Meteor Rain (2001)

"Meteor Rain" is a side story to the popular drama, "Meteor Garden". Each episode focuses on a different member of the F4 (excluding Vic Chou who was busy to for a whole episode). Only Xi Men's (Ken Chu) story is based on the manga "Hana Yori Dango"; the other two are original. I loved seeing the F4 again and enjoyed the tone of the series. However, I still found the whole thing unnecessary, which is not something you want to think about anything related to "Meteor Garden".

Mei Zuo's episode: takes place during "Meteor Garden", after Dao Ming Si and Shan Cai break up. I've always had a soft spot for Mei Zuo (Vanness Wu), so I loved seeing him as the focal point. In the episode, he meets a Japanese girl searching for her grandmother. He helps her search and gradually finds himself attracted to her. The story was very cute and my heart melted at the last scene.

Xi Men's episode: anyone who has watched "Hana Yori Dango 2" will remember Sojiro's storyline, this episode also covers that topic. Unfortunately, the second half of that story had not been written yet in the manga, leaving a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion in "Meteor Rain". In this episode, Xiao You (Rainie Yang) returns from Canada to see Xi Men. After he tells her about his first love, she decides to help ease his regret.

Dao Ming Si's episode: Si's story, which is sometimes split into two episodes, may be the most unnecessary of them all. My main problem with it is that it causes continuity problems. It is set before "Meteor Garden", but Si's hair is straight and he is not a complete a**. In the story, Si is on the run from the police, when he is found by a young girl. He stays with her and her father and forms a close bond. The series cannot be forgiven for the horrible ending to this story, but I'll leave that for you to watch yourself.

Overall, I think the series can only be appealing to die hard "Meteor Garden" fans. If this does not describe you, I would probably avoid it. I'd like to give a special mention to the music. The songs were all taken from F4's debut album and are still very catchy, despite being over fifteen years old.

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