Formula 17

十七岁的天空 (Formula 17) is a Taiwanese gay movie directed by Yin-jung Chen and released in 2004 with a screentime of 93 minutes.

Story: Chou Tien Tsai is a country kid who believes in true love. One day he goes to Taipei to meet his internet friend face to face but he eventually ends up in a gay club after his internet friend suggests having sex without love. In that club his friend Yu works as a barkeeper. During the next days Yu and Tien are roommates. In the bar Tien also meets CC, Yu's friend, and a man who is described as a playboy by many, Bai.
After that night in the club Yu tries to help Tien to lose his virginity but all plans fail as eventually Tien keeps running into Bai and falls in love with him even though he knows it might be dangerous for his feelings.

Cast: Tony Yang as Chou Tien Tsai is such a cute character that I really wanted to squeal from time to time. The naive, romantic country person came out well in this role. Duncan Lai as Bai is also an interesting character by the way he tries to avoid love. While it is not bad at first he starts to consult a professional at some point as he doesn't know what is happening to him.
King Chin as Yu is such a hilarious character - I think you should see him in this movie - that I couldn't do anything but laugh about the country bumpkin who turned into a big city bar keeper and party person. He can't keep up with Dada Ji as CC though - like.. CC is the gay person many people actually just imagine as the representative of gay men (which of course he isn't) but together with Jimmy Yang as Alan they are doing a great job at keeping up the comedy because of their characters literally screaming "gay" at the audience.


I honestly admit that I watched this movie for the first time back in 2011 or 2012 back when I was really interested in all that boys love and gay movie-stuff and I had to rewatch this movie to be able to tell you about the story and to properly criticize it.
What I can tell you is that it is an entertaining comedy movie that is almost a little bit like satire - even though I wouldn't view it as criticism - so the acting is a little bit extreme. However, this movie made me laugh much more and it has quite memorable scenes I still remembered even after such a long time. So it does deserve a rating of 8.5/10 solely for those parts.
The love story on the other hand is cute but somehow basic - it is nothing really unique but the package made this movie funny and cute at the same time and I should probably put it on the list of "feel-good"-movies.

ToGetHer

愛就宅一起 (ToGetHer, also known as Superstar Express) is a Taiwanese drama series that first aired on CTV from February 15th to May 3rd 2009. During the following months it aired on various other broadcasting stations.

Story: Mars is a star who has to face a crisis after a few scandals. Since the articles weren't telling the truth he feels like the bad treatment following those articles is not fair. One day because of him not earning enough money anymore his company asks him to move out of his apartment and he starts living with the quiet student Chen Mo Mo, who only has interest in her manga Prince Kashaba, and her sister Chu Chu. While Chu Chu is overly excited, Mo Mo doesn't even know who he is. It turns out that Mars and Mo Mo not only go to the same school but are also classmates so they meet quite often and fight a lot. Mars only wants to get back his status as a star and works hard. However, Mo Mo and Mars become closer while they're supporting each other more and more..

Cast: The second Taiwanese drama I've watched and again there's Jiro Wang in it as Mars/ Zhuang Jun Nan. Regarding his character.. well, I have to admit that at first he was full of himself and an arrogant star. Nothing we haven't seen in other series involving idols but that still doesn't mean that it's too bad. I love the way his character changes though and I enjoyed seeing the actor actually portraying that change well. Jiro Wang in fact is a familiar face (as some of you who have been reading my blog for some time) know but I think seeing his emotions displayed in this drama gives a good impression of his acting.
Next there's Rainie Yang as Chen Mo Mo. Personally I've known Rainie Yang as a singer since 2012 so I don't really know if the quiet, shy character of a person that's often forgotten and left behind suits her but I enjoyed her acting in this one in general as well though I really didn't like Mo Mo at first and thought that it was just overacted because her character was supposed to be that way.
George Hu as Wei Jia Sen was a far more complex character simply because he has the intelligence of a boy. While mental health issues weren't a topic Asian drama talked about for quite some time (if I remember right) I found the way Wei Jia Sen was portrayed rather interesting though as a character some of his scenes were annoying simply because of his behavior. However, the actor did well in fact so there's nothing I would criticize about him since I've never met a person showing that behavior. (Note: As far as I remember we don't get to know what happened to Jia Sen or in which way his physical and mental conditions lead to his lack of development. I'd guess it's more of a mental health problem than physical health.)
Linda Liao as Chen Chu Chu was unbearable to me sometimes. Mo Mo's sister seems to love gossip, is noisy, a little shallow and worries about completely different things than Mo Mo but causes a huge problem but runs away. Regarding the fact she's supposed to be the older sister she's more of a teenager than Mo Mo. The acting was nice but then again I don't feel like it was extremely diffcult. Probably except for the fact that Chu Chu always seems to be really energetic.
The last person I want to name on here is Jin Qin as Ke Yi Zhi who was a supportive and incredibly cute friend even willing to risk his job at times. We all need a manager/ co-worker/ friend like him in my opinion since he's loyal and worries about what might be best for Mars and not only for economic purposes.

Soundtrack: I really liked the soundtrack after all, there's no song that really got on my nerves. But I loved the opening song as well as the ending song of this series, "越來越愛 (Love You More and More)" and "默默 (Silently)" by Fahrenheit. Especially the ballad, Silently, or also pronounced as "Mo Mo" was really nice and I loved Jiro Wang singing the song in the drama series himself.



So now that I've said a lot of positive things about the soundtrack and the actors, what's my rating? A 6/10 doesn't seem to low at first but I was really struggling on judging this.
Now there might be some spoilers included when I'm explaining what I personally didn't like about this series so if you don't want to read those, just skip this part now.
The first point was the chaos. I didn't really get the point of the first episodes and they just seemed randomly put together. I know that Taiwanese production companies probably can do better.
Secondly, certain characters disappeared at some point, and were never to be seen again. If there would be an explanation why it would make sense. But for example for Ivy she just appears and suddenly disappears though she signed a contract and is therefore under the same company as Mars. Same basically works for Ben.
Speaking of Ivy before, why did they even have to come up with the story of an ex-girlfriend? Things were complicated enough before and it would've been complicated enough without her as well so why did she have to appear in about two episodes (maybe? I'm not even sure anymore).
And what really got on my nerves that they could've ended everything with episode 10. But then again only to be able to produce a few more episodes they added a family story including cancer, a car accident and - oh, scandal! - an idol caught dating. Those are just things that appear in basically every second or third K-Drama at least. I don't know about Taiwan but it doesn't have a feeling to it that makes it that different. At some point I was just able to laugh it off because it was ridiculous.
Those are however things I need to consider when rating a series but that doesn't make it entirely bad.

Absolute Boyfriend

絕對達令 (Absolute Boyfriend) is a Taiwanese drama series based on a manga by Yuu Watase that aired from April 8th to July 1st 2012 on FTV/GTV.

Story: After being involved in lots of unrequited love stories over the past years even since high school, Guan Xiao Fei, a woman in her late 20's, finds a phone in a park (or forest? I only know there are trees and basically no people around when she finds it.) The owner of the phone calls and invites her to his home where he introduces himself as Lei Wu Wu, a salesman. Wanting to thank her for finding his phone, Lei Wu Wu asks about a wish - and being a little desperate in that situation Xiao Fei says she wants a boyfriend. That's how she gets access to a website and orders a robot, a 'perfect darling'. After a two day trial she doesn't manage to return the robot in time so she would either have to pay a lot of money - or work for the company sending them information so in the future the data collected can be of use for other robot models. However, she can't tell anyone about Nai Te being a robot, not even her best friends nor her colleagues... so the two of them have to face many difficulties, especially when Nai Te starts to feel uncomfortable.

Cast: First of all, as you might know, I really really really like Koo Hye-sun for usually playing strong and confident female characters in most of her series. That being said, Guan Xiao Fei is so stupid, at least during the first episodes. Naive and can't do ANYTHING on her own. While I did hate her character in the very beginning, it was in fact bearable. What I found to be weird actually was that they had to dub her voice. Sure, she might not be fluent in Mandarin Chinese - but why in the world did they have to put a Korean actress in a Taiwanese drama if she doesn't know the language? I'd make a guess and say it's for popularity reasons but then again, who knows.
As Wan Nai Te we see Jiro Wang of Fahrenheit (yay! Make a guess how I found out about this series at all) and while I did like him in this series a lot sometimes his acting was too humane - but then again I would've imagined Nai Te to be like this so nothing wrong with Jiro portraying his character like that. Now, not criticizing him but saying this as a Korean studies major student - his accent when speaking Korean is so cute! Like.. I honestly didn't understand anything at first but it was just so adorable.
Yan Zhong Shi, a character I didn't mention earlier, is basically Xiao Fei's childhood friend and her neighbour. They're also working at the same company so they spend a lot of time together. Xie Kun Da was more like a squishy cutie in this series and while I felt sorry for him I really respected him 'fighting' for Xiao Fei and Nai Te in the end since it must have been hard on him.
The last character I just need to mention is Na Wei Xun as Lei Wu Wu. Despite for his.. taste in fashion this man just made my day, especially during the last two episodes. He's hilarious and funny and always made me smile. Sometimes I wasn't sure whether he was supporting or manipulating Xiao Fei's and Nai Te's relationship but it was alright - it definitely was, since he was funny on one side and actually we found out about this in the end.
Others in the cast include Cherry Hsia as Luo Mei Jia (I hated her, okay? If there are things I can't deal with in dramas it's people like her!), Emily Tsai as Fang Zhi Xi, Lin Yun Jong as SKY (loved him so much, so sassy~) and Bi Xiao Hai as Bai Qi.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack itself was and still is really nice but then again I like Jiro Wang as well as Fahrenheit, so basically the opening and ending songs were awesome to me. But I think Fahrenheit's "Mr. Perfect" has to deal with the same effect like many other songs - after some times you just tend to find it a little annoying because you've heard it (or only certain parts) over and over and over again. (If you don't know this effect, watch Boys Over Flowers and talk about T-MAX' "Paradise"..).
While I did listen to Jiro Wang's album already years ago I only found out through this series that his song "假裝我們沒愛過 (Pretend We Never Loved)" actually is/was part of a drama soundtrack. While this song isn't his best track ever, I do think it's nice and fits the series well, at least the concept.
Overall I found the soundtrack to be nice.


As for my rating, I think 6.5/10 is pretty much alright. While my ratings will definitely become more strict in general, this series put up some things I just hate - an incredibly stupid female lead, dubbing, "friends" lying, annoying bitches and - in fact a sad ending. The soundtrack and the nice male actors and characters as well as funny and cute moments just couldn't really save this series.
I've heard that since 2012 a Korean version produced by MBC was in talks but it didn't air yet and to be honest I'm quite curious how Korea would portray the characters and organize the story since there are already variations of this series in Japan and Taiwan.

And girls - let's appreciate this picture for it's... artistic.. atmosphere..? Ah, let's just appreciate it!