Start Off With These Chinese & Taiwanese Dramas

Even before Kdramas, I was already so into Hong Kong movies that I remember writing all the movies I’ve seen on a notebook, which I’ve since lost. Jackie Chan & Jet Li movies were faves, but Star Movies Chinese introduced me to so many others. After watching Gen-X Cops, I fell in love with the gorgeous actors and I’d see anything with Stephen Fung, Nicolas Tse, and Daniel Wu that was on, even ones without subtitles! Oh and also Takeshi Kaneshiro!

But at some point, I couldn’t access Star Movies Chinese anymore. I don’t remember exactly if they became unavailable in our country or you had to pay extra for that channel. Whatever it was, it ended my love affair with Hong Kong Movies. Which is okay in a way, since I got too busy with life anyway.

And then Meteor Garden happened. They showed it on a local channel and was Filipino dubbed. After that blew up, local channels started showing dubbed Taiwanese dramas. But it wasn’t easy to follow the series since it was on at around 4 in the afternoon on a weekday. It was the time of CD’s and luckily I had a friend who’d burn copies and I’d borrow her CD copies of the dramas to binge-watch. Yes, illegal we know, but that was how we rolled in the 2000s.

Eventually, we got busier with life and no longer had time to watch these dramas, Taiwanese and Chinese dramas usually run for 40-60 episodes or more. Then wifi happened and the internet became more accessible for everyone and it introduced me to sites where I could watch it anytime. But by this time I was into Korean more than Chinese dramas and only recently picked up on them again. 

If you’re new to Chinese and Taiwanese dramas, here’s a list I would highly recommend you start with. You might find the original Meteor Garden and It Started With A Kiss a bit outdated, so I will share with you recent ones I’ve seen and loved. Because Cdramas & TWdramas have so many episodes and a lot of them go in circles at some point, this list will be short. I got bored watching the others and felt they were not worth sharing. 

Some are available on Netflix, others are on iQIYI, Viki, and YouTube. I hope you enjoy these Chinese and Taiwanese dramas as much as I did!

•  Love Me If You Dare (Crime, psycho thriller)
• When A Snail Falls In Love (Crime)
• Arsenal Military Academy (War, action, romcom)
• Oh My General (Wuxia, romcom)
• Rookie Agent Rouge (War, espionage, romance, drama)
• My Unicorn Girl (Sports, romcom, gender bender)
• You are My Hero (Military, Medical, Romcom)
• My Dear Guardian (Military, Medical, Romcom)
• Perfect & Casual (Romcom)
• Moonlight (Romcom, Office romance)

 AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX

• Boss & Me/Shanshan Came To Eat (Romcom)
• Love O2O (Romcom)
• Go Go Squid (Romcom)
• Eternal Love (Wuxia, romance)
• The Perfect Match (Romcom)
• Bromance (Romcom, gender bender)
• Well Intended Love 1 & 2 (Romcom)
• Put Your Head On My Shoulder (Coming of age)
• A Love So Beautiful (Coming of age)
• A Little Thing Called First Love (Coming of age)
• Go Ahead (Coming of age, romcom)