liked DC not only because I like its complexity (try watching Watchmen without a proper knowledge of common knowledge), but also because I like the way how it is essentially different from Marvel. DC provides us an alternative to a world of superheroes different from Marvel. Therefore, what happened to Justice League 2017 is a total disappointment to a lot of DC fans (You might want to read “Justice League (2017) is a Complete Mess”). I found that MG18 is doing exactly the same, mimicking the style of a K-drama, knowing how much money could a K-drama makes without a continuously built universe.
By the ‘continuously built universe’ I refer to the success of The Avengers. The Infinity War is not a miraculous film that singlehandedly encapsulates audience, but it is the result of a long on-going process of building the ‘shape/image’ of a Marvel product started in 2008 with the release of Iron Man. The K-drama we know today are the products of a long on-going process of the evolution of K-drama/pop, they are the current ‘shape/image’ of K-drama. You cannot just mimic a style hoping that it would define your entire style. I was hoping that MG18 would be as different from the current trend of K-pop as possible, but in the end, it just tried to mimic the success of K-drama and in doing so, MG18 alienated large parts of its previous audience who simply want a drama as powerful as the original MG. As we all know, the original was so big, it enthralled young and adults, girls and (sadly) boys, Asians as well as Americans, and so on. But as big as K-Pop is, it’s directed for certain group of people only (mainly teenage girls) and by making MG18 as close to a K-drama as possible, meaning satisfying a certain group of people by ditching others.
THE GOOD: THE PHOENIX FROM THE ASHES
In the end, if I have to say good things about MG18, minus the flaws I mentioned previously, I would probably praise many of its parts the way I praised the original MG because in the end, it follows the original quite faithfully. MG18 might has a rather lame few early episodes, but it caught up pretty well. I was not sure about the decisions they made to cast Dylan Wang as Dao Ming Si, but as the story progresses, I see him more and more not as an actor trying to replace Jerry Yan, but purely Dao Ming Si. I was also sceptical about Caesar Wu, Darren, practically everyone in the show, but they prove to be rather good choices. I criticized BOF for their treatment to Geum Jan Di, but Shen Yue is actually a pretty good choice for playing the role of Shan Cai.
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| (The original manga, Hana Yori Dango taken from MangaPark) |
A lot of people say that MG18 is heavily based on the original manga, Hana Yori Dango. But to me, the moment they decided to name it ‘Meteor Garden’ instead of ‘Hana Yori Dango’ or trying to find different names, they automatically follow the original MG. This case is very similar to (all) Disney remakes. It’s true that Sleeping Beauty is based on Perrault’s fairy tales, it’s true that Beauty and the Beast is based on a popular fairy tale, and it’s true that The Jungle Book is based on Rudyard Kipling’s famous story, BUT, the remakes are no longer based on these materials, but based on the Disney Animated Classics. Thus, in order to criticize Beauty and Beast (2017/Emma Watson), for instance, we need not to seek for the fairy tales, but we need to compare it with the material it’s based upon, which is the 1991 Disney Animated Classic bearing the same title. Apart from the fact that I haven’t read the original Hana Yori Dango, I consider MG18 as having the original MG as the source. It’s no longer an interpretation of Hana Yori Dango, it’s an interpretation of an interpretation of Hana Yori Dango.
I’d like to consider MG18 as a renewal, as the phoenix from the ashes, a refreshment to the story as old as time after witnessing a problematic adaptation, BOF. I don’t think MG18 as an upgrade because we don’t really need an upgrade of MG, but it is an update, a necessary one. Apart from many of its flaws, in the end, it’s the story of Dao Ming Si and Shan Cai that we all know and love for more than a decade. As necessary as it is, this update, though, is optional. You could care about it or ignore it. If you’re content with the original MG, you should hang in there. But if you want certain updates, you might want to give MG18 a try. Just like different versions of Windows (the operating system, duh, not the object you open/close in your house), MG10 does not eliminate the START Button or redesigning the desktop like Windows 8 did. It’s more like an update from Windows XP to Windows 7. More lavish, certainly, but with similar basic charms and simplicity, and does not mean to offer a completely new generation of operating system, but offering updates, new additions to the basic platform you’re so familiar with. As I said, it’s not a dragon from the egg, it’s the phoenix from the ashes, renewed but remains the same.
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| (* A Comparison, taken from https://starcinema.abs-cbn.com/2018/5/25/news/we-put-together-meteor-garden-cast-past-and-pres-39984) |
It’s difficult to surpass such a phenomena like the original MG and in the end, I think that’s not the aim of MG18. The original remains the most popular and the best in terms of story-telling. It’s going to be very, very difficult to surpass its influence. Heck, as a matter of fact, MG18 tries to pay homage for the original many, many times. And that’s good. The original MG has time on its side, proving that it’s beloved by many throughout the years, throughout different generations. Only time could tell and exaggerate the strength of MG18. Will it endure the test of time, or will it fail? Will it be renewed through time as Phoenix from the ashes, or will it just disappear like from ashes to ashes?
OTHER GOOD STUFF
This article is over 4K words and 8 pages in length, so thank you if you read this till the very end. But there are still so many good things I want to say about MG18 in mind that I cannot explain in detail due to the length. So, I’m just gonna mention other good stuff from MG18 that I failed to mention in the extensive review:
-The Cameo(s)-funny and memorable
-The Setting-as lavish as the Korean counterpart
-The usage of London than of New York-Current US situation makes the world want look away
-The Opening scene and the end credit
-Shen, Dylan, Darren, Dee Hsu, and Wang Ling’s performances
-The vibe
-The homage to MG
-The final song/closure of the last episode
For more insights, you might want to read
WARNING! All pictures belong to Star Ritz except indicated (*)
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