'Meteor Garden' fever hits Asia

Linda Boentaram, Contributor, The Jakarta

It has been raining heavily in Jakarta, but not in the form of raindrops. The whole city has suddenly been showered with posters, pictures and other sorts of merchandise presenting four good-looking Asian faces, known as F4, from the Monday night TV series Meteor Garden.

"Dao Ming Shi! Dao Ming Shi!" a seven-year-old girl yells when she sees a magazine cover featuring Jerry Yan, one of the members of the Taiwan boyband F4. Dao Ming Shi is the character played by Yan in the drama series Meteor Garden that has taken Asia by storm.

"Yes, yes, it's Dao Ming Shi," said her mother, who then asks for the price of the magazine. From inside the supermarket, a VCD store plays a song featured on the boyband's debut album Meteor Rain.

Apparently the TV series, which is broadcast on private channel Indosiar, has had exceptional appeal. Although there are always exceptions to the rule, it is not usual for Chinese dramas or movies to draw this much attention from non-Chinese viewers.

Yet Meteor Garden has made new history: The romantic tale between a poor high-spirited girl and the head of a bullying rich gang has received an enthusiastic response from non-Chinese teens, who have adorned their key chains with Yan's face, downloaded the series' theme song as their mobile ring tone and learned how to sing the song by heart in Chinese. Many radio stations, which usually stick to a playlist of hard-core western rock and local hit songs, have also gone against the norm by playing Qing Fei De Yi, the upbeat theme song of the series. It became the first Chinese song ever to be played on mainstream radio stations in Indonesia.

Yet Indonesia was not the first to catch the meteor bug. In fact, the TV series that launched the previously unknown and randomly picked Yan, Vanness Wu, Vic Zhou and Ken Zhu to international stardom has gained stunning popularity all around Asia. In its homeland, Meteor Garden has drawn an audience of 1.4 million viewers each week, and it has become the top show in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Malaysia.

In China, where it is banned, hundreds of thousands of pirated copies of the series' videos have flown off the shelves, and 10,000 fans attending an F4 concert at a Shanghai shopping mall, cried and fainted at the sight of the four attractive men.

The show's huge success has had an overwhelming impact on F4's abruptly launched singing career: their cleverly titled, mediocre album Meteor Rain has sold more than one million copies all over Asia, and that has been enough to convince the Disney studio to sign the band to do the sound track for their latest animation feature Lilo and Stitch.

Many theories have been offered to explain the enormous popularity of the series, which was adapted from Japanese manga (comic) Hana Yori Dango.

Lu Yu-Chia, a Chinese media observer, said that romance dramas were always rated high among Chinese viewers, and that is Taiwan's specialty in comparison to Hong Kong and China.

Angie Chai, the general manager of Comic Productions and creator of F4, said that in Taiwan the boys were so popular because the divorce rate was incredibly high and women dream of perfect princes.

What about in Indonesia? A leading teenage magazine asked several young models and artists about what they think makes the series so popular. Most of the answers that came back said it was the presence of F4 who, according to one model, would not be so attractive if they did not play as a group, and the series' unusually light plot, which -- unlike sappy old-fashioned dramas or kung fu series -- closely relates to young people's lives.

Meteor Garden is not simply counting on its handsome cast -- another series that starred F4, Come to My Place, turned out to be a flop. Meteor Garden is popular because it has all the right ingredients: a good story, interesting characters, a good director, just the right level of acting and apt theme songs.

Japanese manga has always been popular for its romantic plots, which have the right mixture of humor, fantasy and tragedy, and in the hands of director Zhai Yue-Xun, these elements were faithfully adapted to the silver screen.

I was moved when I saw the sadness in San Cai's face when she left Dao Ming Shi standing in the rain, and how gentle the spoiled brat was when he showed her the meteor shower through a telescope. I cheered for San Cai when she embarrassed Dao Ming Shi's despising mother, who was trying to put her down at a party. I found myself getting carried away when I saw the clip of Perfect Moment, one of the songs on the series' enchanting sound track, which showed the moments shared between San Cai and her previous crush, Hua Ze Lei (Zhou), the gentler F4 member.

All in all, it can be said that the series' amazing success does not depend on instant formulas. The young viewers of today are not passive spectators that simply absorb whatever the media feeds them. They critically judge the quality of programs they choose to watch, and Meteor Garden has passed their tests.