Autumn's Concerto

Autumn's Concerto (Chinese: 下一站，幸福; pinyin: Xià Yí Zhàn, Xìngfú; literally: "Next Stop, Happiness") is a 2009 Taiwanese drama starring Ady An, Vanness Wu of F4, and Tiffany Hsu. It was produced by Sanlih E-Television (SET) and directed by Wei-ling Chen (陳慧翎). The drama started filming in June 2009 and was completed in December 2009.

It was first broadcast in Taiwan on free-to-air Taiwan Television (TTV) (台視) from 4 October 2009 to 28 February 2010, on Sundays at 22:00 to 23:30. It was also shown on cable TV Sanlih E-Television (SET) (三立電視) on 10 October 2009 to 6 March 2010 on Saturdays at 21:00 to 22:30.

Autumn's Concerto was nominated in 2010 for Best Marketing Programme (節目行銷獎) at the 45th Golden Bell Awards, Taiwan.^[1]

Known as the drama which shot the child actor Xiao Xiao Bin to stardom, Autumn's Concerto has broken records with its high ratings. Scoring 8.23 as its peak point for episode 18, which aired January 31, 2010, the show has broken the records of The Prince Who Turns into a Frog to become the second highest rating Taiwanese idol drama, the highest rating being held by Fated to Love You. Autumn's Concerto now airs on Hawaii's KIKU television, weekly on Saturday's at 7:00.

Synopsis

Ren Guang Xi (Vanness Wu) is a handsome law student whose mother is the dean of his attending college. He had a bad childhood, and takes out his anger at the world by bullying others and taking advantage of his mother’s position. Liang Mu Cheng is a girl who has also had a rough past, but still strives to protect her stepmother from learning the truth of her perverted boyfriend, who sexually harasses Mu Cheng. She can’t stand it any longer, and studies to get into college to leave her stepmother’s boyfriend. Guang Xi and Mu Cheng meet over a dispute about a car, and Mu Cheng leaves Guang Xi an impression that she is a manipulator and swears to make her show her true colors. Guang Xi then makes a bet with his friends to see if he could get Mu Cheng’s kiss within 24 hours. He asks Mu Cheng out, and her stepmother, a co-owner of the school canteen, fears that Guang Xi would shut down their business so forces Mu Cheng to go along with the date. Mu Cheng has her own problem with the date because Guang Xi had threatened to have her best friend, Hua Tuo Ye (Chris Wu), expelled from the school because he gave Mu Cheng a book from the school library, which prohibits the students from giving the books to those who aren’t in the school. Guang Xi is successful with his bet and Mu Cheng goes home to a delighted stepmother, who gets so worked up as to say that if she tells Mu Cheng to sell her body, Mu Cheng would do it. She also taunts Mu Cheng’s desire to play the piano again. Mu Cheng stomps out of the house in anger and runs to the college. She finds a piano in there, and plays Air on G String by Bach. Guang Xi is in that very room sleeping, and is reminded of his father, who committed suicide years before. He forces Mu Cheng to stop and begins to accuse her of being a manipulator. He then attempts to make Mu Cheng strip and stops when she starts to cry. He starts to look at Mu Cheng under a new light. Guang Xi tells her to start playing the piano for him every night. Days later, Mu Cheng’s stepfather hears that Guang Xi wasn’t going to be able to attend their nightly session and takes advantage of it. He goes into the music room and attempts to rape Mu Cheng. He is caught by Mu Cheng’s stepmother and Guang Xi. Mu Cheng’s stepfather tries to blame is on Mu Cheng, but Guang Xi knows that he is lying, and the school gets involved. There is no evidence that Mu Cheng is innocent or guilty, so the Truth Investigation Court is held within the school to find justice. Guang Xi takes up the position of Mu Cheng’s lawyer. Mu Cheng might have lost the case if Tuo Ye hadn’t found the evidence and presented it to the court. Problem arises when Guang Xi's mother does not agree to their relationship and forces an arranged relationship on Guang Xi with He Yi Qian (Tiffany Hsu). Guang Xi later finds out that he has a tumor in his brain that had been causing all of his troublemaking. The chances of surviving is very low, unless he undergoes a new process of surgery founded by He Yi Qian’s father. However, the catch is that he has to leave Mu Cheng and marry Yi Qian. He refuses, but Mu Cheng finds out that he could have a higher percentage of surviving, and she is told to leave Guang Xi while he is undergoing surgery. Unwilling to allow Guang Xi take the bigger risk, she leaves him, and later finding out that she is pregnant with his son.

Six years pass. Mu Cheng lives a quiet life with Guang Xi’s son, Xiao Le (Xiao Xiao Bin). Guang Xi lost his memory during the surgery, and doesn’t remember Mu Cheng. He is engaged to Yi Qian, and has become a successful lawyer. Guang Xi took on a case where he defends his client of rape charges. After winning the case, hearing his client speaking like a jerk about the plaintiff (the victim of the rape), he gets foggy memories of the case with Mu Cheng, and hits his client. Due to his actions, he was sentenced to 240-hours of community service. The community service he is mandated to do by the law board sends him to the same town that Mu Cheng and Xiao Le is living in. He builds a strong bond with Xiao Le and Mu Cheng is reminded why she loves him. The town is unwilling to let Guang Xi leave them after the ten days, and there are tearful goodbyes. On his wedding day with Yi Qian, he finds an SD card in his bracelet that had been with him for six years. In the card, there are pictures of Mu Cheng and him inside, and he regains all of his memories. He puts the pieces together, and discovers that Xiao Le is actually his son. The last memory he had of Mu Cheng was of her leaving him and telling him cruelly to let go of her. He becomes bitter, and to take revenge, he tells Mu Cheng to marry him or else he would take away Xiao Le. He intends to make her life as miserable as possible. He has the same impression of Mu Cheng as before, and believes that she is a manipulator and a fraud. When they were on a trip together, Mu Cheng gets a call and discovers that Tuo Ye was accused of killing a gang leader, and leaves to help him. She and Tuo Ye’s mother begs him to defend Tuo Ye, and he agrees for Xiao Le’s sake. He finds the real killer, a girl who was kidnapped by the gang and was abused with drugs. Guang Xi intends to leave Mu Cheng, as he believes that she is in love with Tuo Ye, but Tuo Ye tells him the truth about why Mu Cheng left him. Still, Guang Xi and Mu Cheng’s marriage is falling apart. How will they repair all the years of heartbreak and bitterness?

Cast

Main cast

• Ady An as Liang Mu Cheng, the main female protagonist, a young girl who falls in love with Ren Guang Xi
• Vanness Wu as Ren Guang Xi, a famous and successful lawyer who falls in love with Liang Mu Cheng
• Tiffany Hsu as He Yi Qian, Guang Xi's fiancee and a successful pediatrician
• Chris Wu as Hua Tuo Ye, Mu Cheng's best friend
• Xiao Xiao Bin as Xiao Le (or Liang Xiao Le or Ren Xiao Le), Mu Cheng and Guang Xi's son

Supporting cast

Soundtrack

Autumn's Concerto Original Soundtrack (下一站，幸福電視原聲帶) was released on February 10, 2010 by various artists under Universal Music Taiwan.^[2] It contains thirteen songs, in which seven of them are instrumental versions of some songs. The album also includes a DVD. The opening theme song is "I Love Him" by Della Ding (丁噹), while the ending theme song is a duet by Della Ding and Wakin Chau entitled "Suddenly Want To Love You".

Track listing

International release

Autumn's Concerto was aired in the Philippines last February 14, 2011 (Valentine's Day) starting Monday at 4:45 pm in ABS-CBN. The schedule was then changed to every Saturday morning starting from 9:50 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. The drama series ended last September 17, 2011 in the Philippines.^[3]

The title was changed to I Love You So (Autumn's Concerto), and the characters were changed into English names:

• Liang Mu Cheng to Michelle Liang
• Ren Guang Xi to Stanley Ren
• He Yi Qian to Ingrid He
• Hua Tuo Ye to Toby Hua
• Liang Xiao Le/ Ren Xiao Le to Wacky Liang/ Wacky Ren

In Japan the drama was aired on Japanese cable channel DATV from February 27 to October 16, 2010 for 34 episodes.^[4][5] It was also re-run on cable channel BS NTV from June 2, 2010 to January 26, 2011.^[6]

Books

• Next Stop, Happiness: The Novel (an adaptation) (《下一站，幸福》原創小說), written by Liang Wen Ru, published by Kadokawa Media (Taiwan) Co., Ltd. on October 21, 2009. ISBN 978-986-237-358-3
• Next Stop, Happiness - Notes from Planet Dala: The Photobook (《下一站，幸福 達拉星球愛記事》寫真書), produced by Sanlih E-Television, published by Kadokawa Media (Taiwan) Co., Ltd. on December 30, 2009. ISBN 978-986-237-438-2

Remake

• Upcoming Korean adaptation of Autumn's Concerto.

Notes

References

External links

• (Chinese) TTV official homepage
• (Chinese) SET official blog