♥♥♥♥/♥
TITLE: Substitute Princess / King Flower / Princess' Stand-in [金大花的華麗冒險]
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 01-12-2013 to 06-08-2013
WIKI: n/a
SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 season, 16? episodes.
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2018-11-11): "Retired:" This drama has been removed from all legal US streaming sites that I know of. :(
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 01-12-2013 to 06-08-2013
WIKI: n/a
SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 season, 16? episodes.
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2018-11-11): "Retired:" This drama has been removed from all legal US streaming sites that I know of. :(
The main character, Jin Da Hua (I think Da Hua means something like Big Flower, which is why one of the alternate titles for this drama is King Flower, and why Guan Jun puts sunflowers on his truck for his business he names after Da Hua), is about 30 and not married. Likely due to the fact that she has a mole and hideous buck teeth, is totally unrefined, and has the fashion sense of a 10 year old. Her mom knows what a treasure she is, as Da Hua is rock-solid in her values, helps tirelessly with the poor family's convenience store, and rides herd on her slacker brothers whether it means chewing them up one side and down the other or physically fighting with a group of jerks from the local mafia who came intent on beating the brothers even to death. Her older brother Guan Jun however is not actually her brother... her mom found him in the market as a little boy and brought him home to raise so he didn't have to grow up a homeless orphaned urchin. Guan Jun has always seen Da Hua as his sweet but ugly little sister but she's never seen him as just a brother figure... she's been crushing on him her whole life. Da Hua pines over Guan Jun endlessly and while he loves her and defends her, it's as his ugly sister not as a girl he could see himself marrying.
Basic summary:
Da Hua's father is a deadbeat who gambles away everything at the casino owned by the mafia boss. This mobster comes to collect and when Da Hua finds out her father owes "two million dollars," the whole family is devastated. They are going to lose the store- their family's home and livelihood- to repay the gambling debt! Da Hua sees an add on TV for workers needed to go to Australia and work long hours butchering cattle and the entire year's salary would cover the gambling debt... Da Hua is heartbroken at the thought of having to leave her family for so long but she's seriously considering it. The problem is you don't get paid until the year is up and they need the money NOW.
There's Ouyang Tai, better known as "Terry." Terry is engaged to a sweet and beautiful woman, Du Liang Yan. Terry's parents adore the graceful Liang Yan and her dad (seems her mom may have passed away) adores Terry but finds it a little hard to trust his overprotected daughter with someone else. Liang Yan really wants to get out and see the world, stretch her wings away from her overprotective father, and Terry wants to indulge his beloved. Liang Yan sees the photos Terry keeps of adventures he's had with his best friend Qin Mo (who is a plastic surgeon and adrenaline junkie) and wants to have adventures too! She tries to talk Terry into taking her hiking, but it takes some encouragement from Qin Mo before Terry goes for it. The vacation starts out oh so romantic, but then Liang Yan goes out to see the sunrise before Terry is awake and winds up slipping off a cliff. Terry finds her clinging on just below the ledge, just in time to lose her down into the ravine. Terry frantically phones for help as he has no climbing gear and getting to her without it is impossible. A rescue team is called in, headed up by Qin Mo. They are able to get Liang Yan to the hospital but Qin Mo won't let Terry see her. Some awkward excuse about her not wanting him to see her this way. Qin Mo says she's very injured but she will live and that Liang Yan doesn't want him to see her until she's had surgeries to correct all the scars. Terry reluctantly buys it, but tried to see her often and Qin Mo has to keep putting him off. We can tell from how Qin Mo is acting that things are much worse than Qin Mo is saying. Maybe he even feels responsible and like he has to fix it because he was the one who convinced Terry to take Liang Yan hiking in the first place. Meanwhile Terry has to face the vicious pool of barracudas that is his company. The company that his fiance also works for... and now he has to figure out an excuse for an absent fiancee without letting her major shareholder father know that Terry took his sheltered little princess hiking and she fell off a cliff. If Terry loses the confidence of the shareholders, he will lose the company to his scheming cousin! Seeing how much the constant suspicions and attacks are stressing Terry out, not to mention his worry for Liang Yan, Qin Mo has a suggestion: find someone he can perform plastic surgery on to take Liang Yan's place temporarily to divert the growing suspicions at work. Terry is very resistant to the idea and it takes more work pressure and more convincing from Qin Mo to get Terry to go for this hairbrained plan. Qin Mo confesses that it will take at least a year for all the surgeries she needs, and seeing there's really no way out aside from giving up the company or taking Qin Mo's suggestion, Terry considers it. But who would be prepared to give up their whole life for a year and their face forever to pretend to be Terry's fiance? Turns out, there was this convenience store where Terry and Liang Yan stopped on their way out hiking to grab a bottled water and there was this bucktoothed girl working there who, aside from the teeth, mole, and unpolished manners, did resemble Liang Yan a great deal... and Terry is prepared to offer "two million" dollars up front to seal the deal.
There's Ouyang Tai, better known as "Terry." Terry is engaged to a sweet and beautiful woman, Du Liang Yan. Terry's parents adore the graceful Liang Yan and her dad (seems her mom may have passed away) adores Terry but finds it a little hard to trust his overprotected daughter with someone else. Liang Yan really wants to get out and see the world, stretch her wings away from her overprotective father, and Terry wants to indulge his beloved. Liang Yan sees the photos Terry keeps of adventures he's had with his best friend Qin Mo (who is a plastic surgeon and adrenaline junkie) and wants to have adventures too! She tries to talk Terry into taking her hiking, but it takes some encouragement from Qin Mo before Terry goes for it. The vacation starts out oh so romantic, but then Liang Yan goes out to see the sunrise before Terry is awake and winds up slipping off a cliff. Terry finds her clinging on just below the ledge, just in time to lose her down into the ravine. Terry frantically phones for help as he has no climbing gear and getting to her without it is impossible. A rescue team is called in, headed up by Qin Mo. They are able to get Liang Yan to the hospital but Qin Mo won't let Terry see her. Some awkward excuse about her not wanting him to see her this way. Qin Mo says she's very injured but she will live and that Liang Yan doesn't want him to see her until she's had surgeries to correct all the scars. Terry reluctantly buys it, but tried to see her often and Qin Mo has to keep putting him off. We can tell from how Qin Mo is acting that things are much worse than Qin Mo is saying. Maybe he even feels responsible and like he has to fix it because he was the one who convinced Terry to take Liang Yan hiking in the first place. Meanwhile Terry has to face the vicious pool of barracudas that is his company. The company that his fiance also works for... and now he has to figure out an excuse for an absent fiancee without letting her major shareholder father know that Terry took his sheltered little princess hiking and she fell off a cliff. If Terry loses the confidence of the shareholders, he will lose the company to his scheming cousin! Seeing how much the constant suspicions and attacks are stressing Terry out, not to mention his worry for Liang Yan, Qin Mo has a suggestion: find someone he can perform plastic surgery on to take Liang Yan's place temporarily to divert the growing suspicions at work. Terry is very resistant to the idea and it takes more work pressure and more convincing from Qin Mo to get Terry to go for this hairbrained plan. Qin Mo confesses that it will take at least a year for all the surgeries she needs, and seeing there's really no way out aside from giving up the company or taking Qin Mo's suggestion, Terry considers it. But who would be prepared to give up their whole life for a year and their face forever to pretend to be Terry's fiance? Turns out, there was this convenience store where Terry and Liang Yan stopped on their way out hiking to grab a bottled water and there was this bucktoothed girl working there who, aside from the teeth, mole, and unpolished manners, did resemble Liang Yan a great deal... and Terry is prepared to offer "two million" dollars up front to seal the deal.
Flow and sequence:
The first someodd episodes focus on portraying Da Hua's character, family, and her undying devotion for Guan Jun. After a bit we get introduced to the rich characters as a side story, which eventually becomes the main story. The middle of the drama focuses on Da Hua's time impersonating Liang Yan to help Terry, and the later episodes focus on Da Hua's struggle to figure out whether her heart truly lies with Guan Jun or with Terry.
Cast and acting:
While all the characters did decently in their respective roles, whether they were overacting for comedic roles or playing deceitful, mysterious, or passionate characters, there was one who stood apart as above and beyond the rest. Chris Wu as Terry was amazing. Chris' acting is very good, very believable. The emotions portrayed were deeply moving. When Terry was celebrating his engagement to Liang Yan, his joy felt so real and pure. When he was grieving Liang Yan, I felt his pain. I could feel his inner turmoil when he was beginning to love Da Hua, and his determination to win her heart, and finally his resolve to put her happiness first regardless of whether it was him she chose or Guan Jun. I love Terry's character. He just calmly endures everything, acting so brave and even putting on the persona of a cold businessman at work when need be, but his real personality is a very softspoken, kindhearted man who is very indulgent to Da Hua and compassionate to the fact that she's given up her whole life and her face to get the money to save her family. The more he learns about her, the more he admires her as a person, while still remaining faithful to his beloved Liang Yan.
He played Huo Tingen in the recent March-July 2017 drama The Perfect Match [極品絕配] and his acting in that was stellar also.
While all the characters did decently in their respective roles, whether they were overacting for comedic roles or playing deceitful, mysterious, or passionate characters, there was one who stood apart as above and beyond the rest. Chris Wu as Terry was amazing. Chris' acting is very good, very believable. The emotions portrayed were deeply moving. When Terry was celebrating his engagement to Liang Yan, his joy felt so real and pure. When he was grieving Liang Yan, I felt his pain. I could feel his inner turmoil when he was beginning to love Da Hua, and his determination to win her heart, and finally his resolve to put her happiness first regardless of whether it was him she chose or Guan Jun. I love Terry's character. He just calmly endures everything, acting so brave and even putting on the persona of a cold businessman at work when need be, but his real personality is a very softspoken, kindhearted man who is very indulgent to Da Hua and compassionate to the fact that she's given up her whole life and her face to get the money to save her family. The more he learns about her, the more he admires her as a person, while still remaining faithful to his beloved Liang Yan.
He played Huo Tingen in the recent March-July 2017 drama The Perfect Match [極品絕配] and his acting in that was stellar also.
Writing and directing:
The plot was kind of all over the place for a while, especially at the end. In the late beginning/early middle it had a typical drama slow spot where I got bored and almost didn't keep with it. They could have wrapped it up a lot faster if they'd had a more clear direction with the ending, but I heard that they actually wound up changing the ending mid-drama! (More on that in the Spoilers section.)
Other:
The rain kiss, ya'll! The kiss in the rain with the dropped umbrella... Good stuff right there. I think I cried both times I watched this drama, at that part. All the moooshy feels!! ♥
Happy Ending Factor?
The happy ending happened sort of, but it was more of an eluded-to happy ending. I would give it a 7 out of 10 because they gave us enough to assume a happy ending, but we never got the closure of actually seeing it. My happily-ever-after-addicted little heart was sorely bummed at not seeing my ship end things with a romantic smooch at least. Again though, I think we'd have gotten a better ending if the writers had more time to plan the ending they eventually went with rather than changing lanes in the middle of the series.
(SPOILER SECTION! SKIP to Final Summary if you don't want to know how it ends!)
Okay so remember how I said I heard the writers changed the ending mid-series? Here's the gossip I heard; I heard that it was originally slated for Da Hua's enduring loyalty and love for Guan Jun to win out in the end and them to end up together. However, because Chris Wu did such an amazing and moving performance as Terry, the viewers absolutely fell in love with him. Despite his not becoming a vital part of the story until later in the series, everyone was head over heels for him and wanted him to end up with Da Hua instead of Guan Jun. It was easy to feel Guan Jun's love for Da Hua was flaky, immature, and unstable because he was flirting with who he thought was Liang Yan while knowing Da Hua had feelings for him. While he did seem to start to realize his feelings for Da Hua were stronger than he'd previously realized, it wasn't until he found out she had surgery and was gorgeous that he quit dragging his feet about courting her. Meanwhile Terry was dealing with his work pressures, guilt and worry about Liang Yan being injured, and still he was always so kind and patient with Da Hua. Even when Liang Yan died and he was grieving and couldn't tell anyone, he was considerate of Da Hua's needs and feelings. (May I just say once again what a terrific actor Chris Wu is?!) Terry was the stable and kind but still sexy and charming older man. Meanwhile Guan Jun was hanging out with gangsters and being wishy-washy about his feelings and his responsibilities, acting like a teenager full of rebellion. Terry was easy to fall for, as a viewer. I totally shipped her with Terry and not with the immature and flaky Guan Jun! I saw some speculations that people shipped her with Terry because he was rich. Personally that wasn't the case at all for me- I admired how Guan Jun (finally!!!) got his act together at the end and if it was all about where the characters ended up with job/money, I'd have been team Guan Jun. That had zilch to do with it for me though. Personally, I felt like Terry was the first one to really see Da Hua's beautiful inner qualities and be attracted to her for the right reasons.
So anyway the ending was rumoredly supposed to be Da Hua going "home" to Guan Jun and marrying her childhood sweetheart, but they changed it. I don't know where in the series the plot diverted to make way for the new ending, but the way it ended was Da Hua leaves Terry at the altar, runs off to figure out her feelings and which man she really loves, and Terry waits patiently for her as a saint. Months later when Quin Mo asks him how he's holding up, he says he's giving her space to make up her own mind so she can truly be happy: if it's meant to be, she'll come back to him. Da Hua is meanwhile saying the same thing, that if it's meant to be then they'll run into each other again- which annoyed me because she was the one who did the leaving. Terry waits and waits and Da Hua doesn't come back. Meanwhile Da Hua is tired of waiting for fate to force her hand I guess, and decides to really go to work in Australia for a year. As she gets on the plane, she bumps into Terry, they stare at each other and then smile and then we see the plane fly off and that's the end. I felt quite let down that there were no words, no hug or kiss, no reason Terry was on that plane, nothing. I felt cheated, but at least it was implied that Da Hua and Terry wound up together.
Final Summary:
The love triangle was really intense for me, not knowing from the get-go who the female lead was going to wind up with. It could be overacted and corny in parts, but I've noticed that's kind of a thing for some Chinese and Taiwanese dramas to have overacting as a comedic plot device. It could also be slow in places. But overall this drama was the sweetest and cutest thing! It was my "gateway drama" - the first Asian drama I ever watched and the one that spawned my Asian drama addiction.
Unfortunately this drama was only available to US watchers on Netflix (for a short time) and later DramaFever, an Asian Drama streaming site owned by Warner, that abandoned it's subscribers with no warning on October 16, 2018, leaving nothing but an unapologetic goodbye message.
(Above links or lack thereof based on US availability. Dramas may not be available on certain sites for certain countries. It depends who acquired the license for a specific drama for your country and who did not. Drama may be available on Netflix in your country but not even show up in mine, so check there if you have a Netflix acct. Click HERE for a list of legal Kdrama streaming sites and what countries they work in.)
(Above links or lack thereof based on US availability. Dramas may not be available on certain sites for certain countries. It depends who acquired the license for a specific drama for your country and who did not. Drama may be available on Netflix in your country but not even show up in mine, so check there if you have a Netflix acct. Click HERE for a list of legal Kdrama streaming sites and what countries they work in.)
