Pretty Li Hui Zhen (C Drama review)

- Pretty Li Hui Zhen: 40 episodes total / around 45 mins each. Li Hui Zhen (Dilmurat Dilraba) use to be pretty, but years of declining family fortune added much pain to her life, and her looks slowly started to fade. Her childhood friend Bai Hao Yu (Peter Sheng), on the other hand, was once a chubby fat kid who was bullied and picked on as a youth has grown up to be a suave and successful business man. When they cross paths to meet years later, Li Hui Zhen is too embarrassed to show her real self so she has her stylish good friend Xia Qiao (Sierra Li) to pretend to be her. The only down side is Bai Hao Yu is actually her boss at her new job. Over time Bai Hao Yu begins to fall for Li Hui Zhen without realizing it is his true long lost childhood friend. At the same time coworker Lin Yimu (Zhang Bin Bin) is also developing feelings for Li Hui Zhen as well.

This series is a remake of the 2015 Korean one She Was Pretty. They made it more than twice as long at the Korean one but I think it worked to flush out the characters. Although I didn't watch She Was Pretty, I enjoyed this series quite a bit. Dilmurat was so charming as Li Hui. She made the character likable and cute and dorky at the same time. It was funny because Dilmurat is so pretty it was hard to find her "ugly" as she was suppose to be in the drama. Her good friend Xia Qiao, on the other hand, wasn't very likable given she deceives Li Hui by continuing to pretend to be her to Bai Hao. This just adds confusion to Bai Hao who continues thinking Xia Qiao is the real Li Hui, his long lost childhood friend. In the end, the friendship was saved but in real life it is unlikely it would have played out that way. Zhang Bin Bin did an amazing job as Lin Yimu, the coworker who falls for Li Hui. The range of emotions and confessions he give to her is heartwarming and breaking. He loves her so much and yet can't have her. Unfortunately the weak spot was Peter Sheng as Bai Hao. Although a good looking guy, Peter could not express his emotions as naturally or well as Zhang Bin Bin. He often came off as stiff and robotic. It was a real shame because he was the main lead but was often overshadowed by Zhang Bin Bin's character. There were a few scenes were Peter did a great job but it wasn't enough for the drama. I still enjoyed watching the two main leads but Dilmurat really saved most of those scenes.

As for the additional cast who played the office coworkers, all of them were great and so fun. The office dynamic enjoyable even when sometimes it dragged and went on too long. The soundtrack for the series was great especially with that one duet.