Tsundere Female

An Di (played by Liu Tao)is unlike any female character in the world of c-dramas. She is intelligent, independent, analytical  and driven but not outwardly aggressive or hotheaded.  However, beneath her cold exterior, she is a woman who is deeply loyal to her friends and always ready to stand by them.  For An Di, recourse to rationality has become a coping mechanism to compensate for her own insecurities and self-reproach. 

She is the creme de la creme of society and an elite in the news efield. He is a free spirited variety show producer turned news producer. Their fates intersects  for the second time when she is tasked to bring up the ratings of a failing news station and he finds himself unwittingly transferred to the department she is helming.

While the premise of the drama was promising, it was ultimately poorly executed. The chemistry between the leads was lacking. Fortunately, the intriguing history of the side couple made up for all the drama’s failings. FenNi (played by veteran actress Sonia Sui) is the stereotypical tsundere female who is independent, cold, temperamental and distrustful.  She has renounced romance and established a ‘Singles Animal Club’. Her younger female colleagues admire her for her cheetah like prowess. However, when her path crosses again with a man from her past, Fen Ni is force to come to terms with her unresolved and conflicted feelings. 

The second female lead, Qian Qian (played by Megan Lai), is an  intelligent, stubborn and proud girl who seemed destined for success but as fate is oft a trickster finds her life thrown into disarray by a series of unfortunate  events. Her difficult but enduring love with Fu Bang provides a good contrast with the light-hearted and comedic elements of the main couple’s plot. 

A successful and ambitious plastic surgeon encounters an oversized village gardener and jumps at the opportunity to construct a “perfect man” out of him. He agrees to out of his wish to win back the woman who left him. 

The female lead is a tapered down Tsundere character as save for her initial individualistic outlook in life she is incredibly self-giving. While proud, she is not spoiled or haughty and is willing to go the extra mile for the man she loves. Unlike other Tsundere characters, audiences would have little difficulty in falling in love with her character at the onset and observing a sense of justice in her character each time she courageously stands up for the male lead. 

A story depicting a slow burn romance between a humble underachiever and a driven but hot tempered woman. James Wen plays a character atypical of male leads: Jiang Chen Bo is a timid and unsuccessful man in his mid thirties who finds himself back in the village living under his parents’ roof. The story is set in what appears to be an annus horribilis for our hero in this Bildungsroman. Paradoxically, the drama is tiled “the year of happiness”. In what appears to a comedy of errors, Jiang finds himself promoted to high office but before he could warm his seat heis astonished to learn that he is dismissed from the top job after his superior leaves the company. In continuance of his misfortunes, Jiang’s girlfriend ends their short lived romance.  After wandering the streets of Taipei and after much hesitation, Jiang returns to his home village to help out his father whom he shares a difficult relationship with. In a paradoxical turn of events, he reencounters his childhood friend and neighbour Chen Guo Fen who is a successful designer in Taipei when she visits the village. Chen is not the text book Tsundere female. She is not cold or misunderstood. In contrast, she is outspoken and assertive. Yet, as the story progresses, it becomes clear that their reunion has reignited old feelings of what used to be a love that never came to fruition between the bickering pair.  Two proud individuals afflicted with the inability to make their feelings known to each other. They are the Benedict and Beatrice of dramaland. However, as the story unfolds, they learn to put away their pride and haughtiness in pursuit of happiness. 

The female lead is a genius Harvard economist who is arrogant, haughty and amoral. One day she finds herself entrapped in her 30 year old body with only memories of 18 years of her life. As she tries to piece back the missing pieces of her memory, she struggles to come to terms with some of the questionable choices of her life including having a child with a man of humble background and no particular achievements or merits. She is flabbergasted and embarrassed by his boorishness and simple nature. The character can be better described as an anti-heroine who some audience might find hard to love. The male lead plays a catalyst for the heroine’s relationship with the various characters in her life prominently her eccentric father and her 5 year old daughter who is a savant herself. Her newfound acceptance and love for her daughter,which mirrors her own father’s quiet love and support for her, will make it easy to forget her misgivings and root for her to attain her own happiness. 

The female lead (played by Megan Lai) is a distinguished surgeon who lives an independent life in the city. Just when all seem pitch perfect, she learns that she has a motor degenerative disease i.e. Parkinson’s disease. In an impulse, she packs her bag and moved back to a secluded village to take over her late grandfather’s general practice. She is reunited with a childhood friend who she shares a past with. They clash over their different outlook and approaches to life particularly her self-centered approach of managing her patients. But as time goes by and they get to know each other better, he begins to fancy a future with her. Unbeknownst to him, her future is bleak. As her days goes by and she is increasingly reminded of her declining motor skills, she finds herself increasingly haunted by her memories of her grandmother who suffered from Parkinson’s and had episodic mental breakdowns, and begins to push him away. Against the backdrop of this mature  love story, is the repeated allusions to the dopamine- a drug used to manage the symptoms of Parkinson’s but also the hormone that induces love and happiness. 

Yoo Hee is the ultimate Tsundere. She sends shivers down the spine of her colleagues and subordinates. Outside the office, her biting undertones and icy demeanour intimidate men. As with most Tsundere characters, she has a backstory. Her relationship with her father and half-brother was delicately managed and provided an additional layer to the character. It also helps that the Male Lead is not a door mat and can absolutely hold his own ground in front of her.