Meteor Shower (TV series)

Meteor Shower (流星雨)
Also known as	Meteor Shower, Liuxing Yu, Meteor Rain, Hana Yori Dango (Mainland Version), Meteor Garden (Mainland Version)
Genre	Romance Comedy
Starring	Zheng Shuang Zhang Han Yu Haoming Wei Chen Zhu Zixiao Tan Lina
Opening theme	Starlit Fairytale (星空物语) By Zhang Han, Yu Haoming, Wei Chen & Zhu Zixiao
Ending theme	The Soaring I Want (我要的飞翔) By Xu Fei
Country of origin	China
Language(s)	Mandarin
No. of episodes	36 (Season I) 36 (Season II)
Production
Location(s)	Xiamen, Shenzhen
Broadcast
Original channel	Hunan TV (China)
Original run	August 8, 2009 – August 30, 2010
Chronology
Related shows	Meteor Garden, Hana Yori Dango, Boys Over Flowers
External links
[Meteor Shower (I) Meteor Shower (II) Website]

Meteor Shower (Chinese: 流星雨; pinyin: Liúxīng Yǔ) is a Chinese drama that aired on Hunan TV. Due to the success and popularity of Japanese manga Hana Yori Dango and its franchise (Meteor Garden, Hana Yori Dango and Boys Over Flowers),^{[citation needed]} Hunan TV decided to create a new series based on the same name. It is an unlicensed live-television drama production not authorized by Japanese publisher Shueisha, according to the producer it is only inspired by the manga.^[1]

Cast

• Zheng Shuang as Chu Yuxun
• Zhang Han as Murong Yunhai
• Yu Haoming as Duanmu Lei
• Wei Chen as Ye Shuo
• Zhu Zixiao as Shangguan Ruiqian
• Tan Lina as Jiang Yuan

Pre-production

When news of New Meteor Garden's approval had been announced on the SARFT website, it soon became the focus of much attention. The information that it revealed also caused much debate. For example, the name New Meteor Garden had been changed to Meteor Shower, the character names of "Shancai," ""Daoming Si" and "Huaze Lei," became "Chu Yuxun," "Murong Yunhai" and "Duanmu Lei." This caused a lot of debate between the netizens. The reporter then found the Meteor Shower's executive producer Ren Yaojia and asked about the reasons behind the changes. Yaojia replied that first, Meteor Shower and New Meteor Garden are not the same dramas. New Meteor Garden is a drama from ten years ago. Many of its ideals and thoughts are no longer true now. Hunan Satellite TV's drama is almost all original, the only similarity are the basic settings of four boys and a girl. Hunan Satellite TV's Meteor Shower wants to express the attitudes of modern college students toward love, life, career and change. Through a cute and light-hearted way, the drama will express the bright, enthusiastic attitudes of today's youth. Overall, it's very different from Meteor Garden, so everything from the title to the names of the characters have been changed. When the reporter then asked why the name Meteor Shower was chosen, Yaojia stated that because this drama is on the surface a pure love story, and the relatively pure yet a bit sad terms Meteor and Shower can correctly express the drama's misty, dreamy air of the youthful liveliness. ^[1]

Season I

Let’s Go Watch Meteor Shower (Chinese: 一起来看流星雨; pinyin: Yìqǐ Láikàn Liúxīng Yǔ)

Chu Yuxun, the lead character of the series is a poor but hardworking and studious girl. One of her biggest dreams is to enter the most prestigious school in the country, Aliston College, where only the heirs and heiresses of the richest families can study. With help from her mother and money-loving uncle, she is accepted.

Murong Yunhai, Duanmu Lei, Shangguan Ruiqian and Ye Shuo are the four richest students of Aliston as well as the most popular students on campus. They are the idols of all of the students except for Yuxun. However, they are unsatisfied with their lives as their parents put too much pressure on them to succeed, according to their terms. They wish to be expelled from Aliston, and unsuccessfully perform a series of pranks to do so.

Yuxun fights for justice for the victims of the group and she becomes their instant target. Through fighting and arguing, Yunhai starts to fall in love with Yuxun but faces numerous rejections. At first, Yuxun is in love with Duanmu, but through Yunhai's persistence she agrees to start seeing him. However, Yuxun is soon blackmailed into breaking up with Yunhai by his mother, who believes that she is taking advantage of her naive son. Yunhai angrily proclaims that he never wants to see her again, and becomes cold and distant towards her, focusing more on his studies in the process.

After news of his mother's involvement in the breakup reaches Yunhai, he reconnects with Yuxun through a series of adventures, and they begin dating again. This time, though, as Yunhai is driving to Yuxun's birthday party, internal bleeding caused by a head injury he'd received earlier causes him to lose his concentration and crash into a tree. At the hospital, through tears, Yunhai's mother angrily accuses Yuxun of being responsible for her son's accident, and Yuxun, sobbing, decides to stay away from him to grant his family some peace.

After a surgery performed by Duanmu's father, Yunhai recovers from the accident, but has lost his short-term memory, not remembering any of the people he met at Aliston. Yunhai's mother takes advantage of this and introduces the daughter of a family friend to him as his girlfriend, while Yuxun can do nothing but watch from afar. Yunhai's mother convinces the girl to take him to America with her, but she has a change of heart and tells him to stay, while she leaves. Meanwhile, Yuxun and Duanmu come up with a plan to make Yunhai gain back his memory; Yuxun rides her bicycle in front of Yunhai's car and he crashes into her, like the first time they met. As she gets up from the ground, he walks over to her, seemingly remembering who she was.

Season II

Let's Watch The Meteor Shower Together Again (Chinese: 一起又看流星雨; pinyin: Yìqǐ Yòukàn Liúxīng Yǔ)

Murong Yunhai remembers everyone… except Chu Yuxun.

Every night he dreams about a girl and then wakes up shouting and screaming from the pain it brings while clutching his heart which is beating and pounding extremely fast and hard, causing him to wonder who this girl is and why he feels that half of his heart is lost and empty. Yunhai tells his mother about the girl in his dreams but his mother tells him not to worry and to just forget about it. He is not convinced and begs his mother to release him from this prison/home. His mother refuses even after seeing YunHai cry and then jump up and down on the bed screaming. He disobeys his mother's orders and quietly sneaks out of the house which is actually on an island. He decides to travel around the world to find this girl/shadow. He steals his mother's platinum credit card, forgetting that his mother can track his expenses and whereabouts with the card. He decides to go to Singapore.

While in Singapore, he meets a new friend, Jiang Yuan, and starts liking her, thinking that maybe she is the girl/shadow that he has been looking for. Jiang Yuan is very impressed by his car racing skills and slowly falls in love with him. Eventually, Jiang Yuan gives him a charm bracelet which she also wears and made to prove that she loves him deeply and to symbolize that they are a couple. Thinking she's the one, YunHai accepts it and wears it happily on his wrist.

However, when they both come back to China, Yunhai feels like someone’s waiting for him. Yuxun is very upset when she sees him with another girl and throws a huge tantrum in front of him. She screams his name out loud after scolding him which triggers Yunhai's memory by showing him flashes of a girl that looks like her. But he does not believe her and asks his friends if what she said was true. His friends are speechless and do not answer him. Yuxun is terribly hurt and wonders why he can't remember her. She walks off crying leaving Yunhai staring after her.

Later, the F4s are back in their dorm trying to explain who Yuxun is and how much she meant to him but he tells them that he doesn't remember anything about her. A very angry Duanmu scolds and shouts at Yunhai, causing Shangguan and Yeshuo to leave the room. Duanmu is so mad at Yunhai, he screams that if he can't remember who Yuxun is, they would never be brothers/friends again. A lost Yunhai asks him what can he do to remember. At that moment Duanmu loses his temper and punches Yunhai right on the face with his fist. Then Duanmu accidentally knocks Yunhai's head on the staircase rail that causes Yunhai to remember everything about Yuxun: his promises with her, their fight, their bickering, their sacrifices for one another, and, most importantly, their extreme love for each other.

Yunhai asks his brothers (F4) for help in order to win Yuxun back and for her forgiveness. Shangguan tells him an excellent plan to win Yuxun back and Yunhai thanks him by saying he is the best brother at that moment.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} (Chinese) 《新流星花园》改名引网友热议 制片方称一切为原创开路

External links

• Official Site