Cinderella and Four Knights

Cinderella and Four Knights

3.5/10

Cinderella and Four Knights

Genre:                                Episodes: 16                             Year: 2016

Romance

Comedy 

Synopsis:

Eun Ha Won lives with her step-mother and step-sister, and works several part-time jobs in order to save up for her university tuition. After an accidental encounter with the heir to large corporation, her charm and tenacity is noticed by the company’s Chairman. Ha Won is hired by the Chairman to keep his three grandsons under control and try and turn them into a real family.

Cast:

Park So Dam (Eun Ha Won)

Jung Il Woo (Kang Ji Woon)

Ahn Jae Hyun (Kang Hyn Min)

Lee Jung Shin (Kang Seo Woo)

Choi Min (Lee Yoon Sung)

Son Naeun (Park Hye Ji)

General Thoughts:

Oyyyyyyy, this drama. I’ve rolled my eyes so much I think they’re permanently stuck in the back of my head. This writer is very talented- but not in a good way. Seriously, it’s a special skill to have 4 handsome men living in the same house as 1 cute girl and make it so completely boring to watch. Where’s the fluff? Where’s the cute? Not f*cking here that’s for sure.

Not even all that handsome could save this series

The plot is basically the suckiest piece of poo I’ve seen in a long time. I have absolutely no idea why any of the characters acted the way they did- and at times even the actors seemed confused as to what was going on. The stage had been set for a simple, light-hearted romance story about a rags-to-riches girl.

How fun I thought the drama would be vs. How fun it actually was

Sure, the scenario has been done to death- but at least that shows that an engaging story can be made out of this set-up. But while this story is simple, it’s far from light-hearted and romantic, and not one moment was I engaged in the plot. The only plot device this writer seemed to know how to use was to have one character be a total downer and sap the fun out of everything that happened. First it was Ji Woon with his no smiles and incessant ‘get lost’s, then it was Hye Ji because Hyun Min wouldn’t pay attention to her, then Hyun Min because Hye Ji stopped paying attention to him (jeeezusss). Lastly the lovely secretary and Ha Won had some identity crises with the former Noble Idiot-ing off into the distance and the latter falling into a heap of misery because his mommy’s a b*tch. The laughs or cute moments were very, very few. The only character that managed to make it away unscathed was Seo Woo, who was sweet, gentlemanly and loveable throughout. As it’s Lee Jung Shin’s first real big role, I was glad that the character was able to avoid the catastrophes that turned our other heroes into such unlikeable messes. What the most frustrating aspect of this drama was is that we were given virtually no explanation into why our characters were acting/reacting in the ways they did.

Just goes to show that a good looking cast isn't everything in Dramaland

Our leading man seemed to have a personality transplant halfway through. For half the series Ji Woon only had eyes for Hye Ji and followed her around like a miserable puppy. He spares no feelings or words for Ha Won except when he tells her to piss off- then suddenly he’s dumping Hye Ji with no warning because he has feelings for Ha Won?

At the halfway point these kids switched personalities

We all knew it was going to end up like that, and it was clear that there were some sparks between Ha Won and Ji Woon, but there was no progression of feelings, only an abrupt shift in his actions. But at least Ji Woon got a nice personality swap, unlike poor Hyun Min. While he was always arrogant and douchey, Hyun Min was a fun character when he was trying to seduce the only girl who wouldn’t fall for him- Ha Won. The two had awesome chemistry together, and I honestly believed that Hyun Min was falling for Ha Won for real because of how I saw him acting towards her, the way he looked after her, and the way she was able to fluster him. All I saw him do to Hye Ji was ignore her. Yet lo and behold, a couple of episodes later Hyun Min has turned into a sloppy mess because he loves Hye Ji soooooooo much, and she’s stopped following him around. But they caaaaaan’t be together because her brother died (yeah, what?). It was just way too much moping in a drama that was supposed to be cute and cheery. And it really started to feel like ‘Cinderella and Three Knights’, because the loveable Secretary made a pretty swift departure, only to return as a duller, sadder version of himself.

I was rooting for you from Episode 1- until you became Mr. Conflicted

The obvious music cues made me want to bash my head against a wall. Rather than relying on a solid script and the actors’ talents, the series used music as a crutch (or a wheelchair) to attempt to convey what our characters were feeling. Even though I didn’t feel like Ha Won was falling for Ji Woon, I knew that it surely must be happening due to the swoony music and choirs of angels singing whenever he came near her.

*cue the singing angles*

Similarly, although I felt as though Ha Won and Hyun Min had a pretty solid connection (in the early, less-broody stages of the drama), their interactions were never accompanied by angel choirs- so while I saw them hitting it off, the music was used as a way to tell me that this was not going to happen. It really added a sense of confusion to the drama when music was used as one of the main ways to express our characters emotions because…well…the music doesn’t come from the characters. It comes from the production/editing. Another musical gripe is that they rarely ended song in a satisfactory way. Rather than coming in and out gradually in a way that was unnoticeable while watching, quite often a song would just- BAM. FINISH. Right in the middle. Or there would be a really quick  fade out- like super quick. It wasn’t a huge downfall in the series, but it’s just one of those tiny little things that added on top of a bunch of slightly bigger things only served to increase annoyance. While there were glimmers of fun and what should have been, the show’s broody, angsty vibe killed off a lot of the entertainment. It had good potential to be an easy, fun watch, but turned out to be kind of painful to get through.

What Was Great:

Jung Shin Chingoo:

I wouldn’t go as far as saying that any of the acting in this series is particularly phenomenal (and I blame that on the poor writing and one-dimensional characters rather than the actors’ lack of ability), though it did mean that Lee Jung Shin wasn’t completely blown out of the water by the performances of much more experienced actors.

You adorable piece of human

As it is, Lee Jung Shin gives an endearing performance as the loveable idol with a one-sided crush and is able to confidently act alongside the rest of the boys. He was always believable in his character and fit the tone of the series well, very often providing that breath of fresh air and cuteness that was really lacking. While the drama as a whole was a bit of a disaster, it was still a good project for Lee Jung Shin to take part in to expand his acting career. The series wasn’t too ambitious, and the character of Seo Woo wasn’t too difficult to manage, so Lee Jung Shin was able to stretch his acting muscles a little bit more, all while providing us with an adorable, enjoyable character for the show.

Chemistry:

Despite the complete and utter lack of creativity for both the plot and the characters, the actors managed to get some pretty great chemistry going.

Park So Dam had chemistry with literally everybody 

Park So Dam was able to get relaxed and easy vibes out of all of the boys, and made a plausible couple with each of them. Ha Won would have been a good match for any of the four boys, and I wish the drama had veered more towards her tangled relationships with these boys rather than other, less exciting plot-lines like silly missions, Grandpa’s disapproval, or Hye Ji.

Episode 8:

The characters should have got plastered way more often

By far my favourite of all the episodes. Rather than focusing on all the boring drivel that the writers chose to showcase, I wish they’d just got all the characters in one house and got them mind-numbingly drunk for 16 straight episodes. Because believe it or not, character motivations became much clearer when everyone was drunk out of their minds. It was the first episode that really got me believing the Ha Won X Ji Woon love-line would actually work, and it was just plain fun to watch- a quality that the rest of the episodes were sadly lacking. 

What Wasn’t:

Basically Everything That Happened:

People did things and liked each other and fought each other- but did anyone really care? The piss poor characterisations really hurt the series. It’s hard to side with a character or cheer for them when you literally have no idea why they are doing anything that they do. While the motivations behind our characters weren’t explicitly bad, they just weren’t explained until the final hour. Which is far, far too late. Because by the final hour, I’ve already emotionally clocked out and am only continuing to watch because I’ve already spent so much time on the series and didn’t want all that time to be wasted.

Most of the plot-lines just kind of got ignored in the end...

I kept waiting and waiting for the story behind Hye Ji and Hyun Min to be revealed- and boy was it disappointing when it was. Basically they’re both just retards who have no idea how to communicate or have any sort of functional relationship with anyone ever. Chairman Grandpa was also a character I kept waiting to have make sense. Why did he marry the Secretary’s mother? How did he meet her? How did his sons die? How did the death of his sons impact how he treated his grandsons? And most importantly- why in the world was he so against Ha Won dating Ji Woon? All questions that went unanswered. 

H.J:

Any time Hye Ji was on my screen I wanted to smack her with a rock. She is actually one of the worst characters I have ever clapped eyes on.

All she did was cry. I wish I was over exaggerating, but I'm not.

It’s not because she's evil and gets in the way of Ha Won and her relationships with the boys- at least that would have added some tension into the series. No, she was just so darn tepid. She wasn’t evil enough to be considered a villain, but she didn’t have any redeeming qualities, so she wasn’t a character you could like either. Not to mention that she did little more than stand around crying at either Hyun Min or Ji Woon. The chemistry between her and Ahn Jae Hyun was flatter than a pancake, and the love-line between the two characters was unbareable. While Hyun Min’s confession to Ha Won had been swoony (if massively egotistical), all his conversations with Hye Ji felt boring and so very forced. Rather than feeling like two characters who were in love with each other but separated by circumstance, they felt like two actors awkwardly acting out a terrible script. I was not onboard the Hye Ji X Hyun Min ship- so I was pretty disappointed when I saw Hyun Min's story arc finished with him dating Hye Ji. Son Naeun certainly didn’t give her most convincing performance, and the blandness of Hye Ji’s character only seemed to make it worse. She had little to work with as it was, but the combination of a frustratingly boring character (that got an alarmingly large amount of screen-time) and a green, inexperienced actress made a combo that was not pretty to watch. I must say, I’m not at all sad to have the character of Hye Ji well and truly behind me.

Super lame

Frequent Flashbacks:

2% cute, 20% confusion, 30% angst, 48% flashback

You could fill about four hours with the amount of flashbacks we had in this series. It was ridiculous. Any scene that could be considered of any importance was replayed about a million times throughout the series’ progression- even if the moment had happened in the scene right before. And if there was more than one character involved in said important scene, you can bet that we’re going to get flashbacks of that same moment from everyone. The amount of time we spent on characters’ contemplative faces while they thought back on the past was downright painful. It didn’t matter if you tuned out for half an episode, because you’re going to get most of that content in flashback in the next episode anyway. Constant replays of what we were seeing didn’t really aid in telling the story or in developing our characters- it only made it that much more obvious that the writers didn’t really know what they were doing, and didn’t quite know how to proceed. 

Re-watch?

No. It’s not good.

She should have just never gone back