A Perfect Match: The Perfect Combo of Tropes and Twists... I love Taiwanese Dramas

It's been a while since I've watched a Taiwanese Drama.  I've been focusing more on the Korean and Chinese lately, not by design, that's just how it happened.  But I was wanting to watch something fluffy and romantic, and I saw this one with Chris Wu.  I hadn't seen his as the lead yet (again, that's just how it worked out), so I thought I'd give it a try.

I stopped in the middle of the first episode.  I forgot how campy Taiwanese Dramas are.  But then, for some reason, I felt I needed to give it another try.  Five minutes later I was hooked.  I had forgotten how quickly Taiwanese Dramas give you the good stuff.  They don't mess around with romantic comedies.  They start with a bang.

Refresh Man: Falling In Love With Aaron Again

I have to say that I had my reservations about starting Refresh Man, because FILWM Syndrome.  But then I really like Joanne Tseng.  But I guess that even with the whole FILWM thing and the Instagram thing, deep down I still love Aaron, so I thought I would give it a try and see if it would make me fall in love with Aaron again.

And it has.  It is just different and fun enough to make it awesome.  It defies some of the typical stereotypes and is about more than just the romance, although that is obviously a large part of it.  It is about self-improvement and getting out of stagnation, etc.  It's also about revenge or rather making her fall in love with him.  You know, good stuff.

So, here are some things that make this show pretty great so far:

Taiwanese Dramas with some of the Best OSTs

Not to leave out the Taiwanese dramas from the previous list (Korean Dramas with some of the Best OSTs), but there were too many and that list was too long anyways, so I made a list of just Taiwanese dramas with some of the best OSTs.  Now obviously this list is shorter because I haven't watched nearly as many Tdramas as Kdramas, but they still have some spectacular OSTs.  Also some just not memorable ones.  So here are the best, get stuck in your head, drama OSTs of Taiwan.

Rediscovering a Neck Crush: My Unexpected Obsession With Alien Huang

After getting sick of lame dramatic crap where romantic comedy was supposed to be, I returned to watching the Taiwanese drama Sweet Sweet Bodyguard, which I absolutely love (despite the horribly lame title), but have to wait painfully long periods for each episode to get subbed.  I think I discovered it because of the instant play on the Viki app, which will play a random show after you finished the last episode uploaded in a series.  It was probably played after I had watched the most current episode of Prince William or something.  I was feeling lazy and really didn't want to go be social at whatever function was going on, so I just let it play.  It was so cheesy, but strangely funny and different.

A female bodyguard wants to get out of the business so she makes a deal with her boss/father that the next job will be her last, if she can complete it, as the person she would have to protect is the guy that she hates the most because of a misunderstanding when she thought she was saving him from being kidnapped.

A Perfect Couple of Episodes, Until it Suddenly Undergoes a Genre Change

So we start watching a Romantic Comedy Korean Drama, and we all know now that after episode 12ish that all the sudden the crap will hit the fan and no matter how funny the drama started out, it will suddenly be a melodrama (just think how Emergency Couple was supposed to be a RomCom, but the whole second half was complete melodrama... which was actually so much better than the comedy was).  I don't know if this is a case of the dramas being "Anthony'd" (King of Dramas reference) or if the basic plot has to do that to complete itself, but seriously.  When I start a RomCom, I'm looking for comedy and romance, not melodrama.  Not sad stuff.  Funny.  With kissing and couple cuteness.  Fluffiness.

I don't know what it is about Chinese/Taiwanese Dramas, but they seem to take the genre changing even more extreme than is typical for Korean Dramas. It's not even funny how all romantic comedies start out cute and funny and by the second half of the show they are suddenly melodramatic.  I've come to just accept that fact, but recently, there has been too many over the top genre changes for my taste.

Messing with the Moto Chinese Input: Chinese Auto Correct Fail

So, after really getting into Taiwanese dramas, Lizabreff and I decided to play with the Moto Chinese Input on our phones.  This allows you to draw the characters and it will recognize what you are writing and give suggestions.

We would send random Chinese characters to each other, use Google translate, and then laugh at what random crap we said.

This is fun... but it's also a bit dangerous I guess.