Remake of Meteor Garden on ABS-CBN, Plus Local Adaptation of Boys Over Flowers on GMA

Two series based on the manga ‘Hana Yori Dango’ will return to the Philippine small screen soon.

A remake of the hit Taiwanese series ‘Meteor Garden’ will air on ABS-CBN next year, the network announced this week. The new ‘Meteor Garden’, slated to air in Taiwan in 2018, will star Darren Cheng, Dylan Wang, Connor Leong, and Caesar Wu as F4 while Shen Yue will play the role of Shan Cai.

The original version of ‘Meteor Garden’, starring Barbie Hsu and the original F4 (Jerry Yan, Van Ness Wu, Vic Chou and Ken Chu), was aired on ABS-CBN in 2003 to popular acclaim and has been rebroadcast numerous times since. ‘Meteor Garden’ also aired on GMA in 2007, but with a different dub that was not well-received by fans.

Many loyal fans of ‘Meteor Garden’ have long clamored for a Filipino remake of the hit series. However, ABS-CBN has yet to announce any plans to adapt the story to suit Filipino tastes.

Speaking of GMA, they announced that the Korean series ‘Boys Over Flowers’ will have a local adaptation coming soon. The network recently signed an agreement with JU Entertainment Movie and Drama Inc. for the rights to produce the local version of ‘Boys Over Flowers’.

Like ‘Meteor Garden’, ‘Boys Over Flowers’ is based on the manga ‘Hana Yori Dango’. The original series was not aired on GMA however, as ABS-CBN picked up the rights to air ‘Boys Over Flowers’ in 2009.

The original ‘Boys Over Flowers’ starred Lee Min-Ho, Kim Hyun-Joong, Kim Bum, Kim Joon and Koo Hye-Sun as Korea’s version of F4. Hye-Sun likewise reprised the role of Shan Cai as Jan Di.

Even though a local remake of ‘Meteor Garden’ will not come to fruition anytime soon, loyal fans can at least feel some solace that ‘Boys Over Flowers’ will be adapted locally in the near future. That said, anticipation for both series should only grow higher once their respective premiere dates (which will be announced soon) draw near.

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Meteor Garden Is Still Alive, Ten Years After

‘Meteor Garden’ returns to Philippine television next week as part of ABS-CBN’s tenth anniversary celebration of the Asianovela.

More than ten years ago,  ‘Meteor Garden’ became the launching pad that would later become the Asianovela genre, and even after the series ended, its popularity among teenage Filipinos remains strong. Which is why ABS-CBN and Jeepney TV will bring back the original Taiwanese drama starring F4 and actress Barbie Hsu to the small screen starting next week, as part of its 10th anniversary of bringing the Asianovela to Philippine television.

The groundbreaking Asianovela was first introduced in May 2003, and within a month, it became one of the most-watched programs on the Kapamilya network. ‘Meteor Garden’ was so popular that it helped influence teenagers to copy the hairstyles and the wardrobe donned by Jerry Yan, Vic Chou, Vanness Wu and Ken Chu, as well as Barbie Hsu. F4 albums were also distributed to great success, and at the peak of F4-mania, the group even visited the Philippines at one point.

The success of ‘Meteor Garden’ forced GMA to answer with their own series in ‘My MVP Valentine’, starring another boyband in 5566. Unfortunately, it failed to measure up to the popularity of ‘Meteor Garden’, and as a result, GMA was forced to go to South Korea to acquire other Asianovela titles. It did, however, re-air ‘Meteor Garden’ in 2007, as part of its short-lived ‘mangaserye’ hour. Despite that, ‘Meteor Garden’ continues to be an iconic brand to the Kapamilya network.

In the weeks leading up to its return, ‘Meteor Garden’ and F4 became one of the top trending topics in the social media website Twitter. This only proves that even after a decade, fanaticism for the Taiwanese series remains on a high. And as the series re-airs next week, expect ‘Meteor Garden’ to once again become one of the top-rated programs of the year, and in the process attract a new generation of fans.