Sometimes, when you scroll and click often enough, you end up watching the strangest things in romance dramaland.
Anyway, this is a duckling-turned-swan kind of drama, involving a rich, handsome male lead and a plain girl who just tries to catch a break in life. Things happen, they meet, we get comedy. Here’s what I have seen so far.
EPISODES 1 – 4 RECAP
In a busy city, a girl of 28 years old runs a convenience shop with her mother. What sets her apart from everyone else? She is… “ugly”.
Or so we are told. I’ve seen many versions of Ugly Betty — or just beautiful actresses who have to wear “ugly” make-up in general — and I’ve got to say, this drama really makes the “ugly” part believable.
Now, this girl — named Jin Dahua — also has a younger brother and someone who’s not really related to her by blood but grew up in the same house as her; his name is Guanjun. She has a hard crush on him.
Truth be told, though, this guy and the brother are just two idiots who goof around too much for their age.
But they’re kind people, so it’s all good for now, I guess.
So one day, the brother and the crush guy goof around on the street with another car and hit their truck at a construction site. It’s amazing that they still live afterwards because their truck basically flies and flips sideways before it hits the ground.
The person who drives the other car is someone I’m guessing is the male lead.
His name is Terry. Don’t ask me why. He and his girlfriend just got engaged and are having a good time together. His girlfriend…
Ohhh… I get it. The makeup almost fooled me for a bit there; and the actress certainly does a good job playing both an elegant lady and a plain girl from a poor neighbourhood.
They resolve the problem of the truck and go their separate ways.
It’s Dahua’s birthday today, Guanjun takes her out — out of pity more than kindness. But she’s happy anyway. We can’t say the same about Guanjun, he believes he deserves more than her.
Let’s cut to the rich and beautiful couple — Terry and Liangyan — for a second. Here’s the thing: Liangyan loves hiking and rock climbing, but Terry thinks these things are too dangerous for her. But after some puppy-eye begging from Liangyan, Terry agrees to take her to a rock climbing site. He’s promised her father to take good care of her, though, so he’s very nervous about it.
I mean… I don’t think it’s that complicated. If she’s had professional training and has been doing it for a while then it’s no problem. If she hasn’t taken classes or has no basic knowledge of this activity, then GET HER AN INSTRUCTOR.
Anyway, they have some fun for a while, there’s dangerous no rock-climbing involved yet. One day, they’re just hiking and sightseeing, Liangyan slipped and the next thing we know, she’s dangling over a cliff and Terry is screaming for help.
Well, help does come, all right, but only after Liangyan had fallen (or rolled) down the cliff. I have no idea how it happened because just a minute ago, it looked to me that she was standing on a perfectly safe site.
The accident puts Liangyan in a critical state. The doctors estimate that if — IF — her injuries could heal, it’d take at least one year for her to be back to normal again.
Terry tells his parents about it. This old couple is just about the most annoying parents you could meet. They’re more worried about their family’s reputation and business than the poor girl’s life.
Now, Terry’s best friend is a lot more supportive and helpful. He is also the reason this drama exists. He straight up suggests to Terry that he should get someone to pretend to be Liangyan while waiting for the real Liangyan to recover. Well, what else can you expect from a guy with these earrings?
According to this best friend, he only needs Terry to find a girl with the same height and body type as Liangyan, and then he (or people he knows) will be able to take care of the rest, which is… not exactly clear to me, but it sounds crazy enough.
You know what’s even crazier? Terry actually following this advice.
Dahua pops up in Terry’s head right away and he seeks her out, telling her the plan: cosmetic surgery.
That’s right, Terry says he will pay Dahua a big amount of money if she agrees to do some cosmetic surgeries, become Liangyan and pretend to be his girlfriend for a year.
First of all, is he insane? And secondly, IS HE INSANE? How is this plan less complicated than just telling Liangyan’s dad the truth?
Now, Terry’s timing couldn’t be better because Dahua’s family is going through some financial crisis. Her mother may lose the shop if they can’t come up with the money to pay their debtor.
So off Dahua goes with Terry’s crazy plan. She does feel a little uncomfortable about having to stay in Terry’s house for a year, though. Girl, if you already agreed to change your face into another person’s and possibly commit identity fraud, residing in a multi-million-dollar house that belongs to a nice, polite businessman shouldn’t be a problem.
COMMENTS
I wouldn’t say this is a good drama exactly. Everything about it is extremely cliched and, like most contemporary C-dramas, the only logics present are the logics that facilitate the romance.
Characters keep getting into embarrassing situations one after another; everyone (and their clothes) is over-the-top and I can’t really take any of them seriously. To be fair, though, this drama was made back in the days when contemporary dramas were still finding their place in C-dramaland, so any cliche can be seen as a product of the time.
HOWEVER, this is a case of “so bad it’s good”. I can’t wait to see what silly situation they’ll get themselves into next.
I’m sure Guanjun is going to get himself beaten up a few times before he realizes he has missed his chance with Dahua; Guanjun will probably confront Terry at some point and clearly, we all know who the winner is; Dahua is far from the elegant lady that Liangyan is, so the drama she will cause is something to look forward to; from drama-viewing experience, I’m also sure that whatever reason they come up with to make Terry fall in love with Dahua, I won’t buy it. But it’ll be fun to watch him try. Hah. Plus, the lead couple’s acting is good enough for the roles they play.
There are only 25 episodes so I might even recap this.
A small warning (not really a warning since it isn’t exactly a problem): this is a Taiwanese contemporary drama so the actors’ accent isn’t what you usually hear in Chinese historical or fantasy dramas. If you come from a world of perfectly spoken Mandarin, this might be a little grating and hard to follow, but after a while, you’ll get used to it. I hope.