Cinderella Chef (2018)

It was very good drama and worthy to watch. It's concept was like scarlet heart but story was completely different.
I liked this drama very much.
It was not waste to watch it. It was not waste to watch it. Main actors were good.
As a historical drama and food genre this drama was not boring at all.
I think you should watch this drama. You will surely like it.
Characters chemistry was good. There was also suspense. Fighting cooking romance fantasy...this drama had it all.

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I love the idea of a modern-day girl returning to ancient china, surviving on her wits…but I don’t think it was scripted as well as in “The Eternal Love I and II”. Zhong Dan Ni is a confident and charming actress who plays the lead character of Ye JiaYao with the perfect amount of spunk and wit. Even more charming was her costar, newcomer Bie Thassapak, in the male lead of Xia Chun Yu. His smile is infectious, and plays this sword wielding martial arts expert as a transparent and sincere nice guy, without a lot of complications. The cooking aspect of this show did not disappoint. I found the scenes fascinating when recipes and techniques were depicted for these creative and fascinating dishes that JiaYao comes up with (mostly in the second half of the series). The romantic chemistry is good between the two stars. The lead female costumes are hideous…. under the premise that she makes her own clothes (seriously?? Suddenly she can sew faster than a speeding bullet in ancient china, with no modern materials or tools?) and her attire is sometimes showing more skin than I would dare to walk around in public, unless it was a night club. In ancient china it’s accepted. Oh, hell no! I found them to be very unattractive and unflattering as well. They did add to the quirkiness of JiaYao’s personality, I suppose it was to remind us that she is from the modern world. *semi spoiler* Strangely the writers got bored with their story line halfway through this series, and either killed off, or conveniently got rid of the entire cast except the mains. They relocated them, separated them, and started over. Huh???? It was absurdly abrupt. *end semi spoiler* The re-booted plot line and location were actually more appealing to me than the first half, however the romantic trajectory fell to pieces and was just about nonexistent until the last third of the show. Second half would be a good time to start skipping through episodes, as too much filler here, and not enough original things going on. It picks up in the last third. Be prepared for the ending of the story to not match the beginning premise exactly. Other stand outs: Chen You Wei as secondary love interest, and Zhang Yi Cong as Ding Qi, also a secondary love interest. To summarize: Leads chemistry: good. Hero’s superpower: Good Fighter, loyal, handsome, nice smile. Heroine’s superpower- Excellent cooking skills, business skills, innovative and spunky. Music: Ending theme song is a catchy and modern upbeat tune, along with cute cut out animations of the characters. It’s infectious.

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Interesting and original setting, not fully exploited

This drama was an original mix of things which could be summarized as "good ideas, not always good execution".
You know these bags of cookies where they are good enough to keep you munching but not good enough to make you want to save or savour them? This drama is like that.

Genres
Romance: I wanted to watch this drama mainly for the romance. Well, I would say don't come for this. The main couple's relationship is almost not developed for the first 20 episodes. There is no meaningful kiss until episode 42! Their relationship goes from nonexistent to deep and dramatic almost overnight, no real flirty infatuation phase. In the later part of the drama it's more of an old married couple dynamic with tacit understanding.
Bromance: this one wasn't expected but the relationship between Xia Chun Yu and Bai Chong Ye is complex and well brought on screen. I found it more interesting than the romance.
Time travelling: as everyone already said, bonus point for avoiding landing in the royal palace for once. The setting in an organized bandit gang was an interesting change.
Ye JiaYao doesn't really try to fit in which is in a way more realistic than other time travelling drama. She also brought some kind of feminist values to the past which was a pleasant surprise.
History: I'm not an expert in Chinese history but I'm pretty sure this drama is all over the place in terms of historical accuracy, it doesn't look tied nor faithful to any specific period. It's not coherent in the social organization either: in similar situations, women are left unscathed because everyone is nice, while in other similar cases there is rape because the past was ugly. Same for punishments, they can be super light and silly or completely over the top and violent for similar crimes.
Food: it didn't occur to me to consider this a food drama despite the title x) it's definitely not the main focus although it gets more attention in the second half of the drama.

Sets and costumes
It's historically all over the place and some people complained about how random and inaccurate the costumes are. If you look at it as a fashion exercise for "fusion" style, this is actually quite good. The bandit leaders have badass-historical hybrid uniforms while Ye JiaYao wears modern interpretation of traditional dresses (I loved that purple dress she wore for a good third of the drama!).
The sets are good but not breathtaking. There is a bit of Chinese steampunk here and there when they try to create flying machines or substitutes of kitchen appliances.

Story
As I said, the romance aspect is not this drama's forte especially in the first half. However the bandit organization intrigues were more captivating than expected. It had some political tint but with avoiding the whole woman plotting under protocol typical of palace dramas… until the second half of the drama where it turned into that :(
I don't know if it was the official intend but this drama is really split into 2 seasons of 28 episodes each. The first half is more self contained with one main story line and set of characters. The second season has multiple successive story lines and somewhat one underlying thread to tie the entire drama together and come to an end. Both seasons have entirely different casts save the main couple and Prince Yu. Even if the second season has endearing new characters, it's a bit hard to part with the cast of the first half after growing attached to them over 28 episodes. The 2 seasons are almost independent but some elements of the second season explain what was left unresolved in the first season and you can see what was planted from the start that you didn't notice. The second season has more cliche and unnecessary parts. Essentially everything connected to Liu Li doesn't bring anything to the overall story and is just there to frustrate the viewer x)

Characters
Ye JiaYao can look superficial and childish at the beginning of the drama and her strengths are only revealed later. She is actually way smarter than she looks, is resourceful and brave. She is not a damsel in distress and is often actually the one saving others. I don't think I've ever seen a female character standing her ground and her independence like that in a drama. She is also not swayed head over heels for the male lead and keeps some common sense (beginning of season 2).
Xia Chun Yu is a total male Mary Sue (or whatever the male equivalent is called). Intelligent, cunning, charming, handsome, unbeatable warrior, never dies from any injury and recovers from pierced organs overnight… He was too perfect to show much depth of emotion even if we can see him navigate his grief and remorse for his actions throughout the drama.
Bai Chong Ye was the most interesting character, playing a lot of mind games with everyone to protect his clan, his family and himself as a bandit boss. His personality was nuanced between his criminal background and his accountability as the head of the fortress with people's lives depending on him. You can also see some glimpse of self-consciousness of his commoner social background despite him being well educated.
Prince Yu is another complex character who would have deserved more exposure in the first season and more nuances in the second season. He was too easily caricatured near the end while they had managed to make him an ambiguous villain already.
I won't do the whole cast but just a quick mention for Ding Qi for whom the second lead syndrome was dangerously strong. It's a shame his character was discarded in a quick black and white way, there was definitely something to do here by bringing his changes over more episodes.

Overall
Really interesting mix in an original setting. It was not fully used to its full potential and the in-law family drama part was completely unnecessary. It would have been better to tie the whole drama together in one shorter season of 35-40 episodes instead of doing this weird unequal 2-season split.

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un-fit title

First time I can't guess the ending of a drama. Really different from what I imagine. Also the title is really not fit with the plot of the drama, don't understand why they choose this as the title. What do you imagine when you read Cinderella Chef...? I imagine she became Cinderella because of her skill as a Chef. But no..... This is really far far away from that title. Yes she find 'prince charming' because of her cook, but the story not end after she find her 'prince charming', she still have through hell before find her happily ever after ^_^. Actually the plot quite good, maybe also can chance our perspective about Cinderella itself.

This drama for you who bored with cheesy romance & bored plot. I guarantee this drama you can't guess what happen until the end. I usually like to jump a few episode forward to see if my guess about the plot is correct or not. This is the first drama when I jump few episode forward still confuse me & I still don't understand the plot at all... With this drama you really have to watch episode by episode, but bored never in my head when I watch this.

Ye Jia Yao (JY) is the picture of modern woman who is very independent & strong. Xia Chun Yu (CY) typical ancient man with modern thought. But I really like they chemistry together. The other couple that i like of course He Lian Jing & Ah Ruan, they so cute & funny together. :)

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I was really excited to watch this drama because of the potential I thought it had. The pros include the lead and supporting characters! I thought everyone had unique characterization and you either loved , or loved to hate, or just down right hated certain characters which made it so much more enjoyable to watch. I also really appreciated the action scenes in this drama; they were really well choreographed and added a certain spice to the episodes which always got me excited. Also, I think this drama does a great job of incorporating small details to the storylines such as bringing to light quick conversations that we would think were otherwise unimportant.

Now the cons with this drama I would have to say include the constant back and forth of being together and breaking up between the leads throughout the story. I found it very repetitive and annoying to watch, especially when it always involved some stupid misunderstanding. I think because I love all of the characters in the early episodes so much, the sudden change in plot near episode 24 kind of caught me off guard and made me dislike where the story was heading. The story just didn’t seem consistent enough to keep your focus at times which is why there were a lot of skippable scenes. At one point, I wasn’t sure if it was a drama about time travelling, romance, or politics. Not saying they’re not mutually exclusive, but it felt all over the place at times.

It’s an overall good drama to watch, definitely got draggy in the middle and again in the end; it could have easily been around 35 episodes to help with that. I recommend it if you have the time and patience to watch 56 episodes.

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So Much it Could Have Been

This is probably going to be one of my shorter reviews honestly. I really wanted to like this one- I really did. I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential here and I cannot stand the female lead 80% of the time.

STORY
Objectively, the story wasn't bad- I just feel like it was dragged out unnecessarily long and started to embody a lot of cliches that it could have skipped over. There was also the unneeded "I love you but we can't be together" in the second half and the spiraling of choices that made me kind of hate the thought of ChunYu and JiaYao together. A lot of people complained about the two arcs and everyone dying in the first half- but I think it was technically two seasons? So it was chill. I think the girl was a really unique case in terms of traveling to the past- she wasn't exactly weak nor was she strong- she dealt with the time travel actually really realistically. For me, besides how the female character was written, the other characters were actually pretty complex. Everyone had very good growth- everyone except the female lead. She did get a little less annoying and naive towards the end where she fooled even the audience in this really well thought out ruse. I commended her for that, but it took way too long, and she was written fairly inconsistently. The male lead I liked- not just because he was hot (I admit that made him VERY easy on the eyes) but his struggles were real and he dealt with them the best that he could. He wasn't the "perfect" man but he also owned up to everything he did. The central romance really pissed me off though. I think he could have done well without her, however, the pining for each other and the growth he goes through because of her was really good to watch. Still, I cannot get over how annoyed I am at the female lead, and I admit I just kept watching because of ChunYu. Chong Ye really made me cry- especially at his son's death. He's not an innocent character, nor is he evil, and he really got to my heartstrings.

ACTING
I really liked the acting of the bandits, and the leads. Bie embodied ChunYu very well and filled in all the empty spaces in his character. I don't think I would have been able to see a more perfect actor for the role of ChuYu. Zhong Dan Yi played a really good JiaYao, and as much as her character made me want to hit my head against a wall, she embodied her to every little annoying expression, and for that I gotta give it to her. All the bandits really hit the mark, especially Zhao Jian as Bai Chong Ye and I really felt that absence for the whole second half. Chun Yu and Chong Ye bromance is one thing I'll wholeheartedly miss.

MUSIC
The music was okay, but nothing really stood out to me.

OTHER
THE COSTUMING OF THE FEMALE LEAD. It came out of complete left field and I know that she likes to "change up" the fashion but how was she not murdered by the people for the "scandalousness" of her clothing. Like I get it's her fashion but the peoples' reaction to her clothing should have been much different- and those ridiculous heeled boots- like where in the world did they come from??

REWATCH VALUE
Yeah, it's a five for me. I wouldn't mind rewatching select episodes in the first half in the background as I do things, and some select episodes from the second half. Besides that, there's not much value to it to me.

CONCLUSION
A series with so much wasted potential. I wanted to love it but my suspension of disbelief can only go far, and there's only so much I can like with a very annoying female lead who sounds like a broken record towards the end. The side characters made up for the confusing female lead writing.

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