highly recommended Chinese and Taiwanese dramas

mandarin shot best of china/taiwan

SET TV

There is something to be said for late bloomers! Ji Wen Kai (Aaron Yan) and Zhong Yu Tang (Joanne Tseng) have known each other since childhood and have always competed against each other. But it was no contest as Yu Tang always was at the top of her class while Wen Kai couldn’t do any better than mediocre grades. After graduation, Yu Tang lands a coveted job at MUSE Cosmetics and works her way up the secretarial pool. She is poised to take over as the Head Secretary to the new incoming CEO of the company. Wen Kai worked odd jobs after graduation and then went abroad to find work. Years later, MUSE Cosmetics is in crisis and the company brings in Wen Kai as the new CEO to help turn the company around. Imagine their surprise when Wen Kai realizes that his new secretary is none other than Yu Tang from his childhood! With the tables turned, will anything Yu Tang does or say be good enough for Wen Kai? “Refresh Man” is a 2016 Taiwanese drama series.

Refresh Man

The Marvelous Rivals

SETTV

Qi Yi (Aaron Yan) is a fastidious young man who is afraid of germs and needs to have everything in his life in his own orderly fashion. After he gives up a successful opportunity in New York, he returns to Taiwan and decides to buy a small marketing design company called GAZE and a historic home that catches his eye. The problem is that the home has a peppy tenant, Cheng Liang Liang (Puff Guo), who refuses to move out. When he arrives at his new company, the new CEO discovers that Liang Liang also works for his company. The happy-go-lucky Liang Liang just wants everything to be stable in her life, but she realizes that may be harder to maintain when her new boss starts making big changes in her workplace, including a notice stating that office romances will be prohibited. “Just You” is a 2013 Taiwanese drama series that airs on SETTV.

Just You

Just Your Team

A man loses everything in one day in a tragic car accident. Fang Zhan Cheng (Kingone Wang) lost his fiancée, Liang Luo Han (Kirsten Ren), but he also lost his own eyesight. Devastated by the loss of his fiancée, Zhan Cheng is inconsolable and even refuses a corneal transplant that could restore his vision. But his life takes an unexpected turn when Wang Yu Xi (Kirsten Ren), who looks exactly like his fiancée, is hired to become Zhan Cheng’s day nurse. Another young woman, Xu Ya Ti (Nita Lei), receives Luo Han’s heart in a transplant and begins to exhibit many of Luo Han’s mannerisms and personality. Caught between a woman who looks exactly like his beloved dead fiancée and another woman who behaves just like her, what will Zhan Cheng do? “Someone Like You” is a 2015 Taiwanese drama series directed by Chen Rong Hui.

Someone Like You

The Irreplaceable Team

Can memories of true love be truly lost forever? Ren Guang Xi (Vanness Wu) has the world at his feet. The law student is the sole heir to a wealthy family business, is athletic, and blessed with great looks and charisma. His mother also has her sights set on a wife for him, the beautiful and kind He Yi Qian (Tiffany Hsu), a medical student. But instead, Guang Xi falls in love with Liang Mu Cheng (Ady An), a new employee in his school cafeteria with an infectious zest for life despite growing up as an orphan. But when a tragedy forces Guang Xi to suddenly undergo brain surgery, his mother tells Mu Cheng that he will not have any memories of his past after the surgery and forces Mu Cheng to leave him. Six years later in a rural village, Mu Cheng lives a quiet life with her son, Xiao Le (Xiao Xiao Bin). But then Guang Xi, now a high-powered attorney, arrives in the village to serve out a court-mandated community service and befriends the two with no memory of his past with Mu Cheng. Can a strangely moving piano concerto stir up the lost memories of his love for Mu Cheng and help him understand why he feels a special bond with her son?
 
“Autumn’s Concerto” is a Taiwanese drama series directed by Chen Hui Ling that originally aired on TTV from October 2009 to February 2010. Nominated for the Best Marketing Programme at the 45th Golden Bell Awards in Taiwan, the series is credited for making child actor Xiao Xiao Bin into a superstar and is the second highest-rated Taiwanese idol drama after “Fated to Love You” (2008).

Autumn's Concerto

Could anyone be more excited to reach her 26th birthday? Pi Ya Nuo (Megan Lai) had an inauspicious start to her life. When she was born 25 years ago, her parents and extended family – along with their fortuneteller – eagerly awaited her arrival in the delivery room so that they could bless the beginning of the Pi family’s heir. Upon hearing her first cry, the fortuneteller predicted on the spot that the baby boy would be a great success and a natural-born leader. But when the nurses announce that the baby is a girl, the stunned fortuneteller immediately announces that the girl would not survive her childhood unless she lives as a boy for the first 25 years of her life. Only then can Ya Nuo change her bad fate and bring prosperity to her family. On her 26th birthday, Ya Nuo can go back to her true gender without any repercussions. Doomed to live her life as a boy, Ya Nuo is shy and always tries to keep her distance to people to hide her true identity, and the mysterious aloofness makes her irresistible to the girls around her. One day, she accidentally helps out Du Zi Feng (Baron Chen), who happens to be a triad leader, and his sister, Du Zi Han (Mandy Tao). While Zi Han falls in love with Ya Nuo, Zi Feng becomes Ya Nuo’s “sworn brother” and best friend. With her 26th birthday fast approaching, will Ya Nuo find her much-anticipated return to being a female will be as easy as she had hoped? “Bromance” is a 2015 Taiwanese drama series directed by Chen Rong Hui.

Bromance

The B-romantic Triad

What happens when true love meets Murphy’s Law? Murphy’s Law states “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Guan Xiao Tong (Ivelyn Lee) is known as the “love guru” of the Meet and Match Online Dating Company, able to solve anybody’s relationship issues. When Ji Jia Wei's (Danson Tang) proposal is rejected by his girlfriend (Jenna Wang), he decides to heal his wounds by setting up a divorce agency that provides divorced couples with "happy endings". He sets it up across the street from the matchmaking agency where Guan Xiao Tong works while healing from her own difficult breakup. When the two meet, sparks fly, but is it hate... or love? Can they have a happy ending together or will Xiao Tong find that she is destined to have bad luck in love? Meanwhile, Xiang Zi Yan (Jolin Chien), Xiao Tong's boss' son, gets to know Xiao Tong and begins to develop feelings for her. “Murphy’s Law of Love” is a 2015 Taiwanese drama series.

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