Meteor Garden (2018): A Poor Girl, a New F4 and a Remake Seventeen Years in the Making

Why this one

Few idol-drama premises have been told as often as this one. A girl from an ordinary family wins a place at an elite school that four rich boys run, socially. She refuses to treat the most arrogant of them as royalty, and the school's pecking order starts to bend around her. Meteor Garden (流星花园, Liuxing Huayuan) is the 2018 mainland Chinese version of that story. It is a remake of a remake: the source is a Japanese manga, the version most viewers outside China know best is the 2001 Taiwanese series, and this one followed seventeen years later with the same producer.

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The lineage matters more than the plot. The 2018 series keeps a story its audience already knows and asks whether a new cast and a mainland production can carry it. It also launched two young actors, Shen Yue (沈月) and Dylan Wang (王鹤棣), and it reached overseas viewers through a Netflix release announced for most of the world.

The setup

Dong Shancai (董杉菜) is a girl from a poor family who is admitted to Ming De University, described as the most prestigious school in the country. Her strong sense of fairness brings her into conflict with F4, four popular and wealthy boys led by the arrogant Daoming Si (道明寺). He falls for her; she is drawn to his friend Huaze Lei (花泽类). Over time the boys come to respect her, and her own feelings for Daoming Si develop. His mother, Daoming Feng (道明枫), opposes the relationship because of Shancai's social standing and family background.

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The name F4 dates from 2001, when the four male leads of the Taiwanese original became a real music group. The 2018 series has its own new F4. It was filmed in Shanghai and London between October 2017 and March 2018.

Cast and crew

• Shen Yue (沈月) as Dong Shancai (董杉菜)

• Dylan Wang (王鹤棣) as Daoming Si (道明寺)

• Darren Chen (官鸿) as Huaze Lei (花泽类)

• Caesar Wu (吴希泽) as Ximen Yan (西门彦)

• Connor Leong (梁靖康) as Feng Meizuo (冯美作)

• Wang Lin (王琳) as Daoming Feng (道明枫)

• Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) as Daoming Zhuang (道明庄), Daoming Si's sister

Angie Chai (柴智屏) is the producer, as she was in 2001. Lin Helong (林合隆) is credited as director. The series is adapted from the manga Boys Over Flowers (花より男子, Hana Yori Dango) by Yoko Kamio (神尾葉子). Netflix's announcement named Amber Kuo (郭采洁) and Harlem Yu (庾澄庆) as special guests.

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Four versions of one story

Kamio's manga ran from 1992 to 2008. Taiwan's CTS broadcast the television adaptation Meteor Garden from April to August 2001, in 19 episodes, with Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) as Shancai and Jerry Yan (言承旭) as Daoming Si. Its four male leads then formed F4, and Wikipedia credits the series with helping launch the idol-drama boom in Asia, where ouxiang ju (偶像剧, "idol drama") became the label for this kind of glossy campus romance. A sequel followed in 2002.

Japan's Boys Over Flowers arrived in 2005, South Korea's in 2009 and Thailand's F4 Thailand: Boys Over Flowers in 2021. The 2018 series is the mainland Chinese entry in that line.

Hong Kong outlet HK01, reviewing the May 2018 trailer, observed that the remake stays close to the Taiwanese version: scenes, lines and gestures are carried over, which the writer read as nostalgia. The 2018 series is a re-staging more than a reinvention.

Chai returns, mainland-style

Chai announced the remake in April 2017, and the new F4 were revealed that November. The series aired on Hunan Television (湖南卫视) from July 9 to August 29, 2018, two episodes a night from Monday to Wednesday, with Mango TV streaming it online. The television cut runs to about 50 episodes of 45 minutes; the Netflix edition has 49.

The trailer also produced the series' first public argument. HK01 reported that viewers criticised the dubbing, saying the voices sounded old-fashioned and did not suit the domineering Daoming Si. Chinese Wikipedia lists the leads as voiced by other performers.

From newcomers to leads: Shen Yue and Dylan Wang

Shen Yue had drawn attention in the 2017 campus romance A Love So Beautiful (致我们单纯的小美好), according to Taiwan's Mirror Media. Meteor Garden gave her a lead in a much better-known story. Dylan Wang made his acting debut in the series as Daoming Si. The mainland outlet Jiemian credits the show's popularity in Southeast Asia with his overseas following, and says that he signed endorsements with a Philippine fashion brand and a Thai snack brand the following year. His breakthrough in China came later, with Love Between Fairy and Devil in 2022, per Wikipedia.

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The route is a familiar one in this genre: young actors cast in a well-known story, an audience built on the first role, and later work that depends on it. For both leads, Meteor Garden is the starting point.

How it reached overseas viewers

Netflix began streaming Meteor Garden on July 13, 2018, in most Asia-Pacific markets, with six episodes at first. On July 26 it announced availability worldwide except Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia, beginning in South Korea on July 27. Taiwan's Mirror Media reported Chai saying the series could be watched in 190 countries and that she considered this far beyond the reach of the 2001 original.

In the Philippines, ABS-CBN broadcast it from August 20, 2018, to January 4, 2019.

Where to watch

In China the series streamed on Mango TV. According to What's on Netflix, it left Netflix globally on December 1, 2024. Availability varies by region, so check which services in your country currently carry it.

What overseas viewers are saying

Wikipedia's ratings table for the Hunan TV run lists an average CSM52 rating of 0.841, with a high of 1.126 for the first two episodes on July 9 and a low of 0.586 for the last two; the article adds that a rating of at least 1.0 is considered high in China.

The dubbing complaint that began with the trailer is the criticism most clearly on record. The other recurring comparison is with the 2001 series, which HK01's trailer review raised before the show had aired.