 |
| (Image Source: ABS-CBN News) |
It
has been about 14 years since the Taiwanese drama series Meteor Garden captured
the hearts of millions of Filipino viewers and started the Asianovela craze in
the Philippines. Now, old and new fans of the series will rekindle the fever as
ABS-CBN officially bagged the exclusive rights to air China's remake of the
phenomenal hit which is slated to air next year.
In a press conference held in Shanghai last November 9, 2017, the new members of F4 were formally introduced. These are Dylan Wang as Dao Ming Si, Darren Chen as Hua Ze Lei, Connor Leung as Mei Zuo, and Caesar Wu as Xi Men. Meanwhile, rookie Chinese actress Shen Yue was also introduced to play the coveted role of San Cai.
From
more than 30,000 hopefuls and audition legs held within top tier universities
in several Asian cities and even in Los Angeles, California, no less than the series'
original producer Angie Chai explained that the new members of F4 were chosen
based on the personalities that are similar to their original Taiwanese counterparts.
When asked why Angie thought of rebooting Meteor Garden, she feels that it is
fated to produce the new version considering that she consider the original Japanese
manga where the series is based on seems incomplete.
Based
on the Japanese manga "Hanayori Dango", Meteor Garden tells the story
of a simple girl named San Cai who gets involved with four popular and rich
boys in school who are known as F4 or Flower Four. The original series topbilled
by Jerry Yan and Barbie Hsu was first aired on ABS-CBN in 2003. Six years
later, ABS-CBN brought back the fever via the Korean drama Boys Over Flowers.
The KBS-produced adaptation of Meteor Garden formally introduced Korean global
superstar Lee Ming-Ho to Filipino fans who is now known as the Philippines'
King of Asianovelas.
