Fated To Love You

Finally, after more than 2 months of waiting, I finally finish Fated To Love You (24 episodes) since I joined the hype when it aired the 12th episode in Taiwan and since then it’s pure torture to wait for ONE episode per week…

Fated To Love You Synopsis: (from Dramawiki)
A really unfashionable working class girl Chen Xin Yi has the desire to tie down her handsome boyfriend to be with her. Due to certain reasons, her boyfriend gets her to go on a love cruise and she started to ponder on how to lose her virginity and tie down her boyfriend. Xin Yi ended up taking cold medicine which made her drowsy and went into Ji Cun Xi's room. Cun Xi is the sole male heir to his family's company and has been in love with his girlfriend, Anna, for a long time. He planned to propose to Anna on the boat but she didn't turn up on the cruise. An island owner added drugs into Cun Xi's drink and Cun Xi became disorientated and returned to his own room. Xin Yi and Cun Xi end up having a one night stand. Xin Yi later finds out that she's pregnant and Cun Xi's grandmother forces them to get married. Will a couple forced to marry for the sake of their unborn child find love with each other?

Cast:
Chen Qiao En as Chen Xin Yi
Ethan Ruan as Ji Cun Xi
Baron Chen as Dylan
Bianca Bai as Anna
Tan Ai Zhen as Ji Wang Zhen Zhu
Na Wei Xun as Anson

My comments:
Hoho…I was very curious about the hype surrounding Fated To Love You because it broke all rating records in Taiwan and it’s now the highest rated series, dethroning its previous record holder Prince Turns Into Frog, starring the same main actress. I even read the novel version before watching the drama and when I started the drama, the impatient me read the comic version to ensure that it’s a happy ending. I really like the novel, it’s short and sweet and the drama followed faithfully the book until the miscarriage part.

I absolutely loved the first 14 episodes but the last 10 episodes gave me a headache most of time. It dragged a lot at the end and the story just turns around in circle. Fated To Love You is still a Cinderella story but it’s more mature than most of Taiwan’s idol dramas. It’s a shame that it started so powerful and mature but ended so childish, lame and corny. I agree that since Cun Xi treated Xin Yi like dirt at first; therefore, he should suffer a little and must have a hard time winning her back but the way it played out is just tiring. The drama could have ended in 18 or 20 episodes since a lot of scenes could be omitted and it wouldn’t hurt the drama (eg. such as Steven Chou’s second mistaken abduction, Cun Xi pretending to be blind, etc…~roll eyes) However, I was all teary when Cun Xi and Xin Yi finally had a proper wedding at the end.

The biggest discussion of the drama is who should Xin Yi end up with: Cun Xi or Dylan? I’m a supporter of Cun Xi right from the beginning although I do think he’s a jerk sometimes. When he’s a jerk, he’s really a jerk; when he’s sweet, he’s really sweet. When he’s with Xin Yi, you see the chemistry and sparks whereas Dylan and Xin Yi seem more like siblings to me. So when Dylan and Xin Yi were temporarily together, it just didn’t seem right to me. Character wise, Xin Yi is a character that I can relate to, physically or behaviorally. I just cried with/for Xin Yi a lot of times whenever Cun Xi treated her badly. She’s sometimes too selfless that it can be annoying. Cun Xi is one flawed character. He’s wishy-washy, indecisive and acts sometime like a kid. I just want to knock his head for being so indecisive that he ended up hurting both Xin Yi and Anna. I don’t really agree with his way of handling things such as being engaged to Anna and “chasing” Xin Yi at the same time. Dylan is like the most perfect character; however, because he’s so perfect that I don’t have much feeling for him. I just find it funny the way he walks, like he’s going to throw a fight anytime. I believe Anna is not evil, she’s just selfish and manipulative. She’s not the sole responsible for the miscarriage incident because the parties involved had a certain responsibility to it. She won a bit of my sympathy at the end. All the side cast seem like they came from cartoons, their performances are so animated (or exaggerated) that can be tiresome and irritating. Maybe that’s not my type of humor.

I wondered if Fated To Love You would turn out to be my #1 Taiwanese drama…but I guess not. The top spot for me is still Mr. Fighting!

* Themesong of the drama

Hins Cheung - Urban Emotions

I still bought Urban Emotions despite hearing people say that it's disappointing. I agree that there is a certain level of disappointment because Hins did not write any songs in this album and he's leaning more to the commercial path singing crowd pleasing songs. Furthermore, it didn't help that I absolutely found his first two plugs 他的故事 and 櫻花樹下 boring. I find myself not having interest in listening to the whole album a third time. I listened to all his albums and my favorite is still am/pm and I can conclude that I prefer him singing Mandarin more than Cantonese...

In short, what I love about this album is its title: Urban Emotions and the CD booklet.

Songs that I wouldn't skip:

- 不吐不快 => it should be his jackpot hit of the year but the mention of '吹水' in the lyrics kinda ruined the song a bit. What was Lin Xi thinking when he wrote the lyrics?

- 鬧鬼愛情 => the only song that gave a surprise and I found myself tapping along

His Mandarin and Cantonese Hate That I Love You duet with Rihanna were nothing special but gimmicks. Listen to the original version instead. 吻得太逼真, Mandarin version of last year's hit 酷愛 is an unnecessary bonus.

I'm in Wonderland!

I got these two albums yesterday; I already finished Khalil's concert and I'm listening to Hins' CD as I'm typing this.


I'll just focus on Khalil's Wonderland Live 2008 DVD + CD on this post and these are the highlights:


The most haunting performances: 南音, 每天每天
The most perfect performances: 拖男帶女, 叫我怎麼說
The most charming performances: all the English songs
The most lively performances: 愛的初體驗 (with Endy Chow), the MJ dance
The most surprising performance: 春風吹, almost unrecognizable after its rearrangement
The most funny performance: 歌手與模特兒, look how he improvised when he forgot the lyrics
The most disappointing performance: 蘇麗珍, I love this song but that performance wasn't his best.

It's always an enjoyment to listen/watch Khalil live because he's the type that goes with the flow and it's always different each time he performs. For this concert, I give him my thumbs up, totally worth that 20$ I paid and a special thank you to Warner HK for being generous this time releasing a DVD and a CD, bows again to Warner!!!

However, some minor complaints here. It's very obvious that they cut a lot of Khalil's talking (I want to hear his lame gags =)) and those blurry and slow motion shots took away the live feel, it felt more like shots for MTV. Too bad that his performances with Fiona Sit and Fama were not included in the DVD as well because it sounded really good in the CD.

When the camera was on the crowd, I spotted a few celebrities: Eason Chan, Wyman Wong, William So and Louis Cheung...hehe...

Happy Funeral

Happy Funeral Synopsis: (from Yesasia)
Generation Y's infatuation with romance, growing pains, and Facebook are explored in this delightful sequel to the sleeper hit TRUTH OR DARE: 6TH FLOOR REAR FLAT. This time, the rental unit at 6th floor rear flat is occupied by six new youngsters, who want to start a business together. The death of one of their roommates' elder friend inspired them to start a "Happy Funeral" business, so that the deceased' life is celebrated instead of mourned. As they go about their plans, the six of them will also learn valuable lessons about life, love, and being responsible for your own actions.


My comments:
Happy Funeral is really a “young” movie since we have the newest sweet girl Elanne Kong and two popular duo groups Fama and I Love You Boyz starring it and even Taiwan’s popular Lolipop guest starred it. The first quarter was bleh for me as we see these slackers being aimless and having immature and pointless conversations about 'crap'. The movie gets more promising as I’m more attached to the characters and I really hope that they would succeed in their happy funeral business. You see them maturing and being more real at the end. My favorite character is actually Tian Yuan’s Kay. I so LOLed at the hockey scene with Fama and Lolipop…haha, don’t mention Fahrenheit in front of Lolipop, we get that now :p

I was expecting romance to develop between them but it didn’t turn exactly this way, except for one pair and I thought it was pretty sweet. I’m so used to seeing Fama and I Love You Boyz being funny on screen so it was nice to see them a little serious and doing dramatic scenes. It was supposed to be a happy funeral at the end but I cried like crazy. How ironic!

Playlist of early August

- 未輸 - Justin Lo => first reaction: weird but catchy, it’s like listening to American hip hop but the erhu solo saved the song a lot.

- 四面楚歌 - Kelvin Kwan (feat. Kay Tse) => top 10 material of 2008, enough said.

- 劍龍在草地散步 - Fiona Sit => it’s very obvious who wrote the song…although I don’t fancy Fiona but she sure knows how to pick her songs and has the guts to sing atypical songs. For this song, you either love it or hate it.