First Episode 71: 就想賴著妳 Down With Love

[chrix]

A part of the Grand First Episode Project -- See this thread for more info.

You can watch it here, or also download from there (vikii subtitles available too)

Light-hearted and funny romantic comedy

Presentation

This is a light-hearted and funny comedy. Jerry Yan plays a successful, but cold and detached divorce and estate lawyer and Ella Chen a tomboyish good-for-nothing, who is slow on the uptake, but nevertheless kind and warm-hearted and always tries to maintain her optimistic outlook on life.

Characters:

Xiang Yuping (Jerry Yan)

27 yrs old, successful divorce and estate lawyer

Cold and detached

Dislikes children, and the fact that he has to care for his deceased brother's children

Also keeps expressing mysogynic ideas, which might be due to his being in an unhappy relationship with supermodel Ding Huifan.

Yang Guo (Ella Chen)

23 yrs old, doing odd jobs

The Yang sisters were from a superrich family until they lost everything (their parents, money, house, private helicopter etc.) when they were very small. Now they're struggling to make ends meet.

Yang Guo is a tomboy, (apparently) not too bright, but tries to keep a cheerful outlook on life. She is not too eager to work, but always egged on by her (money-crazed) older sister to earn her keep. At the beginning of the series, she is working at a restaurant as a waitress and screws up Xiang Yuping's order who gets her fired from the job as a result.

Yang Duo (Xiaoxian)

25 yrs old, Xiang Yuping's administrative assistant

Yang Guo's smart big sister is more assertive and practical than her. However, their tragic family history has made Yang Duo extremely money-crazy up to the point of ridiculous parsimony.

When she has to find a nanny for her boss's niece and nephew for the 35th time within two months, she sees a chance of killing two birds with a stone: get her good-for-nothing sister a new, highly-paid job and solve her boss's nanny troubles. Little did she know that the two already know each other....

Xiang Yufei and Xiang Yuting

10 yrs old and 4 yrs old, niece and nephew of Xiang Yuping

The children from hell. They've gone through 35 nannies in three months, but of course this is all just a cry for love, they don't want a nanny but the attention of their uncle.

The uncle, who dislikes children, on the other hand is looking for yet another nanny at the beginning of the series. He is fed up with nannies who can't withstand the antics of the children or otherwise try to come on to him. So he is quite happy when his secretary offers him the services of her sister, who she proclaims is good with children and a lesbian to boot... (And right: little did he know.... )

Ding Huifan (Chen Zihan: this is an actress from Chongqing, and she has been dubbed over so she sounds properly Taiwanese )

25 yrs, idol/actress

A college sweetheart of Xiang Yuping, now a famous idol superstar always on the run from the papparazzi. Her long-term long-distance relationship with Mr Super-Lawyer has soured recently, and of course a lot of drama ensues...

Xu Yanling (Zhou Xiaohan)

25 yrs old, waitress and would-be actress

A colleague of Yang Duo at the place she gets fired from. A cute girl, who has a flaky personality and always puts romance first, work second. She's a good friend of Yang Duo, and being into acting, helps her out by pretending to be her lesbian lover...

Qi Kezhong (Zhang Xunjie)

27 yrs old, famous interior designer.

A college friend of both Xiang Yuping and Ding Huifan, a good friend of both. Also runs into Yang Duo and helps her out as well, so he is the "perfect man" in the series, as he is not just successful, but also kind-hearted unlike Xiang Yuping...

First episode

I guess I more or less already summed up what happens in the first episode, so let me just add my personal impressions here:

Yes, there's a lot of cliché in this series, a lot of it is overblown, and the main plot seems to be the oldest trick in the book: "ugly and dumb" (by the standards of Taiwanese TV anyways) but kind-hearted and cheerful girl meets successful yet unhappy boy.

But there's some twists to this one, as it brings in the issue of acceptance of homosexuality, and the acting of the two main leads, especially Ella's, is really superb. All in all it's a light-hearted romantic comedy, no more, no less. Interesting enough each episode runs for about 1.5 h, but it didn't feel like it was too long for me. It was really just a great show to just watch and relax... (痞子英雄 was much more complicated, but: 痞子英雄 fans, that good ol' Li makes a cameo directly at the beginning of the first episode!).

Also this show just started, there are only two episodes out, so you'll be able to talk to your Taiwanese friends about a show that's going on right now!

This show absolutely did not appear like your run-of-the-mill giggly school-girl soap, though of course I've never seen any of those, so I'd be interested in some opinions by people who have. Watch the first episode and tell me how it compares against those

Language level: Lower intermediate

Except when he does his lawyering thing, the dialogues are quite simple and easy to understand. Use of Taiwanese occurs occasionally, but at an absolute minimum.

Edited February 13, 2010 at 01:24 AM by renzhe

[chrix]

Here's some vocabulary from the first episode, I've marked some unclear ones with a question-mark:

公諸於世 gōng zhū yú shì 公诸于世, to announce to the world (idiom); to publicize ㊁ known to all ㊂ to let everyone know one's position

贍養費 shàn yǎng fèi 赡养费, alimony ㊁ child support ㊂ maintenance allowance

攝護腺 shè hù xiàn 摄护腺, prostate, also written 前列腺

狗仔隊 gǒu zǎi duì 狗仔队, paparazzi

毀謗 huǐ bàng 毁谤, slander, libel

守活寡 shǒu huó guǎ , to stay at home while one's husband is away, grass widow

別墅 bié shù 别墅, villa, MW: 幢 - zhuàng , 座 - zuò

拿捏分寸 ná niē fēn cùn, Calibrate (?)

耽擱 dān ge 耽搁, tarry ㊁ stopover ㊂ delay

僥倖 jiǎo xìng 侥幸, luckily, by a fluke

米妮 mǐ nī , Minnie

網拍 wǎng pāi 网拍, Auction

漫不經心 màn bù jīng xīn 漫不经心, careless ㊁ heedless ㊂ absent-minded ㊃ indifferent

吐血身亡 tǔ xuè shēn wáng , bleed to death

清一色 qīng yī sè , monotone ㊁ only one ingredient ㊂ (mahjong) all in the same suit,

臉臭 liǎn chòu 脸臭, Stinky face (?)

糟蹋 zāo tà , to waste ㊁ to wreck ㊂ to despoil ㊃ to abuse ㊄ to slander ㊅ to insult ㊆ to defile ㊇ to trample on

資遣費 zī qiǎn fèi 资遣费, Severance pay

跳鋼管 tiào gāng guǎn 跳钢管, Jump Pipe (?)

換護墊 huàn hù diàn 换护垫, Changing pad (?)

落鏈 luò(?) liàn 落链, Off the chain, a loose chain

莽撞 mǎng zhuàng , rude and impetuous

裝潢 zhuāng huáng 装潢, to mount (a picture) ㊁ to dress ㊂ to adorn ㊃ decoration ㊄ packaging,

[renzhe]

This is a perfect example for the variety of accents in Taiwan.

You get everything from full retroflexes (the actor who "teaches" her how to be gay) to light retroflexes (the main actors most of the time), to none at all (Yinling, in some scenes at least).

The funny thing is that they will often change it depending on the circumstances. In the first scene of Episode 2 (the flashback), Ella speaks with quite clear retroflexes, but when she has the unfortunate run-in with Yuping and they are arguing, they both drop them.

Edited February 12, 2010 at 08:47 PM by renzhe

[chrix]

Hehe, so what's your verdict then?

Hm, I haven't heard them use z/c/s substitution though.... I guess you were referring to fully retroflex zh/ch/sh as opposed to more dorsal zh/ch/sh, right?

[renzhe]

Yes and no. I think I've heard quite a range.

Most of the time, they are soft retroflexes which sound close to j, x and q. A lot of the time, you can clearly hear the retroflex, even though it's weak.

But in a couple of instances (especially with 吃) it sounded like they completely drop it.

[chrix]

OK, agree on that.

By "verdict" I meant: how does it compare to your run-of-the-mill giggly Taiwanese school-girl soap ?

[renzhe]

One should probably distinguish between regular idol love dramas like this one and pre-teen manga idol dramas like 花樣少年少女 (also featuring Ella in a tomboy role) or 惡作劇之吻. The latter tend to be of the more nauseating variety.

I found this very similar to 美味关系 and better than 微笑Pasta, so I guess it's pretty standard as far as romantic idol dramas from Taiwan go. ...on the second thought, it's better than both. There are a couple of funny scenes (the western showdown in the restaurant) and not a lot of bad slapstick. Also, nobody sings.

I have to admit that I absolutely abhor romantic comedies, and the happy fluffiness that accompanies many Taiwanese shows is not really my cup of tea. The whole genre is not for me.

Oddly, we haven't seen any romantic comedies from the Mainland. Do they even make them? 双面胶 looked like it would be one, but then it became horribly depressing. This makes it hard to compare. The only idol dramas from the Mainland we've had are 奋斗 and 我的青春谁做主 and they are more serious (though ridiculous in some other aspects). There are many idols in modern wuxia shows, but this is also hard to compare.

[chrix]

Yeah, not having seen most of the other shows, it's nice to get some perspective on this.

Well, I don't like happy-go-lucky shows too much, or overly cliched ones, but this one somehow appealed to me, I think it was the right mix of fun, drama and cliché. I think the plot has some potential, let's just see what direction this show will take....

[chrix]

I recently heard that one of the reasons this show seems to be flopping in Taiwan is that everyone is already watching episodes that haven't been shown yet on Taiwanese TV on pplive.

That gets me to the question, why would you release it first across the Strait where people have been known to be avid uploaders ?

[rivercao]

拿捏分寸 ná niē fēn cùn, "分寸" means sense of propriety, "拿捏" means judging carefully, the phrase means to judge the situation or to deal with the matter carefully.

臉臭 liǎn chòu 脸臭, it is a metaphor, it actually indicates someone is unhappy and you can read their emotion on their faces. The most popular way to say it is: 脸色不好

跳鋼管 tiào gāng guǎn 跳钢管, play pole dancing, I'm a little curious with the phrase, usually it should be 跳钢管舞. are you sure nothing is missing in the phrase?

換護墊 huàn hù diàn 换护垫, changing the pad, which is used to protect people. In most context it is a polished way to say changing sanitary protection.

[chrix]

拿捏分寸 ná niē fēn cùn, "分寸" means sense of propriety, "拿捏" means judging carefully, the phrase means to judge the situation or to deal with the matter carefully.

臉臭 liǎn chòu 脸臭, it is a metaphor, it actually indicates someone is unhappy and you can read their emotion on their faces. The most popular way to say it is: 脸色不好

thanks.

跳鋼管 tiào gāng guǎn 跳钢管, play pole dancing, I'm a little curious with the phrase, usually it should be 跳钢管舞. are you sure nothing is missing in the phrase?

don't recall it. I think it was a metaphore though.

換護墊 huàn hù diàn 换护垫, changing the pad, which is used to protect people. In most context it is a polished way to say changing sanitary protection.

This was most certainly not the context.

If I get to watching the first episode again, I'll keep an eye out for that...

[ansileran]

I'm late replying since I've just joined the project... I think this is one of the best Taiwanese romance drama. I've watched 8 episodes so far and never got bored.

Plot is a typical one for Taiwanese drama : poor common girl ends up in love with the beautiful rich guy.

Both lead actors (Jerry Yan and Ella) are great though and they don't overdo it (not too much at least). I also found it very funny.

It's also very easy to understand even with a very poor Chinese knowledge (I've been able to watch most of it without any subtitle).