Meteor Garden (2001 TV series)

Meteor Garden
Genre	Romance Drama
Starring	Jerry Yan Vic Zhou Vanness Wu Ken Chu Barbie Hsu
Opening theme	(情非得已) by Harlem Yu (庾澄慶)
Ending theme	(你要的愛) The Love You Want by Penny Dai (戴佩妮)
Country of origin	Taiwan
Original languages	Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese
No. of episodes	27 episodes
Production
Production location	Taiwan
Original release
Release	2001-04-12 – 2001-08-16

Meteor Garden (Chinese: 流星花園; pinyin: Liúxīng Huāyuán) is a Taiwanese drama that began its broadcast 12 April 2001 on CTS. It is a live version of the Japanese manga Hana Yori Dango. It stars Jerry Yan, Vic Zhou, Vanness Wu, Ken Chu and Barbie Hsu.

Meteor Garden was very popular in Asia and in some part of Europe. Due to the popularity of the series throughout Asia, two sequels, Meteor Rain and Meteor Garden II, were produced.

Plot

The story centers on a plain and poor teenage girl called Shan Cai, who goes to a university for rich people, forced upon her by her parents. The university is dominated by a gang of handsome but arrogant students called F4, who are the heirs of the most influential families in Taiwan.

In the beginning, Dao Ming Si, the gang leader, hates Shan Cai so much that he gives everyone in the university orders to make her life miserable. However, Shan Cai's persistence gradually gains Si's respect and later he falls in love with her. Like many other TV series, the lovers end up getting together after going through a series of painful challenges.

Cast

Main Cast

• Barbie Hsu as Shan Cai is a hardworking, tough girl who always defends the weak. She first likes Lei, but then starts to have feelings for Si. As her life gets tougher, she just keeps enduring, earning the respect of all the F4 boys.
• Jerry Yan as Dao Ming Si is stubborn, hot headed leader of F4. He is distrustful of everyone but his three childhood friends. He thinks money can solve anything. He is at first is angry at Shancai for her defiance and gives her a F4 red note, but over time, he comes to love her.
• Vic Chou as Hua Ze Lei is a soft spoken and kind boy who's opinion Si relies on the most. His relationship with Si is almost ended over Shancai. He loves his childhood friend, Jing. He becomes Shancai's protector and close friend and later loves her.
• Vanness Wu as Mei Zuo Ling is a fun loving playboy who is very loyal to his group of friends.
• Ken Chu as Xi Men is the other playboy of F4 and close to Zuoling.

Supporting Cast

• Zheng Mei Dai (Belinda Cheng) as Baihe
• Zhang Ruo Zhen as Qianhui
• Ye An Tin as Lizhen who at first seems to be Shancai's only friend at school, but later betays her.
• Wang Yue as Shan Cai's Mother, while a loving mother, is deseprate to get Shancai married to a rich man. She is the one who uses some contacts she has to get Shancai into the F4's school.
• Tung Chi Cheng as Shan Cai's Father is always sneaking food and seems to have no luck with his job which he later loses. He seems to always cause the family financial problems.
• Zhen Xiu as Daoming Feng (道明楓)
• Edward Ou as Qinghe is a childhood school friend of Shancai who's father gains a sudden fortune and joins her school. He is also in love with Shancai but is willing to stay her friend only.
• Rainie Yang as Xiaoyou (小優) is Shancai best friend.
• Winnie Qian as Tengtang Jing who is very close to Lei. While he loves her, she seems to see him as a younger brother most of the time.
• Ke Huan Ru as Xiaozi who is a strong willed girl who is engaged to Si by their parents to merge companies. She asks to be Shancai's friend and Shancai cannot say no as she likes Xiaozi despite being engaged to Si. Xiaozi does all she can to get Si to love her, but gives up when she knows that Si will always love Shancai.
• Mary Hsu as Dao Ming Zhuang (道明莊)

Difference from other versions

• Shan Chai's Japanese and Korean counterparts, Tsukushi and Jan Di, had a younger brother in Hana Yori Dango/Kkotboda Namja who played a small part in the story.

Trivia

• Spawned 2 sequels (Meteor Rain and Meteor Garden II) due to its high ratings in Taiwan.
• Meteor Garden remains as the highest rated Asian drama overall shown in the Philippines garnering a 57.4% peak rating with an average rating of 42.9% in mega Manila and a peak of 73.0% nationwide with an average of 62.0% which was shown over ABS-CBN. The replay value was just so high, that when it was replayed again every Saturday and Sunday, it rated an amazing 42.0% on its finale.
• The show was aired six times in the Philippines, three times on ABS-CBN, once on Cinema One (ABS-CBN Filipino Movie Channel) once on GMA Network and in Q TV . Its first airing was in 2003, a replay on weekends in the same year, then in 2005 it was re-aired again due to insistent public demand in the same network. In 2006 ABS-CBN's Filpino Movie channel Cinema One also airs every weekend. In 2007, ABS-CBN's rival station, GMA Network re-airs the show in their own re-dubbed version, and year 2008 GMA's affiliated network Q TV aired the show again, but didn't attain good ratings.
• F4 members are now officially known as F4, after Japanese TV producers decided to use the name F4 in the live version of the anime "Hana Yori Dango".
• Meteor Garden, Meteor Rain and Meteor Garden 2 are the most reran Taiwanese drama soaps aired on ATV World, having played a total of three times for seasons one and 2, and two for Meteor Rain, including their run on cable channel TVB Classic.
• The Korean version Boys Over Flowers was produced by KBS in Korea is one of the most successful remake.
• Hunan TV China will be doing their own version entitled Let’s Go Watch Meteor Shower.
• Asia's Xing Kong (STAR TV General Mandarin Channel) also air last June 2, 2009 as part of BOF Trilogy along with Japan and South Korea Drama series.
• ABS-CBN will have their own version of Meteor Garden it will be launched soon and will star The Drug Queen Beverly Salviejo amd Don Anin as the mother of Dao Ming Si and most especially, Mavric Jean M. Utanes as Dao Ming Si.

See also

• Meteor Rain
• Meteor Garden II

External links

• Official CTS Meteor Garden website (Chinese Text)
• SPCNET Review of Meteor Garden
• DramaWiki entry for Meteor Garden
• KrystalHeart site for Meteor Garden

• Meteor Garden
  流星花園' at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com