Me, when becoming too invested in a kdrama:

I was looking something else up and came across this and I am howling!!!! This is the most old school kdrama thing ever.

PS what does rebellious like Chernobyl mean? Is he a big fan of the song “Radioactive?”

Because I have no one in person that I can rant to about my thoughts on Cinderella and the Four Knights (2016), you guys get to hear my thoughts.

First, I put this show on because I had just finished Tomorrow (2022), and I needed something sappy and full of cliché tropes to help distract me from the emotional trauma. I did my best from episode 1 to try and guess who was endgame for Eun Ha-Won based on all of the stereotypes and the way the interactions between her and the Kang cousins were written, and I feel like my original thoughts would’ve been a better ending.

Also with the way that the characters were written, they really should’ve called it Cinderella and the Three Knights because the fourth “knight” wasn’t even really written to be a Love Interest in spite of him being one of the best characters (until stuff happens with his mother and then it’s like being disappointed by your longtime crush and wanting to smack some sense into them).

My thoughts on the characters, though:

Eun Ha-Won

I love her. She deserves the world. She is an absolute ball of sunshine in spite of all the shit she’s had to deal with and continues to deal with straight through to the final meeting she has with Chairman Kang. I think she’s gorgeous, and I hate that she thinks she’s not pretty just because of how the Kang cousins treat her vs Park Hye-Ji. She honestly could’ve made it through the whole show without a Love Interest and I would’ve liked that more than the actual ending. She’s strong physically, mentally, and emotionally. She’s very smart and wants to use what she knows to teach others. She’s so very devoted to family in spite of how her stepmom and stepsister treat her, and even more so how her dad treated her. I would’ve tried to woo her myself if I had been in the show.

Kang Ji-Woon

The bad boy/bully type, the enemies-to-lovers trope, the stalker’s enabler. This man constantly looks like a crying wet puppy, but not in a cute way. He tries to look so sad and pitiful, and he’s an asshole from the get go. From the very start where he rolls his eyes and tries to give Ha-Won his watch when she asks him to apologize for not buying all the food he asked her to prepare at the convenience store, and then scoffs and immediately assumes she’d do anything for money (without considering the fact that she’s dead broke and needs money to survive). You think maybe there’s a redemption when he gives her a bouquet of white roses on the memorial day (I forget what the actual name of that day is called) of her mom’s death. And then you see him being a whiny puppy stuck to the second female lead, enabling her stalker tendencies and hating everyone who doesn’t immediately make Hye-Ji happy. He hates Hyun-Min so much that he also decides to pursue Ha-Won just to make him miserable when he thinks they’re engaged, not even caring about how it might make Ha-Won feel. He keeps doing sweet and caring things that make you think “oh she’s finally breaking down his tough exterior”, and then he just turns around and is an asshole again. He abandoned both Ha-Won AND Hye-Ji on the side of the road on separate occasions and then thought just saying “oh sorry” would fix it. I get that his backstory is sad, and I get that Chairman Kang fucked him over and basically forced him to accept the fact that he’s family, but it’s no excuse for the way he treats everyone else. Also, man needs to learn how to comb his hair and maybe take some allergy medication so his eyes stop watering and his nose isn’t always red.

Kang Seo-Woo

The unrequited love, the pop-star, the male best friend trope. I love him, and I hate that the writers barely gave him a chance. He tried so hard so many times to tell Ha-Won that he liked her. He did so many things to care for her, wrote love songs about her, used his status as a pop-star to help draw crowds away from Ha-Won when she was getting bullied by the girls who thought she was Chairman Kang’s mistress, was a genuinely kind person to everyone including Ha-Won’s best friend, and tried so many times to confess. I wish the writers would’ve taken just a couple more lines to have him say “no, Ha-Won, I’m not writing a love song right now, I’m telling you how I genuinely feel about you” and actually given her a chance to consider him. He saw how much Ha-Won hated the spotlight she got while everyone thought she was engaged to Hyun-Min, and he let pictures of himself in a girls uniform go viral just to stop more pictures of Ha-Won from leaking to the press. At any moment, he could’ve just done with Hyun-Min did and asked Ha-Won to play along with the rumors of them dating, but he actually considered Ha-Won’s feelings (glaring at you, Ji-Woon) and lied about his own feelings to protect her. If I had to choose between the Kang cousins, I would choose Seo-Woo.

Kang Hyun-Min

The spoiled rich kid, the playboy, the fake fiancé, the one afraid to actually love, the object of the stalker’s affection. I wish he had been endgame. They set it up so well in the beginning for him to be endgame. You could tell from the moment he saw Ha-Won beat up the assholes at the bar/party for not paying for the pizza delivery, he was developing feelings. He could’ve easily gone back on his bet with his friends and asked any other girl to go to Chairman Kang’s wedding with him, but he chose to go after Ha-Won, and even went all the way to the convenience store just to try and get her attention. His shock at hearing about BOGO deals with the ice cream was honestly cute, and he was kind enough to sit down with Ha-Won and enjoy the ice cream in spite of being raised directly under Chairman Kang (who makes it very clear what he thinks of anyone who isn’t rich), and he’s actually nice to her. At the beginning he still has that playboy attitude, but even after offering her money to be his date (and being turned down, good job Ha-Won for holding true to your values), he still tries. He picks her up for the wedding, opens the door for her, treats her the way a gentleman should treat a lady (win for chivalry!), and gives her a chance to feel as beautiful as she is. He also is very up front and adamant with Hye-Ji that he wants nothing to do with her, but she keeps showing up and trying to make him feel guilty for not still liking her after having a crush on her when they were NINE YEARS OLD, and it’s been 10 years (she bugs the hell out of me but we’ll get to her). Hyun-Min also is thinking of Ha-Won when he asks Chairman Kang and Secretary Lee to keep it secret from the other Kang cousins that Ha-Won isn’t his real fiancé, because he trusts that they wouldn’t try to pull anything on someone who was already in a relationship (fuck you Ji-Woon for taking that personally and making Ha-Won uncomfortable and confused). He keeps Ha-Won company so she won’t be alone, he goes along with her missions until his pride gets in the way, he buys her a whole wardrobe of clothes because she keeps wearing the same tracksuit for god knows how many episodes and just genuinely tries to make her feel comfortable and taken care of so she can focus on the things she actually needs to do instead of just surviving. I wish that he had seen Ha-Won when she got dolled up in that black and blue dress, he would’ve fallen for her all over again. Unfortunately, the writers decided that the “childhood lovers/first love” trope was more important for Hyun-Min and Hye-Ji, and they had him go back to her even though she was being a stalker after he repeatedly said no. Also hella power move that the heir to the Haneul group in his early 20s would go stand before a board of directors and his grandpa’s wife to save his grandpa’s company after being a slacker playboy up until he met Ha-Won. I love him. I wish he had ended up with Ha-Won. Fuck the writers for putting him with his stalker.

Lee Yoon-Sung

The “fourth knight”, the secretary to the chairman, the by the book character. They never even gave him a chance to be considered a Love Interest, so it kept bothering me that they called it “…Four Knights” and then only made 3 of them potential LIs. He is the most efficient and down to earth of all the guys, he does his job exceedingly well, he respects the absolute hell out of Ha-Won and tries his best to make the Kang cousins respect her as well, he’s a master of tae-kwon-do, he’s deeply loyal to the chairman until a bigger issue comes up, and he’s a very obvious fan favorite. I was very disappointed that the writers made him side with Madame Ji even for the time that he did because he had been so against treating her as his mother after she abandoned him with an abusive drunk father 12 years prior, but I am glad his loyalty to the chairman won out. Also very happy that they included him in their friend group at the end, my man needs to learn to relax (but not with alcohol… my emetophobia did not appreciate the end of the drunk dinner…).

Park Hye-Ji

The second female lead. I cannot stand her. I hate that the writers even included her past the first couple episodes, and I hate even more than they ended up letting her win with Hyun-Min. She’s a very “woe is me” character who acts like she’s entitled to everyone’s attention, especially Hyun-Min’s, just because he gave her a ring when they were 9 and her family got along with the Kang family before her brother died. This girl spends 10 years pining over Hyun-Min after she has not seen or heard from him AT ALL in those 10 years, shows up at his house unannounced when he returns to Korea from studying abroad, constantly shows up wherever he is in public and just looks at him all sad and pathetic like he belongs to her and is cheating on her, she’s been told by him numerous times in basically every episode that he does not want her around and that she should give up even to the point where Hyun-Min has to threaten to never acknowledge her again, she hates Ha-Won for being close to Hyun-Min and then later Ji-Woon, she jumps from guy to guy after Hyun-Min’s threat starting with Ji-Woon because she knows it’ll piss off Hyun-Min the most, she assumes anyone who is nice to her must be in love with her and feels personally attacked and betrayed when they’re like “no I’m just a nice person, I don’t have feelings for you”, blames Hyun-Min for her being so sad and depressed when she’s the one who can’t just fucking get over him from when THEY WERE CHILDREN, constantly tries to make moves and get close to Hyun-Min on the trip and after she moves into Haneul House, and then turns around and is like “I never want to see you again” when Hyun-Min tries to treat her more kindly and tries to explain why he was being such a dick to her. And yet they end up together. Because “childhood love/first love” was more important to the writers than the fact that they made the second female lead a self absorbed entitled stalker. The only thing that comes to mind that puts her in a good light was when she let Ha-Won spend the night, but even that was reluctant and she only started being nice after Ha-Won admitted that the engagement was fake. She should’ve just taken the fashion scholarship to Paris and finally gotten out of the Kang’s lives. If she was alone in a foreign country she might actually learn to rely on herself instead of always expecting Hyun-Min or Ji-Woon to come running.

Hong Ja-Yeoung

Seo-Woo’s biggest fan, Ha-Won’s best friend, an absolute cupcake of a character. I want her to be my best friend. It did annoy me that at the beginning of the trip, she left Ha-Won to do stuff alone just because Seo-Woo wasn’t joining them, but my girl has Ha-Won’s back in every other situation. She was even willing to support Ha-Won and Seo-Woo when the scandal article was published saying that they were engaged when they weren’t. She also was determined enough to get close to her favorite pop-star that she came up with a plan to help him escape his fan girls by wearing her school uniform, and she managed to sneak some photos of him crossdressing as well that he later used to help Ha-Won. She’s been there for Ha-Won through everything and did whatever she could to help even though she herself didn’t have much. I am so happy for her that she gets to be part of Seo-Woo’s management team in the end.

Chairman Kang

Classist asshole who values highly skilled and charismatic employees, but continues to treat them like trash if they stop acting like employees. For him, money buys everything including people, and he has almost completely forgotten what it’s like to actually care about someone until Ji-Woon is on his knees in tears begging him to give his blessings to him and Ha-Won, bringing up how the chairman made his mom leave his dad to remind him of the horrible mistake he made in the past. Chairman Kang talks all the time about wanting the Kang cousins to act as a family, but doesn’t even act like a grandpa to them. He acts like a dictator by threatening to cut them off from everyone and everything if they don’t do exactly what he says. He has good instinct not to trust Madame Ji towards the end, but you would think after 4 failed marriages he would have some way of blocking any future wives from trying to take over the company. I’m glad he finally gave Ha-Won his blessing, but just the wrong cousin.

That being said! In spite of the endgame love interest and the stalker, the interactions were pretty cute and it was entertaining. It was much needed after watching Tomorrow. I’m going to acknowledge that canon has Ha-Won with Ji-Woon, but in my mind I will always pair Ha-Won with Hyun-Min or Seo-Woo, and believe that Hye-Ji would actually go away (and STAY away) after Hyun-Min rejected her at the wedding.

What I Watched in 2022 ⤖ 42. Cinderella And The Four Knights (2016)

Everything will change at Haneul House. See for yourself.

Cinderella And The Four Knights Masterlist

Cinderella And The Four Knights funny moments 

Cinderella And The Four Knights moments 

Cinderella And The Four Knights OST 

Cinderella And The Four Knights quote 

Kang Ji Woon x Eun Ha Won 

Kang Hyun Min x Park Hye Ji

Lee Yoon Sung x Eun Ha Won 

Kang Ji Woon x Kang Hyun Min x Kang Seo Woo 

Kang Ji Woon moments 

Eun Ha Won moments 

Kang Hyun Min moments 

Kang Seo Woo moments 

Lee Yoon Sung moments 

Park Hye Ji moments 

kdrama ive watched and the score i would give but the reasons are explained badly

Black - 4/5: the first kdrama i ever watched....it gets a good score because of that. male lead was hot af, female lead deserved better. satisfied me need for shitty supernatural romance. ending had me sobbing like a bitch.

Cinderella and the Four Knights - 3.5/5: It was cliche. It was trashy. It was overdramatic....It was so much fun. Fuck all yall female lead deserved so much better. Fuck her dad, fuck her step family, and FUUCK the secondary female lead she was annoying af

Touch Your Heart - 4.5/5: my expectations for love in life are impossibly high now. unfair. screaming and sobbing.

Goblin - 1000/5: screaming sobbing throwing up rolling on the floor

A Korean Odyssey - 3/5: only watched it to fill the gap when i was done with goblin. it was ok.

Bring It On, Ghost - 3.5/5: yeah it was good, albeit a bit awkward. i saw the twist coming. lake scene had be cackling, never hurt my girl again

What's Wrong With Secretary Kim - 4/5: good romance, the backstory thing was kinda dragged out. older brother can catch these mf hands. THAT scene had me 👀😫

Bonus: Dramas im watching rn

Alchemy of Souls - 4.5/5: minus a SMALL number of complaints, this is almost reaching goblin. almost. naksu step on me queen

Extraordinary Attorney Woo - 4.5/5: really good so far. my expectations for men are at impossible highs

Bonus Bonus: dramas ive dropped

Boys Over Flowers - 1.5/5: im sorry im sorry i know its a classic but what the fuck is wrong with these people. i just cant watch it, i wish i could, but maaaannn. cinderella did it better.

Hometown Cha Cha Cha - 3/5: i was actually close to finishing but there was just something off after they got together. another expectation raiser sighhh

Doom At Your Service - 3/5: i dont remember why is dropped this i think i just stopped watching for no reason. im lazy i dont really wanna pick it up again lol

Vagabond - 2/5: theres nothing wrong with this show i just discovered i prefer shows with a higher focus on romance lmao

The K2 - 2/5: same with vagabond but also more boring :/

Bonus Bonus Bonus: stuff i wanna watch

The King: Eternal Monarch: i heard it was by the people who did goblin sooooo 👉👈 ((also the guy from boys over flowers is in it what an upgrade my man congrats))

Hotel Del Luna: i wanna watch it i just...idk just havent gotten to it im lazy

Backstreet Rookie: looks cute, unsure tho

Tomorrow: looks cool, i like the chick with the pink hair.

Those Silly White Flowers

One Shot

Overall Summary:

Ji Woon just wanted to be able to work in peace and try to ignore the situation he's been pulled into, but those stupid white flowers wouldn't disappear.

Cinderella and the Four Knights

Rated G

Tags:   No Archive Warnings Apply, Kang Ji Woon, Eun Ha Won, Character Study, Introspection, Anger, Sad with a Happy Ending Slice of Life, White Flowers

Excerpt

He hated this stupid house and everything it represented. He wouldn’t have even come back if he hadn’t wanted to learn more about his past.

Why his father had abandoned him, and he had never heard of any of this stupid place until recently. He needed to know, and his grandfather was the only person that seemed to know everything. But he wouldn’t share it, he was just sitting on it so that he could control him, and it was pissing him off.

And now that girl was here! She was nosing around his shop, his one place of peace in this whole idiotic place where he could work with his hands and not be some stupid heir to a group that had done nothing but try to take his name from him. Take his name and his life from him like it was nothing. Paying off the people that he had worked with and considered his family when he had had nothing.

And they had taken the money.

They had taken the money and continued on with their lives, pretending like he didn’t exist. After everything they had gone through together.

Read More Here

Little Red Riding Hood being extra cute for 3 minutes straight

Hashimoto Kanna as Little Red Riding Hood

biography of a villain/evilive is genuinely like one of those cinderella story kdramas except with a lot more murder, violence and money laundering

You know a Kdrama is great when you start arguing and have the urge to throw things at your tv. Also the need to pause to absorb everything that just happened.

How do people not like this drama like I was a huge fan when I first started watching k dramas I was like obsessed in a way I loved it it's weird no one likes it

How do kdramas take the easiest, cheesiest concepts known to fiction and manage to mess it up to where it's barely enjoyable every time??

Cinderella and the Four Knights

so my sleep schedule is shot anyway and I’m currently watching kdrama on Netflix.  Shout out to @netflix​ for having my back and having just about any eclectic thing I want to watch available.

Anyway, I’m currently watching Cinderella and the Four Knights which is this cute little story about an Every(wo)man who gets pulled into the life of these ultra-rich guys and tries to turn them into human beings.  I’m only on episode five at the moment but I’m going to give my review of it so far.  No spoilers (just uneducated speculation) so don’t worry.  First off - main cast.

We’ve got - in order: KPop Guy, Motorcycle Jerk, Main Girl, Playboy and the one I refer to with great affection as Mr. Efficient.  I think on those names alone you can already tell who I like best.  Taking it from the top though, thoughts so far:

KPop Guy is adorable and easily the most likeable of the lot.  I cannot see him as being ‘in the running’ for wooing Main Girl but he’s honestly the best out of the three.  Thoughtful, insightful and without all the built up daddy issues the other two guys seem to have, he’s a sweetheart so far and I really like how comfortable him and Main Girl are jiving together.  He totally deserves the Male Bestie spot for her.

Next up is Motorcycle Jerk.  They’re trying to go with Bad Boy with a Vulnerable Heart with him but he just resorts to bullying tactics too much for me to like him.  I get that he’s ‘got a hard shell she has to crack/melt’ but honestly I don’t see why the effort would be worth it despite the fact the show has gone out of its way to show why he’s hurting and lashing out as a result.  But every time the music kicks on and things go slow mo between him and MG I just kind of sigh and wait for it to be over.  NOT rooting for this guy.  The motorcycle and martial arts just aren’t enough to redeem him.

Main Girl is next and she is SO FREAKING ADORABLE!!!  I am super happy she’s the center of the show, I care about what she cares about and I really feel for how wrecked her life is and yet how resilient and positive she forces herself to stay.  Things are absolutely not getting handed to her on a platter and she’s so freaking cute without being oversaturated.  I also love how physically tough she is and I’m quite pleased that when I muttered ‘you could just head butt him again’ she nailed the guy in the shin.  Tiny cute with lion fists?  Not going to apologize, I eat it up.  I want whoever makes her happy for her and I’m not sure any of the three guys is it. 

Playboy is, of course, the standard playboy.  I’m not sure if they’re going to bring in some depth for him later or not but right now he’s just filling the ‘never had a girl that’s  not cookie cutter and MG intrigues him for her lack of ‘put up with his bullshit’.’  I’m pretty sure he’s End Game for her just with the way the writing is and, so far, he’s not horrible, just standard.  I don’t dislike him because he’s pretty unapologetic about what he is and upfront with it so anyone getting hurt should have seen it coming.  I just don’t like him either because he hasn’t done anything to win me.  I mean, I like an asshole (looking at you early game Cloud Strife) but I’d like a bit more than ‘asshole’ and ‘girl opens his eyes’.

Last, but never least, is Mr. Efficient (beloved)

He is super clearly not in the running for MG at this point but I am loving their interaction and how she loosens him up.  Kpop also gets him involved in some HiJinks and its pretty cute watching them run around snickering together.  Also he likes MG’s cooking so he gets points.  And he is, as stated, super efficient and so far the only one that’s 1. not got his head up his ass and 2. seems to know what he’s doing.  I can’t picture him romantic with MG but I do think they’re good for each other and she’s letting him be human instead of the robot his job requires of him.   Plus he treats her like a human being, which is more than Motorcycle and Playboy do and I very much like him for that.  He’s not for her - but I’d take him in a heartbeat.

There’s also this girl

I was hoping I could call her Bestie because she comes off a pretty sweet and kind and determined.  I do like her - but she’s really got a bad case of stalker syndrome and ‘no doesn’t mean no’ when it comes to one of the guys and, having been the girl on the receiving end of that in my past, there is no way I can get behind her until she lets that shit go.  Obviously something went on the past that’s not been revealed yet and my opinion may change but right now she’s not quite into ‘jealous enemy’ territory for MG but she’s hanging on way too hard to someone that has made it very obvious they don’t want to be hung on to.   Plus I think its pretty heavily hinted that one of the other ‘Knights’ has a thing for her and she’d be much better off with him anyway.   Kudos to the show for not, at this point, making her a bitch to MG though.  Its not fun watching her get hurt over and over again and girl needs to Just Let That Shit Go and stop doing that to herself.

Bestie title goes to the friend in pink that I can’t find a picture of that is just the cutest and most supportive friend MG could have and I utterly uplift that girl.  She’s top notch even if she barely gets any screen time.

There is a wicked step mother and wicked step sister (and the father’s an ass too though its obvious he’s got something going on with a side quest that will no doubt show up later) so its really easy to root for MG and be glad when she gets away from her family.  I won’t be upset if raccoons eat that family.  There’s some drama going on in the background with an evil wife and the CEO that brought all the Knights together but I honestly don’t care.  I just like the CEO when he’s interacting with MG at this point because he gets cute and she gets to be extra cute.   I suspect, as a parental figure, he sucks.

And that’s what I’ve got so far with episode five set up to go on my screen.  Cute so far and I’d recommend it at this point as light hearted and not too deep fluff.  I’ll come back and do a bit more once I’m further in but so far, so good.

man that one scene in “cinderella’s stepsister” where moon geunyoung is running away and she turns to look behind her as the pencil falls out from her hair is so iconic that now and then it still pops up in my head

🖤Cinderella and four Knights 🖤

Watched it for the first time in 2018 and became my favorite Kdrama🖤

Finished re-watching it today in 13th July 2022, And I can list way more reasons than before for why its my favorite Kdrama🫂🖤

This Drama is so Underrated, never seen so many people talking about it, so I'll do it, and won't shut up🤳