Substitute Princess

Substitute Princess (also commonly known as King Flower or Princess Stand In), is a Taiwanese romantic comedy. It stars an Idol cast with Chris Wu, Nikki Xie, James Wen, and Xue Shi Ling - more popularly known as MC40, as the main cast members. It aired on Taiwan Television (TTV) from January 6, 2013 to June 2 with 21 episodes in all.

Plot

In Jin Da Hua's (Nikki Xie) life, it's always been just her, her brother, Jin Da Li (MC40), Mama Jin, her gambling father, and her adopted brother and longtime crush, Lin Guan Jun (James Wen), living at their family grocery store. Da Hua is a sweet, caring, and kind girl, but with unruly locks of hair, numerous freckles, and large buck teeth that have earned her the unfortunate name of "Ms. Snaggletooth" around her neighborhood, she has never been in a relationship. One night, Da Hua's father finally returns from endless nights of gambling at casinos and, after the owner of the casino and also gang boss turns up with the deed to the Jin family's grocery store, they're cornered into making the hard decision of paying back their father's $2 million dollar debt with money they don't have or leaving their grocery store that serves as not only their source of income, but home as well.

Ouyang Tai (Chris Wu), who also goes by Terry, is a successful and rich General Manager at Sheng Da, a large construction company owned by his family. He's starting out his life and is getting ready to wed Du Liang Yian, the daughter of Director Du who is a close family friend and large shareholder of Sheng Da. While many believe Terry is only getting married to Liang Yian for her father's shares of the company, it's quite the opposite as both love each other dearly. However, Liang Yian, who's always yearned for adventure due to her father's overprotectiveness, wants to do more with Terry and see the world. After much begging and pleading from Liang Yian, he gives into her request of going mountaineering. Although, while things go perfect for the most part, things take a turn for the worst when Liang Yian gets into a near fatal accident. Terry's old classmate and doctor, Qin Mo, tells Terry that it will take Liang Yian at least one year to recover, leaving Terry between a rock and a hard place as her father would never forgive him should he find out about her accident.

Qin Mo convinces Terry that the best solution to the situation is to find someone who resembles Liang Yian and allow him to perform plastic surgery on her so she can be a subsitute. Terry is against the idea at first, but soon decides it may be for the best when he remembers Liang Yian's father and his place as GM in the company. Remembering Da Hua, who he'd met a few days before the accident and thought her eyes looked similar to Liang Yian, Terry decides to meet her and ask her to be Liang Yian's subsitute, offering $2 million dollars as initial compensation and another $18 million for her services afterwards. Da Hua is put off by his request and turns him down, but after returning home and seeing her mother torn about their financial problems, decides to accept his offer and undergo plastic surgery, only taking the $2 million and rejecting the rest of his money.

Now with her face being an exact replica of Liang Yian's, Da Hua must play the part of Terry's fiancee perfectly in order to fool all those close to them. Along the way, feelings for Guan Jun that Da Hua's always had are stronger than ever, but a new sort of emotion creeps its way into her heart while she grows to know Terry. Soon, Da Hua is in the middle of a heated love triangle and must choose between Guan Jun - the guy she's always wanted, or Terry - the guy who wants to make her happy.

Overall

I enjoyed watching this drama as it always held my attention. The plot was nicely created and it was interesting, the cast members were great at putting emotion into their work, and I think the few comical situations were the icing on the cake. Chris Wu does a wonderful job at playing Terry and really moved me with how wonderful his acting was when he had scenes with Da Hua. If there were anything I wasn't too fond of, it was most definitely the ending. It left the series almost unfinished with a concrete ending not being made as the viewer could imagine Da Hua ending up with either Terry or Guan Jun. Nonetheless, I thought this was a fine drama that I enjoyed obsessing over and recommend it to anyone looking for something new to watch.