Devil Beside You, may I say, is just a replica of the famous Meteor Garden. I am sure many of you Taiwanese drama lovers have noticed the countless similarities between the two comedy-romance categorized series in terms of the character casting, development and duh, even the way they speak.
In this series, it was normal girl has a crush on nice boy and decide to confess her feelings to him. Then she made a mistake and ended up being blackmailed by bad boy. After a few incidents with bad boy, she decides she doesn't like good guy anymore and that she had fallen in love with bad boy.
Problem is, she thinks bad boy may like her too but she is unsure. Then things become complicated when bad boy is supposed to be her new stepbrother (her mom re-marries and it's bad boy's father).Then bad boy and good girl decides to be together in a relationship where they need to hide it in secret as the family will disapprove of this "incest-like" relationship.
Furthermore, girl is older than bad boy.
Then create more plot where good girl told mum and stepdad and then mum got cross but gave her blessing because she doesn't think it's wrong after one night's consideration after the confession. And thicken the plot, mum gets pregnant with stepdad's child, which means either mum and stepdad should separate or girl and boy separate; to avoid real incest-relationships within family. However, they worked it out.Scriptwriter is not happy, and wants to add climax to the story before it ends.Bad boy's biological mother turns up and wants to see bad boy; then wants bad boy to return to Italy with her and his brother to live as a family as mother told him that she was forced to abandon him as a child due to the pressure exerted by his grandmother and father. Bad boy who hated his mother previously suddenly decides he wants to leave for Italy with his mum to try living with his mum and decides to leave good girl whom he professed he loved very much from Episode 1.
Then good girl cries, friends slap bad boy and bad boy had one night stand with good girl. Then bad boy left. After few years, bad boy returns and the end.
Now, what kind of storyline do you see that as?My comment, I found that rather garbage-like. Seriously!~ I mean, how corny can Taiwanese dramas get these days? (Forgive my rash and outright description which may be offensive)Okay, I am not blogging to trash it like anything, in fact, I do admit I finished watching the drama (it is my style to finish watching once I start anyway).However, I have to say, I am not watching for the leads; whom I clearly am not that fond of. I just stumbled upon the drama on TV and I looked it up and watched it online to see what it was all about.I was clearly disappointed with the entire drama; in fact I cannot understand the rooting for factor in this drama as there is clearly none.I found it really carbon-copied from Meteor Garden or any other Taiwanese dramas for that matter.
Take for instance Mike He, who played Jiang Meng aka Devil in the drama. What a surprise...He acted cool throughout the series but I have to say he doesn't have any facial expressions except for that standard "I-am-cool" look on his face. And I hate to say it, it was really gross to see those black hair pins sticking at the sides of his head in an effort to pin his hair down in every scene.Why do they have to do that? It really looked so sissy and definitely stripped that cool factor off!Also, I was a little bored with the way he tried to mimic Dao Ming Si's character in the way he speaks and portrays himself as such a "Oh, I am Mr Cool Guy here".Ohhh....COME ON! Be original!~ Jiang Meng is not Dao Ming Si and even if the character is required to be cool, there should be some originality factor in it.
Rainie Yang; I am starting to wonder at how she shot to popularity and stardom all of a sudden from nobody. She used to be in 4-in-Love (what happened to that group anyway?) and then she had a sort of supporting role in Meteor Garden and all of a sudden, bam, we see her appearing in almost every Taiwanese dramas acting cute and doe-eyed like.I have nothing against her, and her beauty and cuteness is certainly a subjective matter which I shall not comment on.However, I was also bewildered at her character here and her acting skills which clearly did not substantiate the character in the story. At times, I find her acting a little overboard and inconsistent. She showed clear signs of over-acting in most of the scenes. And then she goes acting like she is "oh-so-cute" like.Ahemm......isn't this just so yesterday?No.2: Rainie was also like Shan Cai in the sense when she tried to stand up to the bullies but at the same time, she lacked that determined and obstinate factor that Big S portrayed in Shan Cai.The supporting storylines all just are the same corny plots.
Tsai Pei Lin was wasted in this role and I found it a little dramatic that she and Yuan Yi (Kingone Wan) who just attach themselves to each other in such a whirlwind romance. And she pursued him! I have nothing against girl goes after boy; despite it being out of the norm but that's a gender equality issue not to be discussed here. But I still found their romance a little too fast; faster than ordering an express pizza. It really lacked of development.But that being said, I kinda liked this pairing of Pei Lin and Kingone:)
Overall, I find this series way below average and the romance between Rainie and Mike was rather gross and spine-tingling for me rather than sweet.
Anything but sweet, not that I am against older girls with younger guys but the sibling factor plays a part and I just found that a little eerie! Oops...forgive me for being so objective again.
I have given up on Taiwanese dramas which have been rather generic over the years.....since Meteor Garden.I just find most of them trying too hard to pursue that same popularity of the former and lost their sense of creativity in their drama scripts. Almost every drama has that same elements and even their dialogue scripts will absolutely and definitely have that "Are you stupid?", "Don't nag too much!", etc in their lines.Awwww......puhhhhh-leasseeeee....please be original....come up with more ideas..instead of adapting from same old Japanese manga and creating all those unrealistic drama icons.They are entertaining, yes, but too much of them can really intoxicate the audience!You guys can do much better than that! Please give us something to make us go back to Taiwanese dramas!Rating: 2 out of 5
Anyway, straying apart from the storyline, Rainie and Mike make a rather decent combination.
Mike had that boy-next-door look in him that made him probably a wrong choice for a devillish boy in this drama.
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