Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna, in die illa tremenda

When you search google for "upcoming taiwanese dramas 2009", my site is the first one listed. Weird.

I was trolling the interwebs looking for news about upcoming twdramas, I came across a bit of news that made me SO HAPPY... until it didn't.

Ariel Lin is supposedly involved in a drama called Paper Rose. It costars ZHANG RUI JIA! And not in a side role either, I think he's the male lead! I proceeded to get super excited for around 5 minutes, until I read that production has been delayed and it probably won't be seeing the light of day for awhile. Ariel might have even dropped it. (Not terribly exciting to me, but will be to others; Baron Chen, of Fated to Love You fame, is also slated to be in it)

This makes me super sad, because Ariel is my favorite serious tw-actress (Qiao En is my favorite tw-idol-actress. I love Qiao En to pieces, but she's really not as good an actress as Ariel is). She's got a great range, and I enjoy all of her work. Rui Jia is, of course, one of my favorite tw-actors. He's really really fabulous (seriously, WATCH ETERNAL SUMMER), and it saddens me that he's always delegated to "best friend" roles. If this drama happens I will watch it and love it solely because I love those two actors.

But anyway, this brings me back to the one thing I hate the most about the Taiwanese entertainment industry; they cannot freaking STICK TO PRODUCTION. Compare to Japan; everyone knows about upcoming jdramas. They have planned casts, they go into production as planned, and they're generally set. Twdramas are a mess. They announce dramas, but then don't do them. Casts change frequently. Production halts all the time. It's so chaotic!

As of right now, the ONLY twdramas I know will be airing soon are Black & White, and Calling Big Star (maybe Quietly Falling in love With You, as well). And of those, only Black & White has an actual air date scheduled. Good Health & Fortune is another one that looks like it could be definite (I hope! Squee! Qiao En!), but honestly, I can't tell. Even Momo Love, one I thought was happening for sure, has been postponed.

Seriously, what the hell are they going to be airing in Taiwan next season is all the damn dramas are postponed?! (Yes, I know they have other shows... Dramas aren't everything)

*sigh* This whole rollercoaster over Paper Rose has made me upset. Angry beyond reason. Way to ruin what could have been an AMAZING drama, CTV.

I woke up this morning (...actually this afternoon...) to an awesome unexpected surprise. My third shipment from YesAsia had come! This one contained The Big Bang Number 1 DVD (Japanese limited first press edition). Aka, the most expensive CD I've ever bought. Why are Japanese albums SO EXPENSIVE?! The package also contained my DVD version of Eternal Summer (the best movie EVER).

So I took pictures. LOTS of pictures. And since I hadn't taken pictures of the Big Bang The Great Concert DVD I got, I took some (read; a lot) pictures of that too. I'm SO happy with the quality of everything I've gotten. Nothing was damaged from the shipments (and they came from Hong Kong, so that's saying something). I still haven't gotten my posters yet, though...

Some of the pictures (mostly of the photos) came out kinda crappy. I didn't want to bend the books too much, so they're weirdly alligned, but whatever. Better than nothing! Also, I took these without flash, so they kinda came out yellowish.

WARNING: This post is VERY image heavy
( Big Bang The Great Concert DVD )

( Big Bang Number 1 CD+DVD (Japanese limited first press edition) )

( Eternal Summer DVD (Taiwan version) )

I also figured out today (Don't know why I didn't figure it out earlier...) that I can play my Chinese drama DVDs in my DVD player (I thought they'd be a different format, but it occurred to last night that since they're being sold in the US, they're probably format 1. They are. Not like it matters a ton, they don't have english subs.

Oh, and here are the high quality scans of from the Fahrenheit Love You More and More DVD booklet. The scanner kinda screwed them up a bit, but they're still usable!

Keep in mind, these pictures are HUGE. All but one of them are over 2000 x 2000 pixels large (the last is about 2000 x 1000 pixels). These are just thumbnails.

( Fahrenheit HQ pic thumbnails )

Feel free to take these if you'd like. I would appreciate it if you credited me for the scans if you use them to make icons / banners / etc though.

I just watched Eternal Summer, and holy shit was it amazing. Honestly, it was beautiful. I want to rewatch it right now, even though it just finished.



( Eternal Summer )

Believe me. It's really really good.

And hey, it's Ming Dao, Johnny Yan, and Lee Hom's favorite movie. How can you argue with that?