Cinderella Plus
With the Cinderella name titled up front you know going in that it’s a romance, a drama, and a comedy with a Cinderella and a happy ending. The romantic entanglement question is over three ‘princes’ vs one. The comedy elements are focused on the step mom and sister (three abusive stepsisters reduced to one). The drama aspects have many extra big reveals that have nothing to do with the original Cinderella story. These reveals tie together seemingly unrelated events from early on and are discovered through flashbacks and in later episodes and deliver some satisfying twists, and of course because this is a Cinderella inspired story our Cinderella here overcomes all obstacles and wins the heart of one of the three princes, and she gets her own happy ending along with better endings for the whole family.The second time I watched I was aware of the many twists and reveals but enjoyed anticipating the hints woven into the story - there are many - of what was to come.
The twist on the original Cinderella story is that the poor abused girl is coerced into cohabiting with three princes (three cousins of a filthy rich family) who detest each other and resent being forced to stay at the family mansion. A bit contrived? Absolutely, but it sets up a fun story with our spunky Cinderella’s presence in a (mostly) hostile house and her ever optimistic, bubbly personality acting as a catalyst to bring about the three princes going through steep character growth by the last episode.
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First of all, the drama title caught my attention since I’m very much in love with fairytales ever since.
From the start, I don’t have too much expectation from the drama since I know the story line is already a cliché – rich guy falling in love with poor girl. The only twist is that she has four knights in shining armor. But in my opinion, it’s three knights only.
PLOT
As I mentioned, plot is already a cliché. The development for me is very slow. I find some episodes boring but I still keep on watching, hoping it will develop sooner. I’m bothered by the missions given by rich grandpa. Is it only 3 missions? After the trip mission, what’s next? The 3 grandsons don’t even get closer after the 3rd mission. They just get closer on the process. The 4th mission I believe is just an excuse of Ha Won. The ending proves that this is indeed a fairytale with a “Happily ever after”.
CHARACTERS
I love the characters since I knew most of them especially Jung Shin – CNBLUE Fanatic here. :)
The main female lead is not so beautiful but definitely cute and with lot of charms. I believe, she gave justice to who Cinderella is.
Until now I’m calling Jung II Woo as the “Scheduler”. Yeah, I knew him since 49 Days and I knew how good an actor he is. It’s regretted that he can’t show his 100% skills since this is just a very light drama. Nevertheless, there’s indeed chemistry between him and Ha Won that you should definitely watch for.
I find it really hard to watch Ahn Jae Hyun! As if I’m controlling myself to fall in love with him more. Haist! If only he’s not yet married. Well, I still cheer Ahn Jae Hyun from behind. Let’s get back to his character. I just don’t get it after his broadcasted confession with Ha Won. He had 180 degree character change. And his story just revolved with Hye Ji afterwards. He confessed that he like Ha Won but he didn’t give justice to that confession. He got rejected, so what? He can fight for it or formally accept defeat. But atleast he should do something and don’t let that scene left hanging. He just switch right away to Hye Ji. Although I knew he love Hye Ji from the start but I felt that his confession to Ha Won is somewhat true as well.
Jung Shin! The so called “Avatar” of his CNBLUE brothers. Haha. I find his character very genuine. Actually, I still find Jung Shin in his character as Seo Woo. I’m wondering how his fellow CNBLUE reacts everytime they watch him. I love Jung Shin but there’s nothing too much to say about his character in this drama.
I also knew Son Naeun way back WGM stunt with Taemin of Shinee. I am quite surprise that she also acts. Is this her first time acting? If yes, I will forgive her poor acting skills. She has a lot more to improve if she really wants to pursue this field. I find her character a nuisance in this drama. I think it’s better if she just played a real antagonist. Maybe, she’ll be appreciated more that way. I felt that even without her character, the drama will still go on as it is.
The fourth knight but a not so knight at all, Secretary Yung Soung. IMHO he is the knight of the rich grandpa and not by Ha Won. :) I don’t know why they include him as the fourth knight but we can’t barely feel his presence as Ha Won's knight at all.
OVERALL
If you are just looking for a feel good drama without any high expectations, I will recommend this one. It’s not bad at all and it’s still worth the 16 episode watch.
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Anyway, as far as easy, comical, cheesy telly goes this was great!
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the music was the best thing about this
i felt like a 12 year old was writing thin
Son Naeun's acting is terrible
Park So Dam's character is amazing and her acting is good
i probably will never rewatch this
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After all they did a great job, as they did what they were told to. But....oh well there are a lot of "buts".
Some of the characters are a little too twisted, and at times there seemed to be two or more personalities per person - switching within seconds!
BUT! I could handle this, I thought.
And then, at the end, the worst and most annyoing part of this show came around the corner: story twists. Twists everywhere! And all of that in the last 4 or 3 episodes. Really? There was even a point where I anticipated one of the characters being run over by a car because hell, why not!? That would have fit perfectly to the course of the story at this point. And it was clearly only to make the show more and more melodramatic. Until these story twists started, I thought the show was perfectly fine, not the best, but okay to watch. All this new story lines and twists - it was just too much in the end. It seems that the creators just wanted to add every possible melodramatic story line into the last few episodes. And that was simply too much.
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This review may contain spoilers
I was looking for the 4th knight
I had been wondering who the 4th knight was and had guessed it to be the secretary as he is shown as one of the lead actors in the show's opening sequence. In a manner, he is a knight as he's the first one to protect "Cinderella".I love how the show showcased that even if you don't get along well with your family, in the end, it's always your family that you can count on. The sweet moments of the main couple will also make you swoon.
I love how they showed the backstory of the 3 knights though it would have been better if they showed what the secretary was protecting when he was practicing karate when he was young. I'm also curious as to how the Chairman's sons was when they were alive and how it has transcended to their sons' mannerisms or attitude. Though this might be better done as prequel lol.
It's also unbelievable that the Chairman's wife really loved him as there was a scene of his wife talking on the phone and plotting against the 3 grandsons.
All in all, this is a light, sweet show worth watching specially if you're missing F4 (like I was when I started watching this lol)
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I dropped this drama a while ago and I couldn't remember why so I started watching it again. In the beginning I loved the show and I hadn't even noticed I had reached the 5th episode. Near the 8th episode is when the show really went down hill... sigh
The Problems
1.
I would like to talk about the leads.
When you begin the show you will assume that a certain person in the first lead. The writer gave this person all of the characteristics of the first lead, but I felt something was wrong. While watching the show I noticed the second lead was getting all of the first lead's scenes. It finally dawned on me that the second lead is the first lead.
The problem is that the second lead showed complete interest in the heroine and he didn't pay any attention to the second female lead! And then boom he suddenly has no interest in the heroine and looves the second lead. While this is going on the second lead trying to steal the heroine from the second lead but is overly affectionate towardw the second female lead.
2.
The second female lead pops out of nowhere and is stuck between trying to be friends with the heroine and not. I honestly still don't even know what her motive is. She knows the second lead likes the heroine and is all fine with it except the many times when the second lead confessed. It felt like the second female lead was always on her period and kept having mood swings.
3.
Majority of the characters are just annoying af, I loved the heroine and the secretary but that's about it. The Grandpa was really insensitive and he annoyed me whenever he spoke yet the heroine treated him like he was the best person ever. I feel like the writer tried to fit too many clichés into one drama and this was the result.
The major problem with the drama was the story line, I would say the plus side is that there is a lot of fluffy moments.
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The drama had a good premise. Once in a while we all crave for the cliche, typical korean drama. One cute , poor girl. A couple of rich, handsome guys. Interesting interactions, jealousies etc. The side girl to hate, the second lead guy to swoon over and so on.
However while this drama started out on good grounds. Our Cinderella had a wonderful start with both the main and side guy, it somehow just crashed midway. I am not sure what happened but the drama just died at episode 6.
All the characters are two dimensional and the interactions between them are just as boring. There is little sense behind the characters behavior. They will act one way through out the show, and then just suddenly change and do a 180 for no damn reason.
The music is somewhat okay.
Rewatch value ? I would like to say 0. Yes zero. Once was painful enough.
I would not recommend this drama to anyone. Watching the last five episodes was hell, which I only got through so I could write a review over what a train wreck this show was.
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+/- Plot:
The whole plot followed every stereotype of K-Dramas and with all of the new shows with interesting storylines why would you even consider watching this one. I'm sure we've all seen this show a million times. I don't even have anything else to comment on the plot, just because it was so bland and boring. I can positively say that I wasted 13+ hours of my life (because the last episodes I watched in fast forward mode, just to finish it sooner). I was totally going to give up, but I thought I should watch till the end to write an honest and fair review.
There were some scenes you may call cute, but really overall the editing made the scenes very childish, cheesy, and hard to watch.
+/- Characters/Acting:
I'm just so disappointed. The acting was mediocre for the most part; I would say the best was surprisingly Ahn Jae Hyun. I can see that all the actors did their best to do their characters justice, but no amount of good looking people with flat characters can save this sinking ship--especially when there are countless other cutesy dramas with better plots that this is contending with.
The most terrible thing about this drama is Son Na Eun's character, and everyone and the writers know to be true. I mean sure Korean standards for women may not be quite progressive yet, but still this character obviously doesn’t portray a strong individual role model for the youths of Korea, which this obviously targeted towards. I mean, she feels this need to be accepted by a douchebag of a man, but when that doesn’t happen even after her bombardment she falls back on another man. I am so utterly disappointed in these script writers...
+/- Music:
It's literally ALL bubble gum. AND I HATE BUBBLE GUM.
Rewatch Value:
Never ever, ever, ever would I ever consent to watch this drama again. This one may go down in my books of terrible dramas.
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Tne name of this drama doesn't match with the story
cindrella and four knights starting is good with comedy the story is not much better than I think the crew make it much more interesting I not said that it is very worst drama but it very boring you will bored very fast with this drama.when I watching this drama I am really happy. In my opinion it is well drama but not good.I think the cast doesnt take this drama serious and only do work but the OST is amazing till now I always listen because I like that music. well i cant say anything about this drama so you will watch it or not this is your choice:)Was this review helpful to you?
This drama started out amazingly. I absolutely loved the first episode-- and although I wasn't falling for the second male lead, I wasn't quite down with the 1st male lead too-- since he was so smitten with the 2nd female lead.
A couple of episodes went by and I found myself disliking this drama, personally. Mainly because of the second female leads angle. Her obsession with Ahn Jae Hyeon's character (2nd male lead) completely pissed me off as the episodes rolled by.
I mean that girl did not deserve Ahn Jae Hyeon's character AT ALL! She needed to love HERSELF! and just let go of that obsession!
It hurt more when Ahn Jae Hyeon's character liked her back-- that's when I pulled the plug.
Overall I can not tell you not to watch this drama. But I would suggest you keep this in the back of your list when you can not find anything to pass time with at all.
Since I have not finished it-- I can't say that it was horrible. But could I call it good when I couldn't even bring myself to finish it? Maybe not. Maybe not.
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This is a disappointment.
I want to say something good about this but I really cant. I had high hopes for this drama since alot of people recommended this but I was dissapointed. You can call me biased on this one but i dont agrre with how things turned out in the end of this drama. I think she should have ended up with one of the other brothers but instead they went with a hater to lovers situation when i think it would have been better for the plot if the FL had went for either of the other brothers to me it mad the story bland. If she had went for the singer there could have been a cpnflict between the fans and the FL causing the two to become closer with each other since he like here from the beginning. Or she could habe went for the rebel and their main conflict could have been with the ex lover cause more of an understanding between the two. I feel as if there wasnt enough plot for me to truly like the haters to lovers relationship they put together. It felt like the other MLs relationships were just an after thought instead of them being a proper part of the plot. But alas this is just my opinion farewell.Melon Lord
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