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riemaynine
I finished watching another classic Taiwanese series that I added on my Netflix list, and this is indeed very tragic. I still remember when I was still in grade school, this series was a hit in the Philippines, to the point that replicas of lavender in a bottle were also sold. It was a long time ago so I couldn't remember the flow of the story, aside from the fact that I wasn't able to catch this up when this was aired before at night - maybe I was usually doing my homework during the time the drama was airing lol.
So here is the synopsis, as well as my reaction to the series: During grade school, Ji Qing Chuan has a childhood friend named Liang Yi Xun whom he is always protecting from their bullying classmates. When his family decided to migrate in the US, he gave Yi Xun a bottle with lavender, and promised to reunite, on her 20th birthday, when the lavender blooms. He returned to Taiwan as Leo, a pop star, and started to revive his feelings for Yi Xun. As the story progresses, conflicts start to happen which interfere their relationship, such as Xiao Tong who has a crush on Yi Xun (Xiao Tong is too passionate!), Maggie who is Leo's girlfriend (I hate this girl! lol) and Yi Xun's congenital heart disease. Aside from these conflicts, there are also side stories such as Yi Xun's older sister having the same illness who fell in love, Leo's past memories haunting him, and his career as a pop star.
Actually, I already mentioned it before, maybe I got used to Japanese drama's short and straight to the point plot that's why I felt somewhat emotionally tired watching the drama, aside from the fact that this series has a tragic ending.
But I was just thrilled when anything related to Japan or Japanese is mentioned throughout the series! One of those is a Japanese voice over introducing Leo, a Taiwanese pop star, who was having a tour in Osaka, with crowd of fans falling in line and such. One of the characters also thought Leo is a Japanese, since he is also popular in Japan, and I could also observe that his long hairstyle reminds me of some Johnny's senpais' hairstyle (Domoto Koichi-kun had that kind of hairstyle before lol). And there is also a character named Komuro Toshio in the drama!
I was also thrilled (or cringed lol I'm sorry) everytime Leo speaks in English randomly. Maybe that is understood since he's from the US, anyway.
But honestly, I like both of the songs being used as the drama theme songs, both sung by Ambrose Hsu. Actually, prior watching the subbed version on Netflix, I found the Tagalog-dubbed episodes uploaded on YouTube, and after watching that, the songs keep on playing in my mind (last song syndrome lol) for several days. The quality of the videos uploaded on YT are of low quality though, the dubbing is somewhat cringey, and there are lots of scenes being cut, so I am not sure if I would be recommending watching it there. Watching it via Netflix is better.
Theme songs:
Hua Xiang (Floral Fragrance)
Xing Fu De Shun Jian (Moment of Happiness)
By next weekends/day offs, I will start watching Japanese series again, so I am not sure when I will be going to watch the rest of the Taiwanese dramas I saved on my list.
