A very legendary love story from a manga Hana yori dango. I've all 3 drama from Taiwan, Japan and Korean. I like taiwan series the most. For me Japan and Korean series to much drama and the plot bit messy.
Boys Over Flowers (花より男子 Hana Yori Dango) is a Japanese shōjo manga series by Yoko Kamio. It was serialized in the bi-weekly anthology magazine Margaret, which is aimed at high-school-age girls. The manga series ran continuously from October 1992 to September 2003, and was collected into 37 tankōbon volumes. In 1996, it received the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo.
Recently, the series has started to be released in a deluxe edition (larger pages and with all the color artwork from the magazine reproduced). The manga has been adapted into three (3) drama productions (in Taiwan, Japan and Korea), along with one spin-off, two live action movies, one anime movie and also an anime series. Hana Yori Dango is the best-selling shōjo manga in Japan of all time, having sold 54 million copies as of 2005.
In the manga, the characters are in high school in season 1, but F4 (minus Domyoji) attends Eitoku University in season 2. In the Korean version, the characters are also in high school, but the F4 move on to Shinhwa University from episode 13 onwards. Shinhwa High School and Shinhwa University are located within the same campus.
The relationship between the two characters Sojiroh and Yuki (Yi Jeong and Ga Eul in the Korean version) is merely hinted. In the Korean version, their relationship gradually develops throughout the series, having their own significant plotline instead of acting as a subplot.
Ji Hoo has a more significant role in Jan Di's life than the Taiwanese and Japanese versions, more strongly depicted as a romantic companion for most of the drama.
Woobin's family does not appear in this version, nor is he only interested in older women.
How Jan Di came to attend the same school as F4 is changed completely. In the manga version, Makino's parents sent her to Eitoku against her wishes to attend another high school with her middle school friends because they thought in order to increase chances for Makino to marry a rich guy, she will need to go to a school full of rich people. In the Japanese tv series, Makino decides to apply for Eitoku after seeing Shizuka Toda at the briefing session, wanting to become an amazing person like her. Yet in the Korean version, Jan Di saves a student from committing suicide while delivering laundry (her family owns a dry-cleaning business), and in order to subdue the negative press from the incident Shinhwa group offers her a scholarship to the school. Jan Di is reluctant to attend and at first declines, but complied because of parental pressure and because the school has a state-of-the-art swimming pool (she is a competitive swimmer).
TAIWAN VERSION
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| Taiwan Series - Meteor Garden |
The story centers on a plain and poor teenage girl called Shan Cai, who goes to a university for rich people, forced upon her by her parents. The university is dominated by a gang of handsome but arrogant students called F4, who are the heirs of the most influential families in Taiwan.
In the beginning, Dao Ming Si, the gang leader, hates Shan Cai so much that he gives everyone in the university orders to make her life miserable. However, Shan Cai's persistence gradually gains Si's respect and later he falls in love with her. Like many other TV series, the lovers end up getting together after going through a series of painful challenges. Ming Si gets in to a car accident and forgets about everything. Afterwards going through hard times he remembers everyone except for Shan Cai. Ming Si always has flashback of this girl but he can't remember who she is. Then Ming Si meets this girl and falls in love with her thinking that she is the girl in her flashback. After Ming Si gets hit in the head, He remembers everything even Shan Cai.....
Barbie Hsu as Shan Cai (Tsukushi Makino) is a hardworking, tough girl who always defends the weak. She first likes Lei, but then starts to have feelings for Si. As her life gets tougher, she just keeps enduring, earning the respect of all the F4 boys.
Jerry Yan as Dao Ming Si (Tsukasa Doumyouji) is stubborn, hot-headed leader of F4. He is distrustful of everyone but his three childhood friends. He thinks money can solve anything. He is at first is angry at Shancai for her defiance and gives her a F4 red note, but over time, he comes to love her.
Vic Chou as Hua Ze Lei (Rui Hanazawa) is a soft-spoken and kind boy whose opinion Si relies on the most. His relationship with Si is almost ended over Shancai. He loves his childhood friend, Jing. He becomes Shancai's protector and close friend and later loves her.
Vanness Wu as Mei Zuo (Akira Mimasaka) is a fun-loving playboy who is very loyal to his group of friends.
Ken Chu as Xi Men (Soujiro Nishikado) is the other playboy of F4 and close to Zuoling
JAPAN VERSION
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| Japan Series - Hana Yori Dango |
Makino Tsukushi is a tough, hard working, middle-class student at the prestigious Eitoku Gakuen school attended by the rich and influential. Initially Makino wanted to attend Eitoku because her idol, an internationally-renowned model named Todou Shizuka, was an alumna of the school. Not long after however, Makino discovers the superficial nature of her classmates. Their arrogance and her inability to relate to them because of her social status limit her chances at making friends. Worse yet, the school is ruled by the F4 (Flower 4), sons of Japan's wealthiest and most powerful tycoons who bully fellow students out of boredom or malevolence until they are expelled or quit.
Tsukushi is immersed into the lives of the F4 after defending her first and only friend at school, Sanjo Sakurako. She receives a red tag from F4, and as a result, the whole school turns against her. Despite the harassment, Tsukushi, the "tough weed", decides to clean up the F4's act and declares a war back on them. Her defiance and steadfast resistance ironically earn the respect and love of the F4 leader, violent and impetuous Domyouji Tsukasa. But Tsukushi is in love with Hanazawa Rui, a quiet and mysterious violinist and Tsukasa's bestfriend.
The courtship between the two leads Tsukasa and Tsukushi is the main theme throughout the series. Various challenges threaten their blossoming relationship such as the envy of fellow students, an obsessed childhood classmate, their differences in social class, Tsukasa's violent and possessive nature, and the animosity of Domyouji Kaede (Tsukasa's mother). The first season ends with Domyouji giving the saturn necklace to Makino and her confession of love right before he leaves for New York.
Mao Inoue as Makino Tsukushi(牧野 つくし)
Jun Matsumoto as Domyouji Tsukasa(道明寺 司)
Shun Oguri as Hanazawa Rui(花沢 類)
Shota Matsuda as Nishikado Sojiro (西門 総二郎)
Tsuyoshi Abe as Mimasaka Akira (美作 あきら)
KOREAN VERSION
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| Korean Series - Boys Over Flower |
Jan Di is an average girl whose family owns a dry cleaning store located near the luxurious and well known Shin Hwa College. Jan Di meets the four richest and most spoiled boys known as the F4. After saving a boy from jumping off the roof of Shinhwa High School, she is admitted into the school on a swimming scholarship. Jan Di tries to avoid confrontation with the F4 at all cost because she knows what happens to those that stand against them. However, when Jan Di's friend, Oh Min Ji, accidentally gets ice cream on the leader of the F4's shoes, she's forced to declare war on the leader of the F4, Goo Joon Pyo. What will happen though, when she falls in love with someone from the F4 and Goo Joon Pyo start feeling something for her too? Will the love triangle disrupt F4 and change their lives forever?
Due to public demand, KBS added after stories about the F4 members 5 years after the series
Episode 1 is So Yi Jeong's Story In this episode Yi Jeong discovers a bouquet of purple flowers in a chair. He takes some polaroids and attaches them to the bouquet, then heads outside, thinking about Ga Eul (these are flashbacks). Once Yi Jung arrives at a door, it opens and a female voice calls out to him, "Sunbae, I'm a little late, right?" He holds out the flower bouquet and asks, "Ga Eul, will you be my flower forever?"
Episode 2 is Song Woo Bin's Story In this episode we see a frustrated Woo Bin confronting a girl despite of the good weather, the girl actually turns him down and he throws the flower to the ground. Later he is surprised by Jun Pyo and Yi Jung at his table. They give Woo Bin a birthday cake.
Episode 3 is Yoon Ji Hoo's Story In this episode there are just flashbacks scenes of Ji Hoo connected to one another. Also, only Ji Hoo was missing when the F4 had the meeting in their classroom. The background music is "Sometime" by the actor himself, Kim Hyun Joong.
Episode 4 is Gu Jun Pyo's Story In this episode Jun Pyo sneaks inside the Shinhwa University kitchen, where, after remembering the cookies that Jan Di made with his face on them, decides to bake cookies with Jan Di faces for her. Woo Bin spots him in the middle of the process, and Jun Pyo, wearing a frilly apron, shoos Woo Bin out. The background song is "My Everything" by the actor himself, Lee Min Ho.
Goo Hye Sun: Geum Jan Di is the first girl to challenge and stand up to the F4, daughter of a dry cleaner.
Lee Min Ho: Gu Jun Pyo He is the leader of the F4, his family own the Shinhwa company.
Kim Hyun Joong: Yoon Ji Hoo When he was just five years old, he was involved in a car accident where both of his parents died. His grandpa, who was the president that time, left him during the burial of his parents; who then returned after 15 years asking for forgiveness.
Kim Bum: So Yi Jeong is one of the F4's biggest playboys, he is a skilled potter and his family own a museum. At the last part, he fell in love with Chu Ga Eul.
Kim Joon: Song Woo Bin is from a family that runs a large construction company but has important connection to an underground organization, hinted to be the mafia.
Kim So Eun: Chu Ga Eul is Jan Di's best friend who works at the porrige restaurant with her, who eventually falls in love with So Yi Jeong.
The series became a huge hit, creating another Korean wave throughout Asia and the cast members shooting to superstardom overnight. After the series ended, several of them became the faces of various endorsements and commercial advertisements.
In an interview with Jang Geun Suk, actor of the successful drama You're Beautiful, it was said that he was first offered the leading role, instead of Lee Min Ho. Geun Suk declined, and instead, took on the role in Beethoven Virus that offered him the award for Best New Actor.
Boys Over Flowers became a hit throughout South Korea during its broadcast, to the point of influencing the behaviour of the public. The drama series influenced men to take their appearances even more seriously and try to gain the "pretty boy" image that existed among the F4 characters in the drama. More South Korean males started to wear cosmetics and viewers in South Korea and beyond started to notice the overseas filming locations of the drama as possible holiday destinations.
The series became a hit beyond South Korea in other states in Asia, including Thailand, Japan, Singapore, The Philippines and Taiwan, amongst others, and the actors and actresses that played the main characters shot to superstardom, and held various events, often Boys Over Flowers-related, across Asia.
For those never seen any of the drama or wish to try watch either 1 from the version you can find it here:
