Lee Da-hey to star in Chinese drama ‘Love Actually’

Hallyu actress Lee Da-hey has been cast as the female lead in an upcoming Chinese drama tentatively titled “Love Actually.” Filming will begin on Monday.

The drama is a modern adaptation of the Korean hit “Dae Jang Geum,” which follows the story of a female chef in the royal palace.

In the Chinese take, Lee will play a cook who is also raising her nephew in hard times. After starting work at a dumpling shop, she rises to become a top chef.

“Along with her native Korean, Lee speaks fluent English as well as Chinese, so being in a foreign drama is not a problem. There’s a big demand for her since she speaks great Chinese,” said a representative from Lee’s agency.

Lee rose to fame in China through the SBS drama “Green Rose” in 2005. Since her popularity sky rocketed, the Korean entertainer took time to work on her Chinese, enabling her to appear on a talk show without an interpreter. She has some 2,600,000 followers on the Chinese SNS Web site Weibo.