Look elsewhere for the “right” drama.

Characters:

• Sonia Sui as Li Hai Ning
• Christopher Lee as Lun Zhe Ming
• Chung Hans as He Zhong Wen
• Michael Chang as Mao Zhen Yu (“Universe”)
• Guo Shu Yao as Tian Xin
• Jerry Huang as Fang Cheng Hao

Details:

• Taiwanese
• 20 episodes
• Original run: Nov 7, 2014 – Jan 9, 2015

Quick Rundown:

After finding out that her boyfriend of 9 years is cheating on her, Li Hai Ning, a 32-year-old publishing editor, is ready to make some changes in her life. To rescue her company with a new book, she embarks on a marriage social experiment by posting a Facebook ad seeking marriage candidates for her writing material. Through her encounters with the endless list of suitors, Hai Ning comes to learn about what marriage means to different people. Along the way, she opens up her own heart to more than one of the suitors and discovers what she wants in love too.

Our Takes

Anna: Nope; nope, was not a fan at all of Mr. Right Wanted. In fact, I think I spent more time rolling my eyes in annoyance than I did actually paying attention to this drama. The series trailer initially drew my attention because the production value seemed to be quite nice and very unlike typical Taiwanese dramas, which is a good thing. I had no prior drama knowledge or experience with any of the actors, so the fact that Sonia Sui was the star didn’t play into my expectations for it. That being said, Mr. Right Wanted makes me want to avoid all other Sonia Sui dramas in the future because she was simply the worst in this. Sure, she’s a pretty gal but her acting was subpar and uninspired (along with everyone else’s). Not to mention that her Hai Ning character was a terrible representation of “career women” or those who simply don’t believe in marriage. Even though she’s the heroine and we’re supposed to bear witness to her “journey,” I couldn’t care less who Hai Ning ended up with because I was on Team Nobody.

I honestly can’t figure out what the point of this drama was because it was neither entertaining nor enlightening. It wasn’t even a realistic portrayal of modern relationships! Besides really disliking all the main characters for their uniformly selfish and immature personalities, the story also did itself no favors with the poor plot development that developed into ultimately nothing. For the majority of the series, everything was on a plot standstill for episodes on end, and then some extremely random but somehow important thing would happen. Mr. Right Wanted should have either stuck with being about individual stories or one continuous story, but instead it thought it was better than that when it really wasn’t. And can someone tell me why this drama was so effing yellow?! Someone in the art department must have really liked sepia tones…

Estelle: So I didn’t hate this series as much as Anna, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped. Like everyone else, I was so excited of prospects at first, hoping that it would deliver on being different and fresh; I even dreamt that it would open a new world to the same old routine of the typical Taiwanese drama. While it did remain “different,” much of the concept was lost because of its needs to fulfill certain expectations of dramaland. The ending, in particular, was a big let down and a complete cop out. The whole series worked around how Sonia Sui’s character, Hai Ning, was not a believer of marriage, but the ending just tossed all that out the window. I had wished her character was more independent and self reliant, but over and over again she falls back into the giddy girl stereotype, waiting for a man on a white horse to whisk her away (which actually made the ending even more out of the blue). Not that there is anything wrong with wanting love or finding Mr. Right, but the way the plot line went I had thought the point was actually not finding Mr. Right. Is there some greater life meaning to this story? It feels like it is trying to teach us something, but I’m still sitting here scratching my head trying to uncover it.

Not only did the core concept of the series get buried under all the gimmicky episodic plots, almost none of the characters were actually loveable. I mean on top of the self-serving main character, we have an alcoholic pregnant cousin (seriously???) and an arrogant cheating love interest. Like really? Who am I supposed to root for in this? Maybe the only redeeming factor was Universe, whom I actually thought made a lot of sense even though his character was in a world of his own. I would have much rather watched his love story with Bei Bei (sorry, spoiler) than watch Hai Ning pick between the 100 suitors, all of whom she judges pretty harshly and then recants her statement soon after. The series tried too hard to portray Hai Ning as a “do-gooder” who supposedly helps these suitors find “true love” by pointing out their “mistakes” through blunt words but she just came off too self-important and self-congratulating to me.

I do think a lot of the words spoken were really good though, but just weird coming out of Hai Ning (lol, I’m a hater aren’t I?) Perhaps we are the lone wolves in the camp, but give it a whirl and let us know if you agree or disagree!

Catch up on Mr. Right Wanted with the recaps here!

This & That:

• Guo Shu Yao recently cameoed in episode 1 of Heart of Steel as a pole dancer.
• Michael Chang is supposedly in Taiwanese martial arts film The Assassin (聶隱娘) , but no idea what his role is yet. The movie is an adaption of the book by Tang dynasty author Pei Xing.