General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

A Familiar Stranger

A Familiar Stranger (虚颜, Xū Yán; also listed as The Evil Face) is a 2022 Chinese historical romance short drama produced by Mango TV, Damang Short Drama, and Our Studio (我们工作室), directed by Zeng Qingjie (曾庆杰) and written by Zhao Lin (赵林), with Ke Ying (柯颖), Cheng Lei (丞磊), Wang Zexuan (王泽轩), and Song Zhaoyi (宋昭艺) in the leading roles¹. It consists of 18 episodes and premiered on Mango TV on 23 September 2022¹^•². The story follows a forced face swap between a court painter and a chancellor's daughter, after which the painter, wearing another woman's face, marries the general who saved her life years earlier³. By its finale the series had accumulated more than 600 million views and ranked first among 2022 Chinese microdramas¹.

Key fact	Detail
Original / English title	虚颜 (Xū Yán) / A Familiar Stranger, also listed as The Evil Face¹^•⁴
Format	18 episodes; costume, romance, and mystery genres; horizontal-screen short drama¹
Broadcast	Mango TV, 23 September to 3 October 2022¹^•²
Key creatives	Director Zeng Qingjie; screenwriter Zhao Lin; leads Ke Ying, Cheng Lei, Wang Zexuan, Song Zhaoyi¹
Viewership	Over 600 million cumulative views by the finale; 31 consecutive days as daily champion on the Maoyan short-drama heat chart; first place among 2022 microdramas¹
Recognition	Nominated for New Era Best Online Short Drama at the 3rd New Era International TV Festival Bancailluo Award, March 2023¹
Overseas release	Broadcast in Japan on Home Drama Channel from 12 April 2024¹
Douban score	7.4/10 from 77,938 raters as of 12 March 2026¹

Spoilers

Plot

Shen Qin, the daughter of the chancellor, is famed for her beauty but does not want to serve as a tool in her father's political maneuvering through her arranged marriage to the powerful general Xiao Hansheng. On the eve of the wedding she uses the whereabouts of the painter Shi Qi's sister to coerce Shi Qi into a forced face swap, taking a new identity for herself¹^•⁵.

Shi Qi wakes with Shen Qin's face and is married off to the general's household in her place. The man she marries is Xiao Hansheng, the rescuer she fell in love with at first sight years before, though he cannot know who she really is. Shen Qin, now wearing Shi Qi's face, stays near her beloved Prince Ning under a new identity¹^•⁵.

The drama's tension comes from the doubled deception. In daily life Xiao Hansheng notices that the woman with Shen Qin's face resembles the girl he cannot forget, and Shi Qi's secret gradually surfaces. Meanwhile Shen Qin finds that Prince Ning has not fallen for her and often seeks out Shi Qi instead⁵. English-language synopses add that Shi Qi, during a painting assignment, had learned of the affair between Shen Qin and Prince Ning, and that Shen Qin enlisted a magician to swap their faces so the two could trade identities³. The series ends with a clear happy resolution for the main couple⁶.

Production and format

The series is a horizontal-screen (横屏) short drama, shot in landscape orientation rather than in the vertical format that dominates short-video apps¹. Industry data show how unusual this placement was: according to a 2024 industry research report cited in a scholarly survey, 75 percent of Chinese micro-drama viewers watch on short-video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, where vertical-screen formats hold a clear advantage⁷.

Episode length is reported differently across databases. Baidu Baike lists each episode at about 12 minutes¹, the Huace TV production notes list 10 minutes per episode⁸, and TheTVDB's per-episode runtimes range from 8 to 17 minutes². Production companies are credited as Mango TV, Damang Short Drama, and Our Studio¹, with Mango TV and Sugar-free Culture & Entertainment also credited in Western databases⁹. A behind-the-scenes feature was released on the China Huace TV channel in October 2022⁸.

Reception

Commercial performance. By the finale the drama had surpassed 600 million cumulative views and held the daily championship on the Maoyan Pro short-drama heat chart for 31 consecutive days, finishing as the number-one microdrama of 2022¹. Mango Supermarket's 2022 annual report cited both A Familiar Stranger and Nian Nian Wu Ming as low-cost, fast-turnaround microdramas whose word of mouth and discussion rivaled long-form series, with each exceeding 600 million views¹⁰.

Critical and audience response. On Douban the series holds 7.4/10 from 77,938 raters as of 12 March 2026¹. Chinese coverage praised its economy of storytelling: all main plotlines are carried by the four leads, with no filler or padded scenes, and viewers dubbed it "B-level budget, A-level production, S-level satisfaction"¹. English-language reviewers rated it 7.5/10 (Chasing Dramas) and 3.5/5 (Shen Zhiyi's review), praising the chemistry between Ke Ying and Cheng Lei and the fast pacing while noting that the face-swap premise itself was left underexplored and the ending felt compressed¹¹^•⁶. The drama is widely credited with raising Cheng Lei's profile¹².

Place in the short-drama industry

A Familiar Stranger is one of the titles that established Mango TV's Damang short-drama line as a producer of prestige microdramas; Hunan Broadcasting System's later strategy documents cite it, alongside Nian Nian Wu Ming, as an example of moving short dramas from small-scale, emotion-driven productions toward artistic, high-quality work¹³.

For director Zeng Qingjie, the series was a career milestone. Together with Feng Yue Bian, Nian Nian Wu Ming, and Zhao Re, it formed his run of well-scored short dramas (Douban 7.0, 6.8, 7.0, and 7.4 respectively), and his signature "sliding-kneel hug" camera move originated here, was upgraded in Zhao Re, and went viral in 九重紫, his first long-form series¹².

The drama also became an early case of Chinese short-drama export. Its Japanese broadcast on Home Drama Channel from 12 April 2024 was described in Chinese coverage as a vanguard (排头兵) of microdrama going overseas¹. The series remains available on Mango TV, iQIYI, and Viki¹⁴^•¹⁵^•¹⁶.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles Cr to In

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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