Hello Again! Drama Review

Office romance is a theme that has spawned a long list of dramas. Rich man falls in love with poor girl is also a very common story that has been done time and again. Add the two together and what you will get is the Taiwanese drama Hello Again! (你有念大學嗎?). Personally, I’m not a big fan of Taiwanese productions but once in while, there will be a drama or two that is worth catching up on. I wrote up the Hello Again! review below just after having sat through the entire 16 episodes. Should you spend your precious time to do the same? Find out below!

Episodes: 16
Type: Romance
Aired: January 2019
Images Credit: TTV

The Cast

• Amber An Xin-Ya as Chang Ke Ai
• Bruce Hung Chih-Han as Yang Zi Hao
• Sean Lee Shiau Shiang as Cai Xiao Gang
• Wu Pin Jie as Jian Zhen Yi
• Qiu Mao Di as Liang Ji Zie

Main Characters

Chang Ke Ai

Chang Ke Ai was a top scorer in high school. She was studious and an examplary student. She had aims to get into university and with her results, this seemed like a foregone conclusion. She had her admirers but preferred to put all her attention into her studies instead.

However, when it was time for her to enter university, Ke Ai was forced to pass up on the opportunity due to financial considerations. She ended up as a small-time vendor selling clothes at a market stall with her mother and debts on her shoulders. While she still maintains a positive outlook on life, she is also plagued by self-doubt due to her lack of education.

Yang Zi Hao

Yang Zi Hao comes from a rich family who owns a large department store in town. He is also an ex-schoolmate of Ke Ai and had a crush on her. In order to get her attention, he would pull pranks on Kei Ai which annoyed her. Zi Hao was a playful character who didn’t care much about his studies back in school until the last 100 days to the university entrance exam.

As a result, he managed to scrape through and got into university. A decade later, he is the Vice President of his family’s department store. He is also seen as a handsome and successful young man.

Cai Xiao Gang

Cai Xiao Gang is a lawyer who has known Ke Ai and her mother for many years. He has helped them a lot through the years by negotiating and fending off the creditors who chased them for money and handling the gangsters that disturb them in the market.

Xiao Gang is also the person whom Ke Ai would go to when she has problems and needs a shoulder to cry on. He has feelings for Ke Ai but he has never found the courage to confess.

Jian Zhen Yi

Jian Zhen Yi is a famous pianist but also a closet lesbian. She fell in love with Ke Ai but she also knew that Xiao Gang has the same feelings secretly too. As Zhen Yi didn’t dare to tell Ke Ai her feelings, she could relate to the pain that Xiao Gang was going through and encouraged him to open up and win the girl over from Zi Hao.

Liang Ji Zie

Liang Ji Zie is a cousin of Zi Hao and a college mate of Xiao Gang. He has a not so serious personality and enjoyed watching the battle for Ke Ai’s heart among Zi Hao, Xiao Gang, and Zhen Yi.

Synopsis

As the title suggests, this is a story about meeting each other again after a period of 10 years. Zi Hao and Ke Ai made a bet during one of their arguments back in school that she would carry his schoolbag for a year if he did manage to get into university. He did get a place but Ke Ai didn’t show up at all. So, for the next 10 years, Zi Hao has been thinking about her and wondering what happened to the girl he loves.

As fate has it, they met up again after Zi Hao had to be in charge of the Women’s Apparel Division of his family’s department store. He needed someone who is good at selling clothes in order to boost sales and came across Ke Ai. He paid off Ke Ai’s debt to the gangsters and “forced” her to work for him instead.

The story really starts from here. It is about how Zi Hao slowly helped Ke Ai to gain back her confidence by giving her opportunities at work because he cared. Ke Ai had to meet sales targets and also evaluate her own feelings for Zi Hao as the drama progresses. Their rumoured relationship inherently invited jealousies and gossips among Ke Ai’s co-workers and raised conflicts with Zi Hao’s mother. It is a typical office romance plot with a love rival thrown in in the form of Xiao Gang and a little humour added to the mix with the lesbian Zhen Yi.

Hello Again! Ending

These are the spoilers for Hello Again! Firstly, it is a happy ending with Zi Hao and Ke Ai getting married at the high school they attended. Ke Ai went back to university to study with the full support from Zi Hao after meeting the goals set for her at the department store. She wanted to improve herself and fulfill her dreams that she had left behind 10 years earlier. Zi Hao’s mother also came to accept Ke Ai after she realized that the latter is the girl her son has been in love with since high school and the source of his motivation to get into university.

Secondly, Zhen Yi did confess to Ke Ai her feelings. Obviously, nothing will come out of it since Ke Ai isn’t a lesbian like Zhen Yi is. But Ke Ai insisted that they remain as good friends. With that, the attention is turned towards her relationship with Ji Zie. They started off as friends as they listened to each other’s problems until a one night stand during a drunken spell stirred feelings within.

Lastly, Xiao Gang never did confess her feelings to Ke Ai. He knew that he is only like a brother to her and he could see that Ke Ai has feelings for Zi Hao. Towards the end of the drama, he is shown to be interested in a girl he bumped into on the street whom he met again during Zi Hao and Ke Ai’s wedding at the school.

Kissing Scenes In Hello Again!

If you are wondering in which episodes you can find kisses between Zi Hao and Kei Ai in Hello Again!, let me help you out below:

• The championship kiss in episode 7. This is when Ke Ai came up as the top salesperson in a departmental competition and the reward is a kiss from Zi Hao.
• The first real kiss in episode 11. This happened when they were sheltering from the rain and Ke Ai was beginning to fall for Zi Hao.
• The charity gala kiss in episode 12. Ke Ai needed to show Zi Hao that she loved him after hurting his feelings earlier.
• The passionate kiss in episode 13. Zi Hao suffered a mild concussion and Ke Ai was made to look after him at home. The kiss started in the kitchen with Ke Ai sitting on the countertop with Zi Hao carrying her later to the bedroom. Also, check out the morning-after scene.
• The confession kiss in episode 15. This was after Ke Ai gave a love note to Zi Hao that says I love you.
• The wedding kiss in episode 16. A simple, loving kiss to complete the wedding scene towards to end of the drama.

Apart from Zi Hao and Ke Ai, the other kissing scene worth checking out is between Ji Zie and Zhen Yi in episode 14. The act here is depicted as hot and wild after both have been drinking heavily with a little dare from Zhen Yi.

Review Of Hello Again! – To Watch Or Not To Watch?

If you are a romantic comedy (rom-com) drama fan, Hello Again! has its selling points to make it watchable. These include:

• Great chemistry between the lead characters. The interaction between Zi Hao and Ke Ai is fun to watch because they know how to tease, get angry, and be sweet to each other in a very natural way. Bruce Hung and Amber An look very comfortable playing their roles as lovers including the kissing and bed scenes.
• There is an element of humour which makes the drama light-hearted and funny. There will be moments when you will be laughing out loud due to the antics of the main characters.
• Bruce Hung as Yang Zi Hao is worth a watch. While he has the looks to make him look cute with his dimples, he is also able to portray Zi Hao as a very likeable character despite his childishness which is very important for a male lead in a romance drama.
• The kissing scenes are nicely shot. You will find both sweet and passionate kisses between Zi Hao and Ke Ai in Hello Again!. Well-thought-out kissing scenes is what viewers would drool over once they get invested in a romantic storyline. You won’t be disappointed in this area, or at least, I didn’t. I think the director did a pretty good job here to make the scenes look romantic and real to the viewers.

Should You Put Hello Again! Into Your Must-Watch List?

My answer would be no. It is a watchable drama due to the above factors but when they are better choices out there, this is not something that you would miss a great deal either if you skip it. What makes a romantic comedy great to watch or otherwise is the sweetness level and I feel that Hello Again! fails to keep up with the Korean dramas like What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim in this aspect. It is great to watch on a lazy weekend, but it doesn’t have that wow factor that would make my heart melt and feel strongly for the characters to want to watch it a second time.

Furthermore, the plot and the stories of the characters must be realistic rather than looked forced. While Zhen Yi is depicted as a lesbian to make the drama more humorous and interesting, her relationship with Ji Zie, a man, makes it kind of odd to me. The love scribblings that Zi Hao left behind in university are also overdone. After all, words written on the bottom of a rock with a marker pen and on a lecture hall table with a correction pen would surely have disappeared after 10 years. Whether these details matter would depend on personal preferences but they really need not push it that far to me.

Finally, my own opinion for this Hello Again! review is that Amber An looks a little too mature for the role despite the great chemistry between her and Bruce Hung. She certainly doesn’t look like a high school student to me when they needed to do the flashbacks.