'Meteor Garden' fever hits Asia<\/p>\n
Linda Boentaram, Contributor, The Jakarta<\/p>\n
It has been raining heavily in Jakarta, but not in the form of
\nraindrops. The whole city has suddenly been showered with
\nposters, pictures and other sorts of merchandise presenting four
\ngood-looking Asian faces, known as F4, from the Monday night TV
\nseries Meteor Garden.<\/p>\n
\"Dao Ming Shi! Dao Ming Shi!\" a seven-year-old girl yells when
\nshe sees a magazine cover featuring Jerry Yan, one of the members
\nof the Taiwan boyband F4. Dao Ming Shi is the character played by
\nYan in the drama series Meteor Garden that has taken Asia by
\nstorm.<\/p>\n
\"Yes, yes, it's Dao Ming Shi,\" said her mother, who then asks
\nfor the price of the magazine. From inside the supermarket, a VCD
\nstore plays a song featured on the boyband's debut album Meteor
\nRain.<\/p>\n
Apparently the TV series, which is broadcast on private
\nchannel Indosiar, has had exceptional appeal. Although there are
\nalways exceptions to the rule, it is not usual for Chinese dramas
\nor movies to draw this much attention from non-Chinese viewers.<\/p>\n
Yet Meteor Garden has made new history: The romantic tale
\nbetween a poor high-spirited girl and the head of a bullying rich
\ngang has received an enthusiastic response from non-Chinese
\nteens, who have adorned their key chains with Yan's face,
\ndownloaded the series' theme song as their mobile ring tone and
\nlearned how to sing the song by heart in Chinese. Many radio
\nstations, which usually stick to a playlist of hard-core western
\nrock and local hit songs, have also gone against the norm by
\nplaying Qing Fei De Yi, the upbeat theme song of the series. It
\nbecame the first Chinese song ever to be played on mainstream
\nradio stations in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Yet Indonesia was not the first to catch the meteor bug. In
\nfact, the TV series that launched the previously unknown and
\nrandomly picked Yan, Vanness Wu, Vic Zhou and Ken Zhu to
\ninternational stardom has gained stunning popularity all around
\nAsia. In its homeland, Meteor Garden has drawn an audience of 1.4
\nmillion viewers each week, and it has become the top show in
\nSingapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Malaysia.<\/p>\n
In China, where it is banned, hundreds of thousands of pirated
\ncopies of the series' videos have flown off the shelves, and
\n10,000 fans attending an F4 concert at a Shanghai shopping mall,
\ncried and fainted at the sight of the four attractive men.<\/p>\n
The show's huge success has had an overwhelming impact on F4's
\nabruptly launched singing career: their cleverly titled, mediocre
\nalbum Meteor Rain has sold more than one million copies all over
\nAsia, and that has been enough to convince the Disney studio to
\nsign the band to do the sound track for their latest animation
\nfeature Lilo and Stitch.<\/p>\n
Many theories have been offered to explain the enormous
\npopularity of the series, which was adapted from Japanese manga
\n(comic) Hana Yori Dango.<\/p>\n
Lu Yu-Chia, a Chinese media observer, said that romance dramas
\nwere always rated high among Chinese viewers, and that is
\nTaiwan's specialty in comparison to Hong Kong and China.<\/p>\n
Angie Chai, the general manager of Comic Productions and
\ncreator of F4, said that in Taiwan the boys were so popular
\nbecause the divorce rate was incredibly high and women dream of
\nperfect princes.<\/p>\n
What about in Indonesia? A leading teenage magazine asked
\nseveral young models and artists about what they think makes the
\nseries so popular. Most of the answers that came back said it was
\nthe presence of F4 who, according to one model, would not be so
\nattractive if they did not play as a group, and the series'
\nunusually light plot, which -- unlike sappy old-fashioned dramas
\nor kung fu series -- closely relates to young people's lives.<\/p>\n
Meteor Garden is not simply counting on its handsome cast --
\nanother series that starred F4, Come to My Place, turned out to
\nbe a flop. Meteor Garden is popular because it has all the right
\ningredients: a good story, interesting characters, a good
\ndirector, just the right level of acting and apt theme songs.<\/p>\n
Japanese manga has always been popular for its romantic plots,
\nwhich have the right mixture of humor, fantasy and tragedy, and
\nin the hands of director Zhai Yue-Xun, these elements were
\nfaithfully adapted to the silver screen.<\/p>\n
I was moved when I saw the sadness in San Cai's face when she
\nleft Dao Ming Shi standing in the rain, and how gentle the
\nspoiled brat was when he showed her the meteor shower through a
\ntelescope. I cheered for San Cai when she embarrassed Dao Ming
\nShi's despising mother, who was trying to put her down at a
\nparty. I found myself getting carried away when I saw the clip of
\nPerfect Moment, one of the songs on the series' enchanting sound
\ntrack, which showed the moments shared between San Cai and her
\nprevious crush, Hua Ze Lei (Zhou), the gentler F4 member.<\/p>\n
All in all, it can be said that the series' amazing success
\ndoes not depend on instant formulas. The young viewers of today
\nare not passive spectators that simply absorb whatever the media
\nfeeds them. They critically judge the quality of programs they
\nchoose to watch, and Meteor Garden has passed their tests.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/meteor-garden-fever-hits-asia-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}