The Fierce Wife

I'm surprised that this drama hasn't gotten any review yet, considering that it was one of the more popular dramas in Taiwan in 2011.I guess I'll have to give the first one myself because I really loved the drama. It was one of the better ones worth watching. Oh, but before that, I just want to give a warning. The Fierce Wife is not a drama you'd want to see if you strongly prefer your dramas to have a conventional happy ending because the story revolves around marital infidelity. It is an unflinching take on the destructive consequences of infidelity on a beautiful and happy family and how a man lost it all after neglecting to cherish a wife who treated him like a king and their daughter when he exchanged what he had for a brief, exciting affair with the younger cousin of his wife.

I'm not into Taiwanese dramas but I loved this one. Some people who finished The Fierce Wife complained that it was infuriating and moved at a snail's pace. In my opinion, they never got the whole point. This is a story about GROWTH. It is about a woman who found her self-worth after the breakdown of her 10-year marriage. It was slow because the writer and director took much care in developing the conflict in the story and building up the anticipation in order for the viewers to gain a better understanding of the relationships and motivations.

The lead character An Zhen is everything that a man could ask for in a wife. She was loving, thoughtful, sweet and self-giving to a fault. It was obvious from the very start that she was that "type" who would give up everything for her man in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, her husband never appreciated her for who she was nor her efforts because he was so used to having her around, pandering to his every whim and his every need. He abused her love, destroyed her trust and even became so thoughtless as to force her to divorce him while she was recuperating from a car accident at a hospital. Thus, the journey of An Zhen is what makes the drama engaging and uplifting. Indeed, she had become "fierce" but not in the way that most people would think. No she did not become this femme fatale on a mission of revenge against her husband and his mentally-unstable mistress. She became fierce in a way that she was able to find her inner strength and proved that boring, homely wives like her can go beyond the stereotypes and reach boundaries beyond their expectations. I loved not only her physical transformation (Sonia Sui is gorgeous!) but also her emotional transformation.

My favorite side characters in the drama are easily the women: Rui Xuan, the funny sister-in-law, and He Ai Lin. I liked Rui Xuan because she provided comic relief alongside her husband. He Ai Lin...well she never gave a good first impression but she grew on me. She was the typical beautiful and successful career woman who never seemed to get a break until she married the man who was not her type but who treated her so well. They provided such a strong support for An Zhen and dealt with Wei En like no other woman could!

I just have one gripe: I wish that the character of Wei En was given more layers and that the reasons for the affair were more fleshed out. I didn't really like how she was merely designated as a "psychotic" self-centered mistress worth hating. It was necessary to make the viewers understand why the affair took place on a much deeper level. Was there another reason to the affair aside from the fact that Rui Fan was bored and experiencing some sort of mid-life crisis? When is enough truly enough? What truly went wrong? Not everything can be clearly defined as purely black or white after all. In life, we often deal with and make choices based on grey areas.

Would I recommend this drama though? Yes, definitely! But this calls for a more mature way of thinking since it is a journey in itself. Also, the ending (which i LOVED btw) is not really meant to resolve the main conflict in concrete terms. I'd recommend this simply because the drama proved to me that you can be strong without being bitter and that you can be kind without being a doormat. It's a human story that anybody can relate to. Also, the performances of Sonia Sui and James Wen were really great and their chemistry was good even though they played an estranged married couple.

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I haven't written a review in such a long time. And I'm writing this one because currently there is only one review for this drama.

I must warn you beforehand this drama starts slowly.
It takes a lot of episodes for the summary in description to unravel. And somewhere in the middle you'll start seeing things you waited for since the beginning. But the slow start was necessary. It allowed us to see the characters in their usual surrounding and when the crisis starts we see the change in their character imposed by the situation they find themselves in and as the peek of the turmoil passes we see them grow and develop. And that's one of the great things about this drama.
Story is full of various questions about life, love and marriage. Some answers were left to the watchers others are hinted.
There are also funny moments. Side couple was crazy and hilarious at times and the couple that we all root for is so adorable together.
I've read few comments describing An Zhen as a saint. I didn't get that impression. She is good but she is far from perfect. The whole essence of this drama is her character development and growth and not only hers but others' also. It would send a very bad message is she was the kind who holds grudges and hate. One of the main point of this drama is that; if we could forgive or at least give up our hate and anger we can move on and be happy. I believe that is true.

Acting is good. Music was very nice. There are a few songs that I really like.
I don't know if I'll re-watch it or not. It's too soon to tell.

If you are unsatisfied with the ending watch the sequel, movie called The Fierce Wife Final Episode. :)

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Okay, so this show me to the edge of my sanity. Which is most definitely an ode to the writers. I put off watching this show for so long because I hate seeing affairs out but with the wife rebounding per the show description, I gave it a whirl.
Overall, it was a good story. Definitely an unflinching look at an affair and possible repercussions. There were some things that were lacking to me though.
Ah Zhen- She was perfect to a fault. A good & dutiful wife but her drab looks and being a doormat made her a little undesirable. Regardless, her husband seemed totally into her and reassured her about her dry looks. I was totally disappointed when I saw the reason for her make over was to get her husband back. Why tf would she still want him? I had hoped it was to get her self esteem back to restart her life (which ultimately it was). I'd disagree with calling her a fierce wife, even at her strongest she was still seemed to lack confidence. But considering where she started from, I was proud of how far she came. She let go of her anger and came out a new person for herself & her child.
Wen Rui Fan- What a disgusting piece of crap. There was nothing appealing about that cousin that would have lured him away from his wife. She was immature and had nothing going for herself. He was happy one day and supposedly unsatisfied the next. There should have been a more believable reason for his cheating. What was also unbelievable was how cold he was toward his wife! She never treated him wrong, so how he could be so cruel and uncaring toward her blew my mind. It made me sick to my stomach when he forced his wife to sign divorce papers in her hospital bed.
It also blew my mind that he never left Wei En. She showed how selfish she was and even dangerous toward his child and he always made excuses! What the heck?! He was the worst character I've seen in a while. Oh! And to move back in with the ex-wife with his mistress?! He didn't care about Ah Zhen at all.
Wei En- This b&%$. How she could come into that home & have no issue destroying it was insane. And I actually like that nothing the husband did was good enough for her and she ultimately left him. He deserved that. I don't like that they tried to make us believe we should be sympathetic towards her for breaking up her cousin's marriage. She went in with intentions to destroy and she did. A lot of people have past trauma and don't enact it on people in their present. It was incredible how she started o think she was the victim.

Liked the supporting cast and that they spit truth to the cheating husband. Also liked they stayed by the wife's side through it all.

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Although I have completed this long time ago, I wanted to share my own opinions.

Let me warn you from the beginning my fierce wife is not a typical romance drama, it has got romance yes. but not as much as we expected. It's about a married couple how circumstances change them, how their marriage goes to a break down

An Zhen ( the wife one of the main characters) is a classical housewife. A perfect woman to get married, who works like a maid in her house, cooks, cleans, irons, and looks after her daughter. She's also beautiful, loving, caring, respectful to her husband's family.

So in those regards she has everything that a men asks for.

But her husband never understand her, she was turning around him doing everything for him. And as soon as her An Zhen's cuz moved into their house everything started to go upside down for them

As a typical man when he saw a younger attractive woman and made her his mistress. Of course he did not do it alone, it was the twisted cuz who changed his mind first.


When she was having the most difficult time while she was in the hospital , he forced her to divorce

So she slowly developed and changed, first she has been given a job by Lan Tian Wei ( Chris Wang) and with the help of him she reborns from her ashes..

It was too emotional too depressing. I hated James Wen while I was watching.. Sonia Siu - James Wen & Chris Wang both of them added too much to the drama.

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I did not like the storyline

The Fierce Wife was not a happy movie series. I feel that the husband , Rui Fan was going through a crisis. He could not be happy with his life. He was not happy with with his wife, An Zhen, but he did not communicate his true feelings. An Zhen’s biggest mistake is that her life revolved around her husband and child. She lived through her husband.

I think Rui Fan was very selfish and self absorbed. He felt that he was not being true to himself. However, he should not have gotten involved with his wife’s cousin Wei En. If he paid attention, Rui Fan would have noticed that Wei En had a manic personality. She was not mentally stable. She wanted what her cousin, An Zhen had and that included her husband.

Rui Fan insisted that he was in love with Wei En, but he did not look at the big picture. He was not prepared. He did not have a job lined up. His finances were not in order. Wei En blamed An Zhen when the masses shunned her. She did not have to fall in love with her cousin’s husband. I do not think that she was really in love with him. Wei En thought that Rui Fan was a stable man. She had never had stability in her life. In my opinion, she was very childish. Rui Fan thought her boldness was refreshing but Wei En did not think about consequences.

Wei En was very mean to Rui Fan’s daughter. She locked her outside. He started to realize that his girlfriend was mentally unstable. You could see that Wei En was deranged when she gave her orange juice with her prescription medicine in it to the little girl to drink. Fortunately, An Zhen stopped her daughter from drinking the drugged orange juice.

I did not find anything likeable about Wei En. I did not feel sorry for her. I felt that she was very jealous, mean, and mentally unstable. She decided to take a married ma from her cousins n, but she could not hold up as a home wrecker. Why did this young woman have to have her cousin’s husband? She wanted to prove something. Wei En thought that Rui Fan was a trophy.

Karma hit Rui Fan and Wei En in the face. He lost everything for what he thought was love. It was very stupid. Wei En is very immature. She cannot accept responsibility and she hates being scorned. Rui Fan was blinded by “love,” and he could not see the true young woman. I think it is funny that Rui Fan leaped into a mess. Instead of happiness, his life became a tragedy. Rui Fan and Wei En make me think of the saying, be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

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Emotionally Disappointing

All of those Netflix episodes… 39 to bee an t and the series turned out to be open-ended; very frustrating. I understand there is a movie that followed that ties up those loose ends but it is not offered on Netflix so I may never see it; 2023 is close to ending.

The series was well crafted and the characters were well developed; had me emotionally sucked into it. . The story had me yelling out loud at the husband, “Don’t do it. you idiot,” and yelling at Chris Wang’s character, “Say something, tell her how you feel. Don’t just think it.” In the USA we would assume that the husband was just thinking with his “dick” but we learn that he didn’t let that happen before the divorce. I suspected that Chris Wang’s character was interested in the wife when he first encountered her early on and I felt he had a real chance at the end. I loved the scene at the lounge where the brother and sister-in- law were celebrating the s-i-l’s birthday. Chris Wang’s character and the ex-wife were so happy and animated, thoroughly enjoying each other’s company;. However, as I said earlier I may never know if they ever kissed or committed to each other, and I feel really cheated and unsatisfied about the ending.

I’ve been through divorce and I understand the complexities of loss of self pride and self-esteem ; trusting again, particularly with a with a younger man; having to consider and evaluate the possibility of introducing your child into your new relationship while not endangering their relationship with their father; and the established adjustment to life after divorce; becoming a breadwinner. Most movies tend to gloss over those issues without much sensitivity in favor of saving production costs..

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It’s An Zhen’s story, but it can happen to anyone.

I can honestly say that this is not your typical romance drama. It is raw, real and heartbreaking.
But I think it’s one of the most beautiful stories in a long time that you can relate to.
It is a story about An Zhen, who is a dedicated housewife of 10 years to her husband, Rui Fei. They have 1 child together and it although it seemed perfect to everyone else, soon they had cracks and issues that destroyed their marriage. But at the core of the series, it is An Zhen’s story and it is her growth that has made her become the “fierce” wife.
People should definitely watch this drama!

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✒The The Blank Wall & Empty Frames ◻□◻Who Liked Her When She Was Frumpy? °Excellent°

An and Rui have been married for awhile, now. They are the perfect couple and have a perfect little girl. He is a manager at a cosmetics firm and she keeps the home. An is practical. She knows how to manage a house and she knows how to stre++++ch a dollar. She adores her husband and daughter and works ceaselessly on everything related to them and their home. She's just stopped working on /herself/. When the couple agrees to house the daughter of An's cousin, the trouble begins. Wen's parents divorced long ago and remarried. They have new families now, so Wen has no family to call her own. As she stays with An's family, she gets a sense of what she's missing and gradually makes moves to take what An has for her own. Wen is young, hot, and very available. That's hard for a man to resist.

TFW is a 2010 release that is rated 7.6 on MAL. It is 1 season consisting of 23 45ish-minute episodes. Inside of ep8, I was very uncomfortable. ‘This sux,’ I was thinking. I'm so glad I stuck with it. The show is actually wonderful.

Sonia Sui (Not a Murder Story) is FL Xie An Zhen/An. I love her character. She is optimism personified. She has an exotic beauty, but by mid-show I wanted to shake her and drag her to the salon for a revamp to look as good as we know she can. The hospital gown she wears in one ep is more attractive than her pajamas. Believe you me, unlike many Kdramas in which the female lead stays underachieved throughout, they give us lots of satisfaction here. This actress is stunning. James Wen (Tears on Fire) is her husband, Wen “Rui” Fan. He plays the attractive-but-weak edge well.

Chris Wang (Youngsters on Fire) is Lan Tian “Wei”. By ep27, I loved this guy. He isn't emotional, so it takes awhile to warm up to him. He understands that wallowing in sorrow won't do any good. He kickstarts An into working on herself. That's always, ALWAYS the answer: Work on yourself. Eventually, Wei realizes that he over-analyzes everything. When it comes to love, he must only ask if he's happy. (Many of life's quandaries are a matter of head vs heart). Patrick Lee from Cosmetic Raiders is hubby Rui's brother i/l and friend, Hao Kang De. He's fun. Perhaps too fun… Karen Hu plays his wife / An‘s friend / Rui's sister, Wen Rui Xuan. Her coloring is gorgeous. She has large liquid eyes framed with sable makeup. The effect is rich chocolate silk.

Amanda Chu (Rock Records in Love) plays the young siren, Lai Wei En/Wen. They do a nice job with her. I got tired of her, but I think we're supposed to feel that way. She's not the prettiest one in the series, but she seems to be a walking pheromone factory. Man can't resist her. She's complex. That's what pain does to a person. We know about her history and understand that she came from damage, and that's all she knows. An lends practical shoes to Wen for a job interview. They're a bit tight, so after the interview doesn't go well, Wei takes them off and thoughtlessly leaves them in the elevator. Later on, she's having lunch with Rui and An is late. Rui explains that An's trying to find the shoes. Wen think that's a waste. He explains: “...she cherishes everything and everyone that belongs to her. Including you.“ Wen knows that An cherishes her. There are some holes that love alone cannot fill, however. The actor who really lights up the screen is Oliver, the cat. Don't you just want to squeeze that scrunch-faced fluff ball? I'm officially a fan of Director Hsu Fu Chun, who also brought us Office Girl-7.5 & The Rational Life-7.

Affairs aren't fair. They don't just disrupt the marriage. They disrupt kids, the wider family, and the circle of friends. They are always a detour to a dead end. Even if a person leaves their spouse and commits to the nu-thang, that just resets the cycle and makes it easier to repeat the pattern. When confronted with temptation or a difficult moral decision, people often don't consider their life beyond that decision. What does the next moment look like? The next hour, day, the next 10 years? Temptation can be intoxicating, but the best thing to do before blowing up your life is to run. Think about living with this decision the rest of your life and FLEE! Most cheaters string the mistress along but will never give up their comfortable life or jeopardize their income. (What a selfish person to do?). Rui is sincere and sacrifices everything for love. Perhaps it was part love / part pride - he needed it to work or be more humiliated. But he is all-in. He really didn't think it through.

TFW plays out as a simple story at first. As the episodes continued, I respected the writer more and more. First of all, here's a light touch, while at the same time, the subject matter is treated seriously. The tone is rather remarkable. It covers a lot of bases: How the attraction can happen. How the wife always knows. How it changes the relationship forever. It also covers the gravity of marriage. To paraphrase, in their break-up conversation, Rui says: ”Your first question was about how we hurt your ego, and your second was about me abandoning my responsibilities. Neither question was about love.” “Both questions were about love,” An begs to differ. What is love? It's partly the willingness to take this oath (marriage vows) and the determination to honor it until the end. Marriage is optional and one should think it over 80 different ways sideways before entering in. “You're using her as an escape from your life.” Rui married An when he was trying to change himself, which is not the right reason. These things are tricky, and many are not even conscious of the inner workings of their own motivations. If you're hesitant, don't do it! Things will drive you crazy that you've never thought of, even if you can't see any wrong in the person ~at all~ on the day of your wedding. If things already grate at you, you don't have a chance of making it long-term.

Over the living room couch are empty frames, like the pretty frame they put around their empty marriage. It's metaphoric. “If I only focus on my goal I might neglect more important things along the way.” The RUT: The moment marriage becomes transactional, it's no longer a love relationship. Meanwhile, if wives get bogged down by neverending responsibilities and forget about se×, men /never/ will. Don't lose sight of the love relationship or the intimacy. Letting oneself go is not love. It's disrespect. What should be done to reverse course? Starting with good nutrition is never wrong, weirdly enough. My health journey has proven to me that our food supply is making us sick, tired, anxious, and depressed. Living on organic (non-gmo, at a minimum) vegetables and meat, cutting out sugar and avoiding grains for a few months will promote weight loss, better health, and a better mood. Never go hungry, but stop poisoning yourself. Once a person has established that baseline, s/he can branch out to more self-improvement from there.

I'm sick to death of people trashing housewives. Everything they do is work that must be done. Are there housewives who let themselves go and allow their worlds to become too small? Absolutely. It's an occupational hazard. It takes a tremendous amount of self-motivation and discipline to make a successful go of it. Working in a cubicle is often more demeaning and soul-sucking, though! Rui gets the housewife experience. “It feels more tiring than going to work. It looks simple but you don't have any sense of achievement when you're done. You go to market early in the day and it's already afternoon when you're done cooking. After all that trouble, you finish the meal in less than 20 minutes. It's the same with cleaning. After cleaning, you see that there is some hair and dust there.” Women also tend to lose their sense of humor in a marriage; not because they are flawed, but because, just like water vapor turns into clouds and rain falls, it always falls on the woman to hold the family together. It's simply counterintuitive to let oneself go and expect a happy, successful life, however. The best people never stop working on themselves.

Enter Wei.

Elegance. The show encourages us to become more elegant. After her marriage falls apart, Wei puts An through charm classes, of a sort: A lady shouldn't yell in public, ladies should always be graceful, a lady should bend down and pick up her keys this way… (It's crazy ironic, since the way they met was fighting over a vase at a shop - She exhibited none of those traits. It was her spark and spirit that caught his attention. None of that means he's /wrong/ though). He makes her wear heels: She complains that they're not comfortable. “How can you call this /training/!”? She pauses at that. We can see her resolve to work through this and not always take the soft option. He forces her to ditch the auntie hair bun-bun. He forces her out of her comfort zone / housewife cupboard and into the world: “Finish a book. Finish a movie. Finish a class.” He says he'll be testing her daily.

“I'm not trying to get into University…” An isn't convinced. Change is HARD. “The most important thing for a modern woman is the thirst for knowledge,” Wei hits back. “You have to find your interest because this is a very big world, but your eyes are only set on your home. So you have to break the wall /inside you/. Only then, will you know how beautiful the world is. People who aren't interested in the world will not be of interest to anyone else, either.” “Repeat after me: I am in my prime. I have the charm of a mature woman and the freshness of a girl. I am very beautiful. But I didn't realize it before. So from today onwards, I will dress up like this everyday until my husband's eyes light up when he sees me.” Wei doesn't pay for An's new, expensive clothes nor serve it all on a platter for her. She has to /want/ it. She has to put in the effort and investment. She applies her own Band-Aids to the new blisters on the back of her heels. I'm a born rule breaker, so I've never bothered with a lot of this stuff. One thing I've noticed, though, is that breaking the rules is no fun once everybody has forgotten them. We have forgotten what CLASSY is. It's sad.

TFW is funny. An ends up on TV in a cooking competition. They have a clip of friends and family cheering her on as part of her intro. Rui Xuan & Kang De are hilarious. He even takes pot lids and mimics the wind-up monkey banging the symbols. It made me laugh out loud.

The soundtrack is well above average. Sometimes the beautiful music stops abruptly when the scene changes, which is jolting. They should have had smoother transitions. I started watching this show at the same time as Two Fathers-7.5, making a head-to-head comparison unavoidable. I enjoyed TFW less at first, but it ended up moving me more. The last half is quite profound and full of lines that are worthy of quoting. It looks like it's shallow and then the viewer becomes unexpectedly submerged in its depths.


QUOTES📢

Men are so dumb.

When dealing with you men, how can I be kind?

Actually, perfect women are quite boring.

People that are too smart usually aren't happy.

I always think about how others treat me. I never think about how I treat others.

Only losers complain about fairness.

Love Is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars. ~Tagore~

The only way to surpass pain is to forgive the people that hurt you.

The human heart is hard to understand.

I can't go back anymore.



〰🖍 IMHO

📣8 📝8 🎭8 💓🦋🎨6 🎵/🔊8.7 🔚8 ▪ 🌞5.5 ⚡3 😅4 😭4 😱2 😯4 🤢1 🤔6.5 💤0

Shazams:音樂戀曲 重傷 & Wounded by Freya Lim.

Age 13+ Marital infidelityLanguage: it's mostly clean but they do drop occasional coloRuiul verbiage including some F💣s

Re-📺? Not out of the question

In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:

🇹🇼Taiwan
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💓 -
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K🇰🇷 :
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🎎 -
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⚡/😱 -
C🇨🇳: Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Saber 9-Kung-fu!;
K🇰🇷:
K2 8;
Private Lives 8.1;
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Tunnel 8.1;
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Black 9;
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Kingdom 8.3;
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Japanese🇯🇵 lite romcoms: Maid Sama-10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo-7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions-8.4, Toradora-8.5

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