Short dramas · Review
DramaBox's English-language billionaire romance has passed 440 million views, by the platform's own count. We explain the set-up and go through episodes 1 to 8 one at a time, without giving away the ending.
Is it worth watching? The short answer
Yes, if you enjoy a secret-identity romance. I Wish It Were You is an American short drama made in English, with 78 bite-sized episodes that add up to about 80 minutes. Each of the opening episodes ends on a hook, and the central twist is one you're let in on early: you know who Isabel's new boss really is long before she does, and that's where the fun lies.
It isn't subtle. The billionaire is impossibly smooth, the villain is pure pantomime and the subtitles have the odd typo. But it moves quickly, and the two leads are good company.
Where to start: episode 1 on DramaBox, the series' official home, on the website or in the app. You can start watching free, and English subtitles are burned into the picture, so it works with the sound off.
What it's about
Isabel Scott has just married a stranger. The match was set up by her grandmother, and the groom, Jared Foster, keeps his sunglasses on throughout, hands her a black credit card with his name on it and leaves for Italy on business, promising to call when he gets back.
A year on, Isabel is working at the Bellini Group when its chief executive, Lorenzo Bellini, returns from a year-long business trip. He's handsome, sharp-tongued and, on paper at least, married. What Isabel doesn't realise, and the viewer soon does, is that her new boss and her absent husband are the same man, and that he doesn't recognise her either.
That's what drives the opening episodes: a husband asking his new assistant what to get his wife, and a wife telling her housemates she'll never forgive the husband who disappeared. DramaBox lists Grace Swanson and Jackson Tiller as its stars.
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