Cute Programmer (2021)

From where do i start.....

I loved Cute Programmer as it was my first ever Cdrama but it was quite confusing at times !


PLOT & ACTING:: The story and the plot was so cute, especially in the beginning, but it slowly got more and more confusing.The actors distributed to it, as they portrayed their roles the way they should to for the drama to play out and they are indeed very talented. So I can briefly say their acting was super satisfying. Also, they delivered their emotions soo well we were able to feel their happiness, pain and excitement through the series. I could feel the pain lu li's colleauge felt when he thought he would lose his precious hair???The drama started cutely but it proccesively got worse. Still, it somehow managed to have a happy ending, with yicheng and luli building a family and living happily together.



OPINION ABOUT YICHENG SINCE EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT HIM: You can't understand the anger I felt everytime yicheng played hard-to-get and embarrassed or bad mouthed lu li in front of everyone. The two of them got married by force, with a contract. Yicheng pretended to be a loving/caring husband, while he always argued with her, made her feel bad about herself and never supported her on anything she would do. He always behaved like a spoiled kid. In the end he got her pregnant, and when she left him behind and runaway(as she should) he somehow started loving her and wanted her back.
Although I agree with everyone saying yicheng was a total j3rk, we all know he came from a rich family so he was always kind of spoiled and egocentric.Of course, this doesn't justify his intriguing behaviour. He perhaps thought lu li was for granted. We can assume he had difficulty expressing his feelings after the heartbreak he experienced in the past, as well.
He showed signs of attraction towards lu li many times thought. You can believe what you want, but in my point of view yicheng tried his best to express his sympathy for his wife, and I deeply appreciate that, although he fails everytime.Moreover how is he supposed to act when they only met some months ago and immediately married each other ???!??!!? All friendly and lovey-dovey??!???!!!? He acts kind of realistically like any average guy would do(nowdays).There was also some character development in the end.




MUSIC: The music was INCREDIBLE. I really enjoy Chinese music and I have to say Cute Programmers osts are always on top of my Spotify playlists! My favourite one is 甜蜜程序. This series titletracks talk about programs and other sh!t but they deliver a deeper messages that people sometimes won't understand (unfortunately).


FAVORITE CHARACTERS: Each character was very charming but I really loved certain ones. After what I said earlier it would be quite hard to believe that yicheng is my favourite character of the series BUT we can't disagree he is the attractive, hot, rich businessman you can never forget about. He just lives in your mind, you can't forget him and think of him all day. I also love the actor playing Jiang yicheng, named xing Zhao Lin but that's not quite the case.
Of course, I couldn't exclude Yiming from my short list of favourites. Yiming is the cute, kind, charming guy every girl has a crush on. I'm sure he was his parents favourite child.The main reason I liked him is because he helped lu li solve her problems, and was the brother she never had.Lucky for her ig.



MORAL OF THE STORY: This drama is trying to teach us not to give up on our dreams, just like lu li disguised herself to look like a guy in order to get into her dream company. Just like how younger yicheng managed to build his business despite his crush abandoning him. It tries to teach us that without risks you won't achieve anything, and that life is very unpredictable.

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Where do i start….

This drama was very fustrating to watch. At first, it started as a cute drama but it started to go down hill after that. I felt so bad for the female lead. The male lead loved to claim that he cares about his wife but doesn’t protect her or defend her when he needs to. I’m so glad, the female lead made him WORK for it. The female lead was really trying to make it work like you can tell but the male lead made it worse. Honestly, the male lead didn’t deserve her. I hated that she got pregnant by him like i don’t why they made that necessary in the drama. Anyways, this drama was okay but very fustrating to watch.

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Expect to lose sleep in binge watch sessions

8,5/10 is my rating. This is a 2021 Chinese romantic comedy drama with 30, 45 minute episodes

First I will provide a synopsis then review.

Synopsis

Lu Li (Zhu Xu Dan) has shaped her life to be around the man she fell in love with. Her singular focus to become the type of woman to win Jiang Yi Cheng’s (Xing Zhao Lin) heart, led her to not only majoring in the same program focusing on computer programming but even attending the same college. When she was unable to get Yi Cheng’s attention as a student, her plan shifted to working at his company. That plan hits a snag when it is revealed Jiang Yi Cheng's company does not recruit female employees. Not to be deterred, Lu Li disguises herself as a man to get hired with the intention of revealing her true gender after she has proven her worth. Jiang Yi finds himself attracted to this very feminine looking new male employee such that it is a relief when he discovers “he” is actually a she. Since he discovered it before the intentional reveal he is initially angry that he was duped. But his mother, who was already pressuring marriage, is happy when she discovers her son is not interested in a relationship with a man after all and is happy to pressure her son to make this person he showed interest in her daughter-in-law. To satisfy his mother, and yet not be forced into a relationship, Yi Cheng secretly strikes a deal with Lu Li to do a one year contract marriage and work at his company. Lu Li plans to win his heart and turn their fake marriage into the real thing.

Review

There were so many big milestone events I found this was one I could not stop watching even when I had work the next day. I would be like I am watching it until he figures out she is a girl, I am watching it until they kiss, I am watching it until they are married, I am watching it until she gets tired of his cheating, I am watching it until he discovers where she is, I am watching it until they reconcile, and so on. They did such a food job with the plot there was always something big going in that you wanted to see what happened with this or that. If you like heart warming romances with a strong female lead do not let the early part of this deter you, it would lead you to think she is a push over and simply too nice. But she comes into her own later in the series, so it is worth sticking with it, You might also think in the first half that he is always going to be somewhat cold and unfeeling toward the main girl but when he falls he falls hard. The slice of life of a female in a non traditional job in China adds a uniqueness to the story. I recommend this for those that like romances with happy, well wrapped up, endings and lighter, less complex plots. Those that like characters in disguise, cold CEOs, love triangles, surprise pregnancies, and women in non traditional roles will also like this.

Spoilers
It was cringy early on how little she looked like a guy. She was way too pretty and feminine to pass for a guy so I was glad, at least, they commented about it a lot and we did not go through too many episodes until he discovered she was a girl. The scene in the horse where he would have been cuddled up to what he thought was a guy caused a lot if 2nd hand embarrassment for me. i was super glad she was “discovered” and switched to a woman in like episode 7 or so. Up to episode 20/21 I was getting frustrated she was putting up with his emotional cheating. Even in a contract marriage, you should not do things that embarass the other person. If people think you are in a genuine relationship, having people pity you because they think you are being cheated on is humiliating and hurtful. So he should have realized that. She was so sweet to him and his behavior toward her was cold and cruel at times. I was cheering her on when she ate the stinky noodles right outside his room. And when she would stick up for herself and ignore him or defy him I thought he was getting a little bit of the punishment he deserved. The “other” woman/ex girlfriend was inferior to lead girl in every way. She was way less attractive yet they stated several times how pretty she was. Her personality was seriously lacking so that other men did not seem interested in her at all. It made it hard to understand what he ever saw in her and even angrier at him for the way he treated his wife.

When Lu Lin finally left him I was cheering so hard internally. No one ever needed a lesson more than he did. It showed her strength of character that she went to a new city, far away, and set herself up and was doing well. Her unlikely romantic interest/turned out to be just what she needed was awesome. You could have seen an alternate reality where she was forget Yi Cheng and went for the hottie new boss. He was cute with her and it was apparent he was a ladies man at that stage where he was ready for someone to knock him off his feet.
I have experienced a few guys like that in my life. Hard to catch but when they actually encounter someone who does not fall for their Romeo ways they fall for her. I would have liked to know what happened with him and his forced fiancé.

When the sister saw Yi Cheng with the ex girlfriend at the mall I thought she was going to let him have it. When he told her the girl was just misunderstood previously and she flipped so easy to accepting her excuse and mentioning her brother now had two romantic interests aI was very disappointed. She essentially helped her brother cover up his very bad behavior.

The Lu Jingwen (Pang Han Chen) character gave me serious Siwon vibes (Korean singer with Super Junior). In the show he is the boss who hires Lu Lin and has serious romantic interest in her until he discovers her heart is totally taken by Yi Cheng. You won’t get the Siwon vibe just looking at a picture of him it is more like a slight resemblance but his expressions and mannerisms totally remind me of Siwon. I love the role he plays because he expects a lot of her and yet he protects her and is her biggest advocate, He makes it very clear to lead guy you treat her right or I am right here.

In reality the character transformation Yi Cheng went through rarely happens and if it does it is not lasting. In my experience men and women who are cheaters, whether emotional or physical or both very rarely significantly change. Especially if they never fully understand how what they did was cheating. The show portrayed that Yi Cheng saw the error of his ways and would never do something like that again, but odds are that he would. The fact that so much had to happen for him to understand his actions were wrong shows that, at his core, he feels that behavior was okay. That would not make for a good romance though. And perhaps her showing what would happen to him if he ever did something like that again would deter him.

#CuteProgrammer
#XingZhaoLin
#ZhuXuDan
#YiDaQin
#GuanXin
#TianZiTong
#PangHanChen

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this is my worst nightmare come true ??

what the actual fuck??????
it was decent in the first 10~ish episodes then it became utter bs. I have never been so angry at a FL and ML in my life. ML cant express himself for shit and keeps responding to his ex who is so clearly into him. FL does not communicate at all and basically ghosts ML like his ex
Like wtf???? then FL gets pregnant with ML’s child AND DOES NOT TELL HIM ABOUT THE CHILD LIKE HE HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW GIRL ITS HIS ????SHE EVEN ALLOWS SOME OTHER DUDE TO SAY ITS HIS. WTFFFFFFF
i swear i feel like flying to china to sue the writer for wasting my time with this absolute abomination they call a drama. It romanticises probably the most toxic rs i have ever seen. this drama is my nightmare come to life

i have respect for the actors being able to deliver this piece of crap without making me want to gouge my eyes out.
PLS DONT WATCH!!!!

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Disappointing and Too Long

This had potential and fell completely flat. The writers failed. The story of a female programmer trying to make it in an all male code programming company was sometimes ridiculous. I had hopes that the FL would be shown as having not just a strong personality but intelligence too. The ML was supposed to be similar, but with some emotional past issues. This story line has been done before and much better. When the FL was dressing like a male, why keep the makeup so female and not even in the femboi category; mascara and eyeliner. They didn't even try to make the male part believable. Then later in the story the ML is supposed to be some super smart guy, but he doesn't even catch on to the female antagonist's tricks. Also the sister of the ML is so idiotic that mid way through this drama I had to fast forward or mute her parts. She showed no character growth, even in the end. Same with the FL's best friend; annoying and written like a moron. The parents of the FL were exceptionally annoying too, they were written terribly (supposed to be protective of their daughter, but was borderline verbally abusive). Her parents should've been supportive at least by the middle of the drama. I fast forwarded their parts too, because of how much they contradicted themselves. The theme music made me mute it all the time.

I did like the message of how females can conquer a male dominated industry, like code programming. The ML's best friend (Chen Yi Ming -actor: Yi Da Qian) was one of the characters I liked, until the end. The cinematography and locations were very well done, (with the exception of the in car green screens for the windows).

Overall the story is old fluff, that wasn't well executed. I wont be watching it again. 5/10

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I wasted my precious weekend watching this terrible drama so you don't have to: part II

I'm embarrassed to say that I enjoy some Stubborn Male Lead and Misunderstandings but geez... This was too much.

It started off ok, even though the male lead has no clue of how disrespectful he is most of the time, but after episode 20, it was painful to watch.

They had this misunderstanding going on and while they were trying to fix it, they kept creating more misunderstandings. The female lead was being thrown from trouble to trouble and did nothing! While the male lead was being childish and had his development literally in the end.

I liked the actor, the female lead is so cute and pretty and showed her feelings pretty nicely, but what a terrible storyline.

[spoilers ahead]
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why did she agree with lying about the baby not being the MLs???? That was not only immature, but it was dishonest and idk if it is a crime BUT IT SHOULD BE.

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Would have been better to end at 24 episodes

First off, I’m not a big fan of FLs who worship, adore and crush on MLs right from the beginning of the drama. I feel FL is instantly put at a disadvantage in the relationship, especially with the MLs who are Abominable Snowmen a.k.a. cold, indifferent jerks. Unlike Korean's Snowmen, Chinese ones never seem to melt enough to make me love them. So, right off the bat, I wasn't thrilled with the story line. But that's just me. If you don't mind this kind of FL, then that's not a negative.

Also, this drama seems to shine positive light on FL’s perseverance in pursing this guy. Uh, yeah, perseverance is a good thing, but I’ve seen too many C-dramas where love rivals, ex-girlfriends, etc. can’t seem to let go/give up/go away/get a life no matter how many times ML tells them he’s not interested or how many times he’s outright rude to them so I’m not sure I like the message that’s being conveyed. We've got enough psycho chicks in these dramas; we don't need to create real ones in real life. Sometimes, no, a lot of times perseverance is not enough to make someone fall in love with you, which we’ve seen over and over in C-drama love rivals.

MC had their cute moments, but honestly, I preferred Lu Jingwen, even if he was a playboy. I liked his teasing nature. What can I say? I just love rascals…as long as they get reformed and stick to one lady, which most do in these dramas, if they happen to be the ML.

As far as story and set go, at times, I wondered if ML had stepped out of Lucky’s First Romance into Cute Programmer because 1) it’s the gaming industry again and 2) the office space looked suspiciously like the office space in Lucky’s First Romance. Even some of ML’s attire looked like it came from that drama. That being said, I preferred Bai Lu’s character to Lu Li's. She was alright, but the adoration thing immediately made me dislike her character, which isn’t the actress’s fault.

And as always, I've got to mention the costume! Where do these Chinese costume designers come up with these outfits? Ok, FL is pregnant. She didn’t suddenly become a pilgrim (that ugly black dress with the white collar that was far too big on her even if they added padding for the pregnancy) and she suddenly didn’t become 80 years old! And what’s up with that blue sweater whose sleeves look like a shredded tissue? I can’t believe people pay money for such clothing!

Overall, it’s an alright drama if you don’t mind the hero worship nonsense. She does at least make him chase her and suffer emotional distress in the final episodes. Her coldness helped make up for the earlier worship although she suddenly lost any of her former cheerfulness to behave like a sedated nun....or pilgrim.

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This drama will cause you some frustration but you will also have a good laugh.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!


I give this a 5/10.
Even though the ml was trash in the beginning, he was treated poorly during the rest of this drama. Was guilt tripped and obligated to marry the fl, then gets indirectly sexual harassed by the fl while he is drunk and ends up having intercourse with her, without his consent. Not only that, but she just runs away and whenever he tried to communicate with her, she said "it's no use" and refused to explain herself. She then gets pregnant, involves herself with another guy and when the ml tries to win her back, she lies about everything, that the second ml is the father, that they are dating and so on. At least both of them had some sort of a character development in the end, but still doesn't pay off, all the things the fl did and no one even decided to give her the blame. If it was the other way around, everyone would be hating on the male lead instead. Plus the relationship between the sister's ml and the best friend was so rushed in the last two episodes, to the point it looked so superficial. They shouldn't have let one of the most important side couples to the end. But well, at least they all had a good ending, and there where many scenes where I had a good laugh and that's what matters.

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Girl chases after a jerk mostly ...

I have mixed feelings about this drama. The beginning was tolerable, because it’s the cute naïve girl that has a crush on the good looking guy who runs his own company. It was a cute secret crush / office troupe. I didn’t even mind the ugly boy wig the FL wore.

I’ve seen a lot of Xing Zhao Lin’s dramas, all of The Eternal Love series (1,2,3) and Lucky’s first love. I’m not a true fan of his acting style, but he is sure nice to look at. Also, it does seem he’s trying, I mean, I did get a tear here and there from him.

The drama was really angsty in the sense, there is a lot of the FL chasing after the ML. It’s almost 20 episodes of watching the girl drool and fawn over the ML who doesn’t treat her with kindness at all. He’s not a horrible character, but he chooses to omit certain things from the FL which could 100% clear up misunderstandings, but he rather “hurt” her and “protect” her than reveal his true intentions. It’s truly a difficult drama to watch.

The misunderstandings in the drama is probably the main focus and theme of the show. So if you like that kind of C drama style (very different from the slow slice of life, I am use to), then this is the drama for you.

I did LOVE the secondary characters. I loved the Best Friend and her childhood “brother”, I wished they had just as much camera time as the main leads.

The ML and FL did have great chemistry and I loved the way the actress dressed and her hair and makeup was very adult with thick eye liner and colorful outfits. I couldn’t believe she is 30! She looks like she is in her early twenties. I like her acting style and presence, but her character did no justice for her. I couldn’t stand how much of a pushover she was.

The last 10 episodes were my favorite because the pacing changed and I felt like I was getting all of my justice I was seeking! There were still very frustrating moments because that is the writing style, but I’m not sure I could have finished the series had it not been the last parts.

Overall, watch it if you like typical C drama rom-coms with angsty plot with typical misunderstandings and crazy ex-girlfriend.

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A Lot of People Say This Is A Bad Drama But…

There are a lot of people out there criticizing the characters and plot of this drama, but I honestly don’t get why. If you have watched this drama, you most definitely know it’s name: “Cute Programmer”. This drama is exactly what it says in the title- it’s a lighthearted and fluffy drama, perfect for when you need that balance after you’ve just finished an emotional or heavy drama. Although the storyline can be a bit outrageous or confusing sometimes, with the many misunderstandings and conflict that happened throughout it, “Cute Programmer” still has a good foundation. I believe that with adjustments in the script and plot, this drama will definitely improve.

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I looovveeee iiiittt

At first the thought that this drama is confusing but I enjoy it

First let speak about Xing Zhao Lin he is an extremely talented actor and he pull up every single seen in the drama and it wasn’t boring at all

Bambi was so robotic at the first episode adk if it because of the character her self or what but in last episodes she did a really great job and I was touched by the fact that she turn ? present stronger and I am in love with her character in the last episodes

The second couple they were extremely lovely and I love how the boy was nice to the lule and i wished that I could try his coffee ? and the girls tho OMG she was loud but funny at the same time

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