Asian Addicts Anonymous

Well, I am a bit behind on this, but Mike He’s postponed drama Calling Big Star has finally begun airing! It started airing on May 16. You can watch it with English subtitles at sugoideas.com and BillaSub has already started working on hardsub releases of the drama. I like Mike He in his roles from Devil Beside You and Why Why Love, so we’ll see how this comedy will turn out. It is relatively short for a Taiwanese drama, with only 12 episodes scheduled to air.

Also newly airing are:

Rice Family
Starring Megan Lai, Xiu Jie Kai, Fan Guang Yao, Lin Mei Xiu, Wang Yi Lu, Pink Yang
This drama follows the life of the Guan family, in particular the relationship between the mother and her daughter-in-law

Rock Baby
Starring Wei Ru Yun, Wu Zhao Xian, Yang Wen Wen, Ma You Xing
I am not quite sure what this is about, but apparently there will be a rocker who becomes a nanny?

Year of the Rain
Starring Vanness Wu, Jian Man Shu, Zhang Shu Hao, Zhang Jie, Ke Shu Qin, Wu Peng Feng
Based on the disaster that Typhoon Morakat brought, the story follows the life of a girl who was orphaned during the typhoon and her struggles afterward – could definitely be interesting, but no English subtitles to date.

Airing May 30

Scent of Love / 就是要香戀
Starring Viter Fan, Alice Ceng, Kingone Wang, Tiffany Xu
Drama sounds a bit complicated, but apparently two people meet and instantly hate each other and vow to never see each other again. However, as fate would have it, the girl’s boyfriend proposes and she panics saying the guy she hates is her fiance! A jealous girl partners up with the jilted boyfriend to break the couple up. Love Kingone, so this could be interesting.

Other drama news:

In other news, it was reported that the Barbie Xu, Peter Ho, and Huang Xiao Ming starring drama Summer’s Desire / Summer’s Bubble has finally been picked up by FTV and is slated to begin airing later this month. I couldn’t find an exact airdate, but I am excited as this drama looks good. Highly melodramatic, but interesting. Hopefully it will live up to its hype. Querbeet has announced plans to release subtitles for this drama.

Another drama which hit quite a few snags in 2009, Love Buffet, is starting filming again, this time with a different female lead as reported by mangaka Nanaji. Fahrenheit’s Calvin Chen and Aaron Yan will still be the male leads but Joanne Zheng has been replaced by Yu Hong Yuan as the lead actress due to scheduling complications. With the long delays due to production issues and then a typhoon, it’s no wonder that scheduling difficulties would begin to arise. Oh well, hopefully with production back on track we will be able to see Love Buffet air sometime later this year. BillaSub has announced plans to hardsub this drama when it finally airs.

Apparently there are rumors going around that the Taiwanese idol drama Extravagant Challenge may be back on schedule, slating to begin production later this summer with Ariel Lin still in the lead role, but Jerry Yan has vanished from the picture. Instead, there have been rumors of Korean idol group Super Junior members taking on the lead male character of Tsuruga Ren. Who knows how true any of this is as it is all in the rumor stage with no confirmation as of yet. In other Ariel Lin news, apparently she is set to take on the female lead originated by Yoon Eun Hye in a Taiwanese version of hit Korean drama Coffee Prince. Loved Coffee Prince, not sure how much I would actually like a different version of it as I am not a huge fan of Ariel Lin, but she can do the androgynous look alright (just see Love Contract with her and Mike He). To read more about these rumors, checkout this Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=48434462920