As I have promised myself, I will look into the other works of Taiwanese actor Ming Dao. Sure enough I found one starring him with the same girl from Frog Prince. Lets see if our leads, Ming Dao as Yang Jia Jiang and Chen Qiao En as Xia Tian still have the magic… Omilord, Ming Dao is STILL uber cuteness in some of the scenes even if he does not play a rich kid here. Not fair! …haha…
What is there to say about this drama, good acting by the leads BUT a light weight story and script! BUT, I definitely have to hand it to the main love team here, they most certainly have the elusive chemistry that is sooo hard to find between actors. They totally and absolutely saved this drama from being a complete failure. D*mn cute those two, specially in the early episodes when they are literally at each other’s throats. Another fine example of love manifesting itself thru aggression. if there’s one thing that I may single out as something I totally like here, it’s the crying scenes of both lead actors. The sobbing and the tears that fall on-cue are so cute and real and I find myself feeling sorry for them as if it was the real thing. I think I should also mention that if there’s anything I really appreciate in taiwanese dramas, it’s the kisses that looks real and not done for cinematic purposes only.
I have to admit, I fast forwarded on most scenes without the leads. It just seems pointless to watch some of them because sometimes a couple of irritants pops up and I couldn’t help myself, I just need to move along. lets see… the overly exaggerated gunshot sound effect is annoying in its frequency and loudness. Does it have to be THAT loud??? Sound effects are suppose to be just that, “for effect”, not to distract and take away attention from important scenes. Also, the tall mestizo member of the Ying Ye 3 who looks old enough to be their teacher. When I see his scenes wearing a highschool uniform, im like, weH, you got to be kidding.
Im not too crazy about that particular twist in the story where one of the leads decides to do what he believes is the selfless act of “giving up on a love one, pushing them away, all for their own good”, what can I say, you know how I feel about those kinda things ….at least there was no amnesia BUT, there was something else that they substituted the amnesia “thing” with one of those usual “multiple choice” answer in every drama conflict that I have mentioned before. That twist was passe and rehashed, but I could happily bear it because Ming Dao displayed some brilliantly sensitive acting on those scenes that got my mind wondering and asking …will somebody please give this guy a good material to work with. …anyway, my frustration is slightly pacified ‘coz he plays a pretty cool character here. How ingenious was that birthday gift that he gave Xia Tian or what…
If I gave the acting honors to Chen Qiao En in Frog Prince, here in Ying Ye 3+1, the acting honors belongs to Ming Dao. Really, his talent is totally wasted on these kind of roles. As far as his acting prowess is concerned, I feel that we’ve barely scratched the surface. To me, he comes across like the type of actor that would and could internalize his role and be the character that he plays as soon as the director screams the word “action!”. Good actors appears every so often but great actors are few and far between and the same goes for dramas. His facial expressions and body language is quite fascinating to see on the boob tube. this is what they call “method acting”, where an actor forgets who he is and immerse himself in a character or role oftentimes taking it even off camera. Ming Dao is seriously beginning to have the “kimutaku” effect on me im telling you, of course, with a crucial and important difference as yet so far, he doesn’t have Kimura Takuya’s excellent body of work, but who knows… maybe, after i see a few more of his works(if i can find an english hardsubbed copy that is) this guy can be elevated to the status of being my favorite taiwanese tv drama actor:)
of course, this drama has a happy ending, it is a romantic comedy after all and even had a glimpse of the future of our main characters BUT the last episode was anything but satisfying. That whole going back to the “love game show” which I totally don’t get in its idiocy in the first place, was anything but a win for me. It was a fail the first time and they had to repeat a failure, ugh. They could have done better. 3.5 out of 5.
