The original Dao Ming Si from ‘Meteor Garden’ is back and he's still hot

It’s 2001 again. The show to watch is a Taiwanese live-action adaptation of a shoujo manga, and the words “Oh baby baby, my baby baby” is all that’s coming out of the radio (remember the radio?). “Meteor Garden” was such an unexpected and huge phenomenon during its time, and it was a career-making vehicle for its stars, especially Jerry Yan, who played the original rich, slightly goofy, bad boy Dao Ming Si in love with the modest and plucky Shan Cai. Case in point: The quartet of friends called F4 that the show revolves around eventually became a real-life boy band.

Since it’s nostalgia season, I’ve got good news for you: Jerry Yan is in a new movie, he still looks like a snack and he’ll be starring opposite Shan Cai again—kind of.

If you were on Twitter for the past 24 hours, past the depressing news of the state of our country and slightly more amusing videos of runaway animals, you might’ve seen a clip of Yan smoldering in a bathtub. He’s “cosplaying as a brioche bun,” wrote our designer when she sent a link of it to our work group chat. “Ang glazed niya kasi.”

The clip is a sneak peek from his upcoming drama “Count Your Lucky Stars.” It’s his first full role in a TV show since 2016 (in 2019, he had a cameo in a show, but that was it). In it, he plays a fashion editor who falls in love with a designer. He also might’ve gotten injured and is being taken cared by her? (This is what I could glean from the My Drama List entry and the trailer.) Opposite him is Shen Yue, who played Shan Cai in the 2018 Chinese reboot of “Meteor Garden.” See! I told you, I didn’t lie.

Some people have noted that it might be weird seeing the 43-year-old Yan romancing the 23-year-old Yue, to which I reply, “Actually, yeah, you’re right. The power dynamics in their characters’ relationship is not balanced, what with Yan being twice Yue’s age and his character being a respected figure in an industry that Yue’s character is still struggling to break into. I really, really wished his love interest wasn’t a young, wide-eyed ingenue, too. But alas, the heart wants what it wants, and I can’t help myself from swooning…”

BTW, Barbie Hsu, who played Shan Cai in the original show, also reacted to the clip. “Dao Ming Si! Who are you in love with behind my back?” she apparently posted on Weibo, to which Yan replied, “Shan Cai, don’t tell me you are jealous!”

Anyways, the first episodes of the show is already out in China. No word yet, however, if it’ll also be released here (Netflix? iWant? Other streaming services, hello?), so in the meantime, let’s watch the trailer over and over together.