My Queen
This was the best drama I watched in 2018. Technically, I finished the last four episodes in 2019, but whatever. It's due to laggy streaming that made me finish the drama slower than I would like. So strap in while I talk at length about My Queen.
The drama is produced by the same producer behind Fated to Love You (one of my favorite dramas) and it's obvious in terms of the way the drama was shot and how the cast is 70% Fated to Love You. In terms of characters, I feel like My Queen has the stronger characters and a better overall theme. But Fated to Love You still has the better story.
The plot is about Shan Wu Shuan, an actual hard-hitting journalist and career woman who is under pressure from her mother and society to be married since she's in her 30's. She was engaged years ago but her fiance went off to another country and she returned the engagement ring to him. In comes Lucas, a 20-something that had to work at the magazine company in order to pay off debt. Will Wu Shuan and Lucas overcome their 8-year age difference and end up together? Will her missing fiance ever come back to explain himself for leaving her six years ago?
Cast and Characters
Shan Wu Shuan is played by Cheryl Yang. This is a rare romantic comedy where I can actually relate to the main female character.
Even the hard-hitting journalists can't avoid cosplaying in Taiwan.
Wu Shuan is neither clumsy, stupid, or ditzy. She's realistic about life and what to expect out of it. She doesn't like to ask people for help nor express her wants and desires. If I didn't have Henry in my life, I can well imagine that I would be like her.
Young guy Lucas is played by Ethan Ruan (Fated to Love You, Hana Kimi, Legend of Fu Yao). Actual age gap between the two actors is 5 years, although I didn't think it was visually obvious.
Cheryl Yang is well-preserved and Ethan Ruan doesn't have a young-looking face.
Lucas is a very refreshing male lead in romantic comedy dramas full of emotionally unavailable, chauvinistic male leads that give back-handed compliments to female leads. He's a feminist but, at the same time, he knows how to treat women well without babying them.
Both Wu Shuan and Lucas had past serious relationships that didn't end well. For Wu Shuan, it was with her hard-hitting photographer fiance, Song Yuan Hao, played by James Wen (Office Girls).
There's nothing inherently wrong with Song Yuan Hao as a character. Again, the drama does very well in this love triangle by making Yuan Hao a pretty regular, normal guy. He's not secretly a psychopath, he's not abusive. He's not a cheater, and he doesn't do noble idiocy. But maybe it's intentional, I can't stand James Wen's face when it does expressions. It makes me want to punch him in the face.
For Lucas, it was with Han Hsiang-Yun, played by Alice Ke (Office Girls, Marry Me, or Not).
The drama establishes that Han Hsiang-Yun is dead at the start of the drama and therefore only exists in flashbacks and as a psychological scar for Lucas. Still, I like how the drama doesn't portray Hsiang-Yun as some perfect angel that Lucas idolizes. Like real life, their relationship has their ups and downs. Despite their loving relationship, she was very possessive and jealous.
The rest of the drama features these Fated to Love You actors:
Wu Shuan's less competent co-worker - formerly the lawyer.
Wu Shuan's less competent co-worker and general sleezebag - formerly Xin Yi's sleezebag boyfriend.
Wu Shuan's mom - formerly Xin Yi's mom.
Wu Shuan's best friend - formerly Xin Yi's oldest sister.
Wu Shuan's college frienemie - formerly Xin Yi's second older sister.
Wu Shuan's best friend's husband - formerly Xin Yi's brother-in-law.
The scummy politician - formerly Dr. Hao.
The restaurant host - now a restaurant host
I got tired of screencapping.
Pros:
Character Journey
The story is about Wu Shuan being under pressure to marry since society around her dictates that women in their thirties are past their prime. Her colleagues see her as a crazy workaholic who makes them work overtime on Christmas Eve to chase hard hitting stories. While Wu Shuan acts very tough on the outside, she cares very much what her colleagues, old classmates, and even random strangers think about her.
Bossing about her incompetent colleagues.
This concern about what others think of her pretty much cripples her confidence after her fiance disappeared without a word.
Especially when she have jerks for colleagues who constantly mock her oldness and singleness.
Then when Lucas shows up and shows an interest in her, she's concerned about their eight-year age gap and how society would view that.
Towards the end of the drama, she decides that it doesn't matter what society thinks about her. As long as she's happy with her life, she's satisfied. And that's probably one of the best messages I've seen in drama. It's not "change yourself so the hot guy will marry you" or "change the bad boy so that he will marry you". It's just simply being happy and satisfied with who you are.
Empowerment
And that leads to it's empowering ending. (Spoilers, obviously)
After overcoming all odds, Wu Shuan and Lucas finally end up together. Lucas proposes to her. Through dialogue, it's revealed that he's proposed to her many times in two years. But she's always turned down marriage. To her, dating Lucas and having a career she's happy with is the best she's ever felt in life. It's not fear of upsetting the balance that keeps her from marrying Lucas. It's just unnecessary because she's already happy with her life.
So I know viewers (based on comments on mydramalist) doesn't like the ending because they don't end up getting married. Still, who cares? I think it would be a disservice to the drama's message of being happy regardless of what society sees as the norm, had Wu Shuan gotten married in the end.
For the main female lead to be happy with the life she has regardless of dating status is probably one of the most feminist and empowering messages I've ever seen in a romantic comedy drama.
Sex, Casual Sex
I like how mature this drama is. Sex - even casual sex - isn't something people talk about with immature giggles and thickly veiled confusing innuendos. Sex is just what normal consenting adults have and it's not abnormal or immoral or outrageous like it's so often depicted in Asian drama.
After knowing Lucas all of (probably) two days, it hits Wu Shuan that she doesn't want to be alone on Christmas. She asks Lucas to stay with her for the night and she'll pay him (since he does odd jobs for money). Neither of them makes it clear to the other if it's "spend the night casually chatting and playing games" or "spend the night having sex".
They end up trying for the latter.
A Male Lead That Doesn't Suck
As a continuation of the above scene, Lucas is responsible enough to reach for his wallet where he keeps his condom. And the sex comes to a halt when Wu Shuan looks over and sees his ID. Lucas is a whole 8 years younger than her. To Lucas, age doesn't matter. But Wu Shuan can't get over the fact that he was still in middle school when she graduated from college.
As she kicks him out of his apartment, they find that they're actually next door neighbors. Whacky! But the main point is, Lucas stops and leaves when Wu Shuan asks him to. It's not, "she led me on", or "she asked for it", or any number of jerky male excuses for date rape. Wu Shuan said to stop and, even though her reason is a bit crazy, Lucas respects her wishes.
There's also the bit with the Post-It Girl of the company had been hitting on Lucas and, later on in the drama, tried to "comfort" him after a fight he had with Wu Shuan. First, he clearly told Post-It Girl that he's not interested in her. And them, most importantly, he tells her that getting together with her to get over a broken heart would be disrespecting her.
A guy in drama that cares whether or not he's respecting/disrespecting women! Holy crap.
A Second Male Lead That Doesn't Suck
Since it's a romantic comedy, at some point there's a love triangle. Wu Shuan's missing fiance, Song Yuan Hao, comes back from the aether. At first, Wu Shuan is very upset with him for leaving her without a word. But then it's resolved that there was some sort of misunderstanding after he was injured and hospitalized in some war-torn country while taking award-winning war photos.
Whatever. Therefore, Wu Shuan and Yuan Hao has this big reunion even though she was on the verge of dating Lucas.
Even though I don't like Yuan Hao's face, there's never anything to indicate that he's just a normal, decent guy as Lucas. There's some backstory about why he was away for six years, but it's not very interesting since it's based on reasonable misunderstandings and nothing outlandish. So I'm not going to bother. Just know that it's a valid a excuse as any.
Ultimately, what makes Wu Shuan and Yuan Hao not work out wasn't anything terrible done by Yuan Hao. And I find that very good drama writing. The easy cop-out would to write in that Yuan Hao is a secret crazy person/cheater/serial murderer/what have you. But they went another way.
Falling In and Out of Love
Simply, people just fall out of love after they haven't been in touch with one another after six years. It's not that Wu Shuan and Yuan Hao became totally different people. It's just that they've had their separate experiences and formed separate memories. While it's grand to have love stories about people that were kept apart and can come together again like no time had passed, it's just as fine to have stories about couples that grow apart. I really like that about this drama, where it's not about big revelations of one person in the love triangle being a jerk. It's just people changing with time.
And initially, when Wu Shuan chooses Yuan Hao over Lucas, it's not some big effort on Lucas' part to win Wu Shuan back. Going back to respecting women's choices, Lucas accepts Wu Shuan's decision and wishes her the best. It's not that he doesn't love Wu Shuan. He does and he wishes she had chosen him. But if she decided on Yuan Hao, he's going to respect that. Probably the only gesture Lucas makes is to pop a question on her wall and then hide it behind a bookshelf.
Humor
The drama also has a fair amount of humor. Sometimes, it's very slapstick and silly but that's fine because it's a romantic comedy.
In one instance, the politician Wu Shuan was trying to get dirt on found her too annoying and he had someone create a gas leak in her apartment to kill her and make it look like an accident. Lucas finds out about the plot and saves her just in time.
While she's recovering in the hospital, she sees the news.
Headline: "Unmarried woman tires of single life, left the gas on to commit suicide".
The reporter continues to give evidence to support the headline: only a single toothbrush in the bathroom and childish cartoon PJs.
As they continue to watch the live breaking news, they see Wu Shuan's colleagues rush to the scene and they add to the reporter's suicide theory by talking about how she's been single for so long. It prompts Wu Shuan to run out of the hospital so she could correct everyone on live TV.
And later on, when Wu Shuan and Yuan Hao reunite, she spends the night in his hotel room. As Yuan Hao is some sort of world famous photographer, Wu Shuan's colleagues are out trying to get paparazzi shots of him.
Unknowingly, Wu Shuan and Yuan Hao go about their morning trying to have toast on their balcony. Then Yuan Hao drops his fruit jam. Since he has a bum knee from that war injury, Wu Shuan told him that she'll get his jam.
Paparazzi's view from the ground.
Random Cosplay as Part of Everyday Wardrobe
Music
The drama's opening song had me instantly.
That's "沒有如果" by Fish Leong. I really, really like this song.
The insert song "別再為他流淚" by Fish Leong is also very good, although probably more in the slow love song type that I'm less into.
Con
Unnecessary Love Square
I would say the only con is the Post-It Girl character that's there to stalk Lucas. She's not terrible, or anything. But just unnecessary. Her whole character could have been written out and nothing would be lost.
I can only imagine she was put in there as a shout-out to Post-It Girl Xin Yi from Fated to Love You.
It's safe to say I love this drama. It's funny and it's smart. It's well written and well acted by Cheryl Yang. So even though I'm watching it nearly 10 years too late (drama came out in 2009), I would say it's the best drama I've watched in 2018.
The drama is produced by the same producer behind Fated to Love You (one of my favorite dramas) and it's obvious in terms of the way the drama was shot and how the cast is 70% Fated to Love You. In terms of characters, I feel like My Queen has the stronger characters and a better overall theme. But Fated to Love You still has the better story.
The plot is about Shan Wu Shuan, an actual hard-hitting journalist and career woman who is under pressure from her mother and society to be married since she's in her 30's. She was engaged years ago but her fiance went off to another country and she returned the engagement ring to him. In comes Lucas, a 20-something that had to work at the magazine company in order to pay off debt. Will Wu Shuan and Lucas overcome their 8-year age difference and end up together? Will her missing fiance ever come back to explain himself for leaving her six years ago?
Cast and Characters
Shan Wu Shuan is played by Cheryl Yang. This is a rare romantic comedy where I can actually relate to the main female character.
Even the hard-hitting journalists can't avoid cosplaying in Taiwan.
Wu Shuan is neither clumsy, stupid, or ditzy. She's realistic about life and what to expect out of it. She doesn't like to ask people for help nor express her wants and desires. If I didn't have Henry in my life, I can well imagine that I would be like her.
Young guy Lucas is played by Ethan Ruan (Fated to Love You, Hana Kimi, Legend of Fu Yao). Actual age gap between the two actors is 5 years, although I didn't think it was visually obvious.
Cheryl Yang is well-preserved and Ethan Ruan doesn't have a young-looking face.
Lucas is a very refreshing male lead in romantic comedy dramas full of emotionally unavailable, chauvinistic male leads that give back-handed compliments to female leads. He's a feminist but, at the same time, he knows how to treat women well without babying them.
Both Wu Shuan and Lucas had past serious relationships that didn't end well. For Wu Shuan, it was with her hard-hitting photographer fiance, Song Yuan Hao, played by James Wen (Office Girls).
There's nothing inherently wrong with Song Yuan Hao as a character. Again, the drama does very well in this love triangle by making Yuan Hao a pretty regular, normal guy. He's not secretly a psychopath, he's not abusive. He's not a cheater, and he doesn't do noble idiocy. But maybe it's intentional, I can't stand James Wen's face when it does expressions. It makes me want to punch him in the face.
For Lucas, it was with Han Hsiang-Yun, played by Alice Ke (Office Girls, Marry Me, or Not).
The drama establishes that Han Hsiang-Yun is dead at the start of the drama and therefore only exists in flashbacks and as a psychological scar for Lucas. Still, I like how the drama doesn't portray Hsiang-Yun as some perfect angel that Lucas idolizes. Like real life, their relationship has their ups and downs. Despite their loving relationship, she was very possessive and jealous.
The rest of the drama features these Fated to Love You actors:
Wu Shuan's less competent co-worker - formerly the lawyer.
Wu Shuan's less competent co-worker and general sleezebag - formerly Xin Yi's sleezebag boyfriend.
Wu Shuan's mom - formerly Xin Yi's mom.
Wu Shuan's best friend - formerly Xin Yi's oldest sister.
Wu Shuan's college frienemie - formerly Xin Yi's second older sister.
Wu Shuan's best friend's husband - formerly Xin Yi's brother-in-law.
The scummy politician - formerly Dr. Hao.
The restaurant host - now a restaurant host
I got tired of screencapping.
Pros:
Character Journey
The story is about Wu Shuan being under pressure to marry since society around her dictates that women in their thirties are past their prime. Her colleagues see her as a crazy workaholic who makes them work overtime on Christmas Eve to chase hard hitting stories. While Wu Shuan acts very tough on the outside, she cares very much what her colleagues, old classmates, and even random strangers think about her.
Bossing about her incompetent colleagues.
This concern about what others think of her pretty much cripples her confidence after her fiance disappeared without a word.
Especially when she have jerks for colleagues who constantly mock her oldness and singleness.
Then when Lucas shows up and shows an interest in her, she's concerned about their eight-year age gap and how society would view that.
Towards the end of the drama, she decides that it doesn't matter what society thinks about her. As long as she's happy with her life, she's satisfied. And that's probably one of the best messages I've seen in drama. It's not "change yourself so the hot guy will marry you" or "change the bad boy so that he will marry you". It's just simply being happy and satisfied with who you are.
Empowerment
And that leads to it's empowering ending. (Spoilers, obviously)
After overcoming all odds, Wu Shuan and Lucas finally end up together. Lucas proposes to her. Through dialogue, it's revealed that he's proposed to her many times in two years. But she's always turned down marriage. To her, dating Lucas and having a career she's happy with is the best she's ever felt in life. It's not fear of upsetting the balance that keeps her from marrying Lucas. It's just unnecessary because she's already happy with her life.
So I know viewers (based on comments on mydramalist) doesn't like the ending because they don't end up getting married. Still, who cares? I think it would be a disservice to the drama's message of being happy regardless of what society sees as the norm, had Wu Shuan gotten married in the end.
For the main female lead to be happy with the life she has regardless of dating status is probably one of the most feminist and empowering messages I've ever seen in a romantic comedy drama.
Sex, Casual Sex
I like how mature this drama is. Sex - even casual sex - isn't something people talk about with immature giggles and thickly veiled confusing innuendos. Sex is just what normal consenting adults have and it's not abnormal or immoral or outrageous like it's so often depicted in Asian drama.
After knowing Lucas all of (probably) two days, it hits Wu Shuan that she doesn't want to be alone on Christmas. She asks Lucas to stay with her for the night and she'll pay him (since he does odd jobs for money). Neither of them makes it clear to the other if it's "spend the night casually chatting and playing games" or "spend the night having sex".
They end up trying for the latter.
A Male Lead That Doesn't Suck
As a continuation of the above scene, Lucas is responsible enough to reach for his wallet where he keeps his condom. And the sex comes to a halt when Wu Shuan looks over and sees his ID. Lucas is a whole 8 years younger than her. To Lucas, age doesn't matter. But Wu Shuan can't get over the fact that he was still in middle school when she graduated from college.
As she kicks him out of his apartment, they find that they're actually next door neighbors. Whacky! But the main point is, Lucas stops and leaves when Wu Shuan asks him to. It's not, "she led me on", or "she asked for it", or any number of jerky male excuses for date rape. Wu Shuan said to stop and, even though her reason is a bit crazy, Lucas respects her wishes.
There's also the bit with the Post-It Girl of the company had been hitting on Lucas and, later on in the drama, tried to "comfort" him after a fight he had with Wu Shuan. First, he clearly told Post-It Girl that he's not interested in her. And them, most importantly, he tells her that getting together with her to get over a broken heart would be disrespecting her.
A guy in drama that cares whether or not he's respecting/disrespecting women! Holy crap.
A Second Male Lead That Doesn't Suck
Since it's a romantic comedy, at some point there's a love triangle. Wu Shuan's missing fiance, Song Yuan Hao, comes back from the aether. At first, Wu Shuan is very upset with him for leaving her without a word. But then it's resolved that there was some sort of misunderstanding after he was injured and hospitalized in some war-torn country while taking award-winning war photos.
Whatever. Therefore, Wu Shuan and Yuan Hao has this big reunion even though she was on the verge of dating Lucas.
Even though I don't like Yuan Hao's face, there's never anything to indicate that he's just a normal, decent guy as Lucas. There's some backstory about why he was away for six years, but it's not very interesting since it's based on reasonable misunderstandings and nothing outlandish. So I'm not going to bother. Just know that it's a valid a excuse as any.
Ultimately, what makes Wu Shuan and Yuan Hao not work out wasn't anything terrible done by Yuan Hao. And I find that very good drama writing. The easy cop-out would to write in that Yuan Hao is a secret crazy person/cheater/serial murderer/what have you. But they went another way.
Falling In and Out of Love
Simply, people just fall out of love after they haven't been in touch with one another after six years. It's not that Wu Shuan and Yuan Hao became totally different people. It's just that they've had their separate experiences and formed separate memories. While it's grand to have love stories about people that were kept apart and can come together again like no time had passed, it's just as fine to have stories about couples that grow apart. I really like that about this drama, where it's not about big revelations of one person in the love triangle being a jerk. It's just people changing with time.
And initially, when Wu Shuan chooses Yuan Hao over Lucas, it's not some big effort on Lucas' part to win Wu Shuan back. Going back to respecting women's choices, Lucas accepts Wu Shuan's decision and wishes her the best. It's not that he doesn't love Wu Shuan. He does and he wishes she had chosen him. But if she decided on Yuan Hao, he's going to respect that. Probably the only gesture Lucas makes is to pop a question on her wall and then hide it behind a bookshelf.
Humor
The drama also has a fair amount of humor. Sometimes, it's very slapstick and silly but that's fine because it's a romantic comedy.
In one instance, the politician Wu Shuan was trying to get dirt on found her too annoying and he had someone create a gas leak in her apartment to kill her and make it look like an accident. Lucas finds out about the plot and saves her just in time.
While she's recovering in the hospital, she sees the news.
Headline: "Unmarried woman tires of single life, left the gas on to commit suicide".
The reporter continues to give evidence to support the headline: only a single toothbrush in the bathroom and childish cartoon PJs.
As they continue to watch the live breaking news, they see Wu Shuan's colleagues rush to the scene and they add to the reporter's suicide theory by talking about how she's been single for so long. It prompts Wu Shuan to run out of the hospital so she could correct everyone on live TV.
And later on, when Wu Shuan and Yuan Hao reunite, she spends the night in his hotel room. As Yuan Hao is some sort of world famous photographer, Wu Shuan's colleagues are out trying to get paparazzi shots of him.
Unknowingly, Wu Shuan and Yuan Hao go about their morning trying to have toast on their balcony. Then Yuan Hao drops his fruit jam. Since he has a bum knee from that war injury, Wu Shuan told him that she'll get his jam.
Paparazzi's view from the ground.
Random Cosplay as Part of Everyday Wardrobe
Music
The drama's opening song had me instantly.
Click to viewThat's "沒有如果" by Fish Leong. I really, really like this song.
The insert song "別再為他流淚" by Fish Leong is also very good, although probably more in the slow love song type that I'm less into.
Con
Unnecessary Love Square
I would say the only con is the Post-It Girl character that's there to stalk Lucas. She's not terrible, or anything. But just unnecessary. Her whole character could have been written out and nothing would be lost.
I can only imagine she was put in there as a shout-out to Post-It Girl Xin Yi from Fated to Love You.
It's safe to say I love this drama. It's funny and it's smart. It's well written and well acted by Cheryl Yang. So even though I'm watching it nearly 10 years too late (drama came out in 2009), I would say it's the best drama I've watched in 2018.