Taiwanese Boys Over Flowers. Oh wait, didn’t that happen already?

Characters:

• Pets Tseng as Ming Xiao Xi
• Lin Zi Hong as Mu Liu Bing
• Evan as Feng Ming Che
• Xu Kai Pin as Dong Hao Nan
• Cao Xi Yue as Tie Sha Xin
• Tsai Yi Chen as Dong Hao Xue

Details:

• Chinese/Taiwanese
• 29 episodes (in Taiwan)/30 episodes (mainland China)
• Original run: September 9, 2015 – ???

Quick Rundown:

Ming Xiao Xi is a girl from a small town who got into an elite university because of her martial arts skills. She stirs up a storm and angers some important people on campus on her very first day. Mu Liu Bing is one of those important folks and Xiao Xi must try to apeace him so she can continue to stay at the school. Will she succeed? Or will something else come to as a result of it all?

Estelle’s Take

Based on the popular novel Ming Ruo Xiao Xi, Moon River is a tale as old as time. Bad boy turns good when he meets the right girl to challenge his snobby spoiled thinking. But wait, what’s this? He’s not actually a jerk, but just misunderstood? Well, that’s… nothing new either. So in short, don’t expect anything mind blowing or out of the box, but it’s a fun piece with some quirky characters and colorful toe socks to boot.

Pets Tseng is the typical country bumpkin who turns out to be a kickass girl with her own agenda and plan. She doesn’t play by the rules and she doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. She is either oblivious or she is really different. I mean, which is it? I don’t know, but she’s got spunk and her facial expressions are always amusing. If you have ever seen another Taiwanese drama series, then you can imagine what I’m talking about. The dramatic overacting? Oh yup, plenty of that here.

Lin Zi Hong as Mu Liu Bing, the main man sitting at the top of the pyramid, is your drama bad boy. He is the leader of some elite club infested with self-important individuals who think they are way too cool for school in their purple jackets. But the real cool people (aka Mr. Mu and his two henchmen) don’t wear the uniform – they wear leather jackets and dye their hair orange. For reals though, the orange hair is a bit too much, especially when paired with floral coats and what not.

Overall, this is not a drama I’m head over heels for, but it’s silly enough and simple enough that I’m willing to sit down for a couple of episodes here and there. There are a lot of semblance to Boys Over Flowers (one misunderstood jerk and one understanding melochaneous deep thinker and plus a fiery guy who thinks with his fist. Plus lots of shrieking girls who fall in their paths as they dominate the school campus). I probably won’t recap it, but give it a shot; it’s available on Viki.com with subs already.

This & That:

• Pets Tseng is a popular singer. She gain fame through season two of One Million Star, a Taiwanese singing competition.
• Both Lin Zi Hong and Evan are of ten piece boyband SpeXial. They debuted in 2012. Lin Zi Hong’s fan name is “black tea” which is a play on his name (hong sounds like red, and black tea is called red tea in Chinese) and his designated color is crystal purple. Evan’s fan name is “little rocking horse” and his color is royal blue.