Meteor Garden

Shancai attends Yingde University on a scholarship and runs straight into F4, the four wealthy heirs who hand out a red card to anyone they decide to make miserable. She earns hers by defending a bullied friend, and refuses to take it quietly, so the leader of the four, Daoming Si, does not know what to do with someone who fights back instead of falling in line.

Daoming Si's persistence and Shancai's own courage slowly win her the group's respect, and though she is drawn at first to the quiet Huaze Lei, it is Daoming Si she ends up falling for. His manipulative mother, unwilling to accept his interest in someone from a modest background, becomes the main obstacle standing between them.

Meteor Garden starred Barbie Hsu as Shancai and Jerry Yan as Daoming Si, with Vic Chou, Ken Chu, and Vanness Wu completing F4. The 19-episode series aired on CTS in 2001 and became a phenomenon across Asia, launching the male leads' careers, establishing Hsu as a leading actress, and helping usher in the idol-drama era of Taiwanese television.