Review – Cinderella and the Four Knights

Review – Cinderella and the Four Knights

I love Korean fairy tale dramas.  Shining Inheritance, anyone?  They always follow the same rules – basically some good-hearted young lady is brought in to “save” rich people from their own miserable natures.  Unhappy rich people become happy rich people, and as a reward… the young lady gets married off to one of the rich boys and becomes rich too.  Happy Ever After.  This show didn’t even try to deny it… just look at the title!

Unlike most Korean drama fairy tales, however, this show differentiated itself by focusing on character development, almost exclusively as a plot device (through various missions our Cinderella is tasked to accomplish), so that our knights became real people instead of cliches.  Cute and romantic, it’s a feel-good drama that’s perfect when you’re in the mood for some cheesy charm.  Lots of laughs and heart.  Highly recommended.

Overall Rating – 8.5/10.  Prince Charming’s Castle Courtesy of Mass Studies Architecture.

Discussion of Characters and Spoilers Follow….

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Review – The Moon Embracing the Sun

Review – The Moon Embracing the Sun

LAWD!  Save us all from historical dramas!  Why are they always so good?

I’ve heard about The Moon Embracing the Sun for many years but for some reason never watched it.  Scratch that – I did try, originally, but got bored around the third episode and turned it off (a mistake I almost made again the second round).  This time I firmly planted myself in front of the show and stuck with it – until the young cast went through their youthful turmoil and misfortunes and reached adulthood… only to be met with more turmoil and misfortunes.  In between all this they also found moments of happiness and true love.  It was wonderful.  I mean, it wasn’t The Princess’ Man, but it was still worth watching.

Plot in a nutshell – two young royals fall in love with the same young lady, but she only likes one of them, the one destined for the throne.  A series of unfortunate events occur and the young woman is presumed dead, the young royals both left heartbroken.  Young lady grows up with total memory loss, raised as a shaman.  Young royals grow up as well.  They all meet again.  The young lady doesn’t recognize her male admirers, but they are drawn to her like bears to honey.  The entire process of their youth repeats – with both men falling in love with her again… who will she fall in love with round two?  Will she remember her past?  What happened to her all those years ago?  Mystery and intrigue and romance abound in this historical drama.

Overall Rating – 8/10.  An Satisfying Appetizer to Prepare You For Better Historical Drama Meals.

Discussion and spoilers follow…

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Review – High End Crush

Review – High End Crush

highend

Another deceptive title image.  This in no way reflects the tone or the plot line of this drama.  But whatever, I’ll save my title image ranting for another day.

The Plot, Short Version:  Eccentric wealthy dude falls for stubborn country girl.

High End Crush.  What to say, what to say.  Thankfully the leading man was entertaining enough to carry this short drama to its obvious conclusion with a few laughs along the way and a few enjoyable romantic moments too.  But…

After finishing this series, I think I can officially state that I don’t like “short” dramas.  It’s like having annoying commercial interruptions ALL THE TIME, right when interesting things start happening.  I think if they had strung up all the episodes together and let them play as one long string, without the constant stop/start of intros and exits, it would have been a quality short drama, if not a bit on the hammy side.  If it ever makes it to Netflix, they will do this for us.  They did it with The Guild and it made the entire viewing experience so much more enjoyable.

What else can I say about this drama?  I finished it a few days ago and have been chewing on what to write for a review.  It’s so problematic.  Here’s why… the things I liked about this show were also the things I hated about this show.

Example 1:  I loved the idea of a young woman from deep in the mountains, disconnected from modern society… and yet I didn’t buy it.  At all.  The entire sequence of events in the mountains felt like theater scenery and unnatural to both characters.  She did not seem like a young woman cut off from modern society at all.  It just felt off.

Example 2:  I loved the love/hate relationships inspired by the main male character.  His shrink, his employees, his personal assistant all hated him with a passion… and yet they loved him too because he was interesting and flamboyant and really good at his job.  And yet I couldn’t really figure out what his job WAS or what he did or if it was, indeed, impressive.  It just seemed like a glossed over subject.

Example 3:  The disloyal yet lovable assistant.  This contrasting nature made the character both deviously hysterical and enjoyable.  Sometimes.  And other times I thought, “there’s no way this guy wouldn’t have been fired three years ago,” or worse, it made the assistant come across as a true asshole, which is not endearing whatsoever.   And this is one of my favorite actors, too, so it hurts to say that…

There’s some really cute romantic comedy moments in this show.  And some pretty spectacular lines and witty banter… like this scene in the car…

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allweird

But overall it was just MEH.  I enjoyed all the characters, mostly, and was entertained… but I also felt cheated out of a good drama, which it might have been if given room to stretch its legs.

Overall Rating – 7/10.  Size Matters.