Cinderella Chef (2018)

I like how the female lead time travels not to the usual palace settings, but to a bandit tribe. I also admire her for not conforming to her new surroundings as she continues to be her modern self, unlike other series. I just really like Ye Jia Yao because she's funny, witty and realistic, instead of the usual whiny and weak female lead. Even though she doesn't know martial arts, she survives pretty well due to her culinary skills.

That said, I also like the male lead. Like some characters in the series, there seem to be many "layers" to Xia Chun Yu. You just gotta keep watching to discover another side of him, which adds to the mystery of the entire story. The supporting characters and their respective stories are just as nice, as they compliment the main plot.

However, it does get a bit draggy towards the end... Regardless, I'd still recommend watching it if you're looking for something that's not too heavy (in terms of content).

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This drama is a very good drama, I loved how the main heroine went back in time to make a name for herself. Sense, back in her time nobody was interesting in her cooking. Besides, the romance she was able to accomplish her cooking skill and be next to her man that she fell in love with. The things that I didn't like was that the story did drag in the middle because of some of the unnecessary fighting or misunderstandings which of course I skipped. But the story was good in the end and they both got their happy ending.

I would definitely recommend watching, if you have time sense it is a long drama.

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pros
setting /story is a bit different then usual
female lead saves this drama i really enjoyed her the rest of the cast not so much besides maybe 2 or 3 side characters

cons
story ( why put it in pros and cons ? watch the after episode 24 and you will know why )
too many episodes with filler that serves no real plot purpose ( series would have been good around 30 or so episodes in my mind )


1-24 this series is a solid 8+

i have to say i quite enjoyed the story at the beginning and when it focused on the food and how she was surviving using her modern knowledge and how she was living her fantasy and treating it like an vacation.

24-56 would be a 6 for me i feel like they did the bare minimum to keep a solid story

Then everyone dies and the story too as well, i didn't like the turn they took with the story to me if they kept it light hearted and funny and maybe add a little bit of spice/drama but they full on when they only needed to sprinkle a little.

You go from a light hearted funny drama to full on politics with slapped on cooking on the side and the typical wuxia struggle of jealousy in the palace with hidden birth none of those turns were presented well.

after episode 24 i ended up skipping alot of the series and just watched the main couple scenes i really enjoyed the first half and i want to know how there story unfolded and ends.

It's too bad that after the black wind massacre the story dies along with it and then the main leads play hot cold cold for the rest of the drama till near the end.

TLDR
-good first half
-terrible second half
-besides leads the rest of the story isn't good
get ready to fast forward alot unless you like slow torture
-romance is just ok to much cat and mouse and hot and cold in the end makes it not very entertaining
-happy ending

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Worth watching, worth my time. Good acting. Quite a solid plot
I. All the things i like:
1. Characters that are not one dimensional and actually has development and growth as the drama proceeds
2. Female lead thats direct, bold, somtimes outrageous and flirty too without being obnoxious (great departure fr d usual).
3. Male lead that is strong but not invicible, smart, serious at times but also approachable amd charming (i like rather than typical stoic type)
4. Some supporting leads that have tbeir own story, depth and well crafted character that you get to know and have an afinity to
5. If you like time travel. This one is pretty solid. You actually see how the present her properly enter the ancient timeline. I like its tied to the blood moon (This phenomena actually happened 12hrs before i wrote)
6. Double identity secrecy for both leads gives double the story and intrigue
7. No useless damsel. But a female who is a survival and utilise her cooking skills
8. Hightlight gender inequality. And that females can have guy friends.
9. Some very quirky scenes, some that makes you smike and laughed aloud. Ofcourse some sweet, some tender and moving scenes that are memorable to me
9. Finally on the love line. She was initially charmed by his good looks, lol salivate over his bod. While she intriques him and fall for her over time. But its a love thats tested by circumstances, secrecy, lies, half truths, and people around them
10. Villains that arent villains. Some antiheroes that i form an attachment to.
II. Things i dont care
1. Some characters that are total plot device and a few evil women that i dislike way too much that i fastforwarded their scenes
2. Really quite a bit of misunderstanding of which a few took awhile to be resolved
3. Some evil peeps took way too long for their downfall
4. Female lead's costume, a few especially first half that wasnt tasteful and bit distracting
5. Ost was alright but nothing to write home about
6. Plot dragged a little before we hit the middle of the drama before regaining traction and then again slowed before finale

Overall this drama was a notch above quite a few historical C dramas and im glad to have randomly chose it to watch and end my drama drought.

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Cinderella chef was a mix of my favorite things: a strong smart female lead, hot guys, fantasy, historical and food, but where did it all go wrong?

The good: the best thing about this drama was the very witty female lead Ye Jia Yao. She was never a damsel in distress, never waited to be saved by a man, made use of her skills and was i-n-p-e-n-d-e-n-t! (Hooray Girl power!). Honestly not many dramas have a smart, funny and non-annoying female lead.
Almost all the men in this one are HOT… in the best way possible! The majority of the male characters are learning to acquiesce to Jia Yao and her thoughts on women empowerment. In such a crossover historical drama I liked the use of modern terminology, and how the main characters would be lost while Jia Yao was explaining 21st century concepts; it just added congruity. It was cool that Jia Yao used her knowledge of historical dramas to help her through… that was cute!
The way the lead characters were written was magical, like a realistic couple, complete with quirks and trust and issues.

The Bad: The villains. Every drama can have a horrible step mother, an evil ex-girlfriend , awful sisters or in historical dramas an evil queen/king, and some really pointless self sacrifice. This drama had the worst combination of all of the above plus extra girlfriends and a troublesome kid. Delusional wickedry was the main theme in this drama and it was aggravating… to the point where I started to skip.
While I said the leads weren’t annoying with a drama this long they start to get a little aggy too … I guess to draw out the story lines? The story line was great at first but around episode 44, it started getting weird and dragging. It was almost as if they were piecing bits together to make sense. Towards the end the story that was already a fantasy became more incredulous.
Speaking of incredulous, Jia Yao was darned near in haute couture the entire show, where did you get those fabrics and those pumps sis? *side eye*. I am not even mentioning how the prince started in on 19th century inventions… *double side eye*. I guess some things are added to the fantasy part.

The verdict: There were tons of characters that were annoying, but as long as the leads are not its watchable. The lace front wigs were on point, and I loved Jia Yao’s costume changes even if they were not time period appropriate. The story line seemed to fall apart at the end and to be honest Jia Yao wasn’t really a Cinderella. A really good drama, if you like the first 3 episodes then you will like the rest certainly worth a watch.

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This drama had potential to be so much more but unfortunately, it fell short of my expectations. Im normally a sucker for time traveling dramas but this one left an annoying bitter taste in my mouth. Here is why:

story: the story line and plot is the main reason I'm showering some much needed shade at this drama. Its like the writer kept forgetting where they were going with the plot and kept changing their mind about what they wanted the main story to be. If the writer would have kept to the original plot of a chef time traveling back into ancient china who searches for a way to time travel back and just left it at that, I believe the drama would have turned out much better. However, the writer kept adding all these side plots that weren't really complex and just made the story line choppy, inconsistent, and confusing. Then towards the middle the story line grew rather dark for the romcom/comedy I was hoping for.

characters: So the characters got on my nerves a little bit too. Our main heroine was a little difficult to understand perhaps in the way that her character was written. She was often inconsistent, indecisive, and fickle. There were times when I got confused about what her goals, ambitions, and feelings were. She would say one thing, but then do another that contradicted her statement making it hard for the viewer to connect with her or her situation. I felt like she was unfamiliar the entire series because she was so inconsistent.

The male lead in this was also a little bit poorly written. I just feel like for a 56 episode drama the character development could have been so much more. The characters did not really grow, mature, or change during the entire course of this series making me cringe at all the wasted character potential.

Chemistry: So the couple chemistry was okay. Probably the best part of the series to be honest. The couple moments were cute (when they weren't crying or whining about each other and their circumstances). The only thing I hated was how few there were. A majority of the series was spent with the main couple breaking up, getting back together (for a very short time) and then quickly breaking up again. All they seemed to do was whine and cry about how much they missed the other but then they kept falling for misunderstandings. The main couple had a horrible habit of stubbornly remaining sulky and miserable for dumb reasons for a majority of the time.

music: the music was only so-so. I don't remember any particularly gripping song or soundtrack.

acting: the acting itself wasn't bad. The actors and actresses could only do so much with what they were given, however, they did an excellent job with what they had.

rewatch value: over all, I would definitely not rewatch this or waste my time on this drama again. There wasn't even a single episode I would go back to visit because there wasn't a scene in the entire series that connected to me or pulled me in enough to want to rewatch it again.

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I read parts of the translated novel for Adorable Food Goddess and was surprise to see a drama base on it. I haven't read the novel far enough to know how true the drama is to the novel but from what I watched, I sincerely hope the novel will be more different than the drama. I was hesitate about watching another drama base off of a novel I read because the previous drama I watched that did that nearly drained me of all motivation, However, I read spoilers about the ending beforehand and found out this drama have a happy-ending. I figured, if it's going to end happy, it should be fun since it started off with a comedic flair,

I was clearly wrong because while it started off great, the middle portion of the drama just made the happy ending fake to me. There was a lot of fun moments in the beginning, a lot of time was spend in developing the relationship between the characters. However, towards the middle everything just feels wrong. The story was purposely dragged and it felt like they wanted it to be more dramatic so they killed off everyone. Everyone I thought was important besides the 2 main characters dies. . . like no one was spared, not even the little boy or the villagers. Heck, the 2nd male lead dies. And it was all because of the main characters. So when the ending came and the main characters lived happily ever after, I couldn't help but think how wrong it is. Everyone that was innocent died, but the two troublemakers lived. If they were just honest with each other, they could've avoided a lot of misunderstanding and it wouldn't have caused everyone to die for them. It felt unfair to me. If this drama was marked at a tragedy I wouldn't have been so upset but it's somehow a rom-com?

I don't know if I can finish the novel considering how much tears I shed through this drama. Sigh.

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I gave this drama two tries. I dropped it the first time because of bad subbing, and it seemed too superficial for me to get into. There was something about the way she reacts when she time travels that kind of killed it for me.

But a few years later, I gave it another shot, and this time it took. Besides better subs, hanging in there for a few more episodes gave me a better understanding of her mindset. She genuinely considers this all a vacation and doesn't take anything seriously. Trust me when I say that changes. Her relationship with the lead is complicated. First it's light, but as time goes on and they have to rely on each other more, the viewer is rewarded with a couple that you KNOW is really in love with each other. They don't just say it. They prove it.

That being said, the story could be a bit uneven toward the end. It's like another drama. Still, I liked the second female lead (comes in way at the end), who wasn't just plain evil; she was complex, and I felt for her.

Great acting, laugh out loud in some places, a couple to envy, but not without its flaws.

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A Tale of Two… Tales

Skip to the final section for a quick, spoiler-free rating.

I found Cinderella Chef (Chinese title: 萌妻食神) during a month-long binge of transmigration/time-travel Chinese dramas back in 2018, and it’s one of the few that’s stayed with me since. It’s fun, original, and tells one hell of a story!

Cinderella Chef follows the journey of a modern girl Ye Jiayao, or “Yaoyao,” who time travels to the past after bonding with the inventor of a time machine. In ancient China, she finds herself hitched to Xia Chunyu, an agent of an imperial prince who’s gone undercover to infiltrate the Black Wind Fortress (ancient China’s equivalent of an organized mob). Together, they work out the ins and outs of their fake marriage, and what each other’s secrets mean for their relationship.

That’s a very basic synopsis of the premise of a looong fifty-six episode drama.

The Main Pairing
Ye Jiayao does not disappoint as a leading lady. She’s upbeat but pragmatic, idealistic but whip-smart, ambitious but self-aware. She knows her worth and does not care what anybody thinks of her at any time. She is such a go-getter that even if you don’t care for her as a person, her perception of the world and how she toughs out all her obstacles make her an easy character to follow. I love her entrepreneurial spirit and what her priorities in life are—not men, not money (alright, some money), but an innate need to improve her craft and leave a mark upon the world.

Xia Chunyu took me a while to like in the first season, largely because for a good chunk of the drama, I didn’t like his relationship with Yaoyao. He’s not a terrible husband, but because of the nature of his undercover mission, you can’t help but be wary of the motives driving his actions, even as you see his feelings for her slowly becoming more genuine as the drama goes on. I also feel like he loses out to the second male lead charisma-wise, to be honest, before the shit hit the fan.

He’s awful at the beginning of the second season with the ways he goes about winning Ye Jiayao back, the worst of it being when he buys out her place of employment, thus making her have to choose between losing her livelihood or having to work under him. (He eventually reveals that he bought it for her, but like… he makes her suffer for it first, so I don’t count it.)

Luckily, the third male lead can’t hold a candle to him in terms of, well, everything. And once him and Yaoyao got together for real, he becomes a lot better once he stops being petty towards her and includes her in his scheming. (To be fair, she’s also pretty petty towards him. I just think he holds more power over her and is therefore guiltier.)

Tropes, Tropes, Tropes
Time-traveling to the past? Check.
Transmigration? Check.
The MC using modern knowledge to their advantage? Check.
Pretend relationship/fake marriage? Check.

Every character you care about dies and the main pairing starts anew with old wounds? Yeah, that happened. Fuck me in my feelings.

Season 1 Characters Deserve Better
I love the Black Wind Fortress gang, aside from that one weaselly looking asshole who betrayed everyone whose name I’m not remembering off the top of my head. I love Bai Chongye’s multifaceted-ness—how he goes from ruthless mafia head, to awkward but loving father, to prankster, to just a Dude You Can Get a Drink With. I love Sheng Sheng and Sang Sang’s mean-girl spirits. I especially adore Song Qi and his devotion to his “grandma.”

I love Ding Qi, his swearing, his child-like sexism, and his all-boys club. Him and his crew just need hugs.

They’ve done nothing wrong and none of them deserves to die. Aside from all the murdering, the pillaging, the smuggling, the blackmailing, the backstabbing, that is… I genuinely did not see the mass murdering coming in the middle of the drama—I literally had to pause and make sure I didn’t accidentally marathon to the end because I was freaking out why everybody died in the middle of the story. When Song Qi was shot, I almost stopped watching, had I not been curious enough to want to know how the rest of the drama is going to go without most of its supporting characters.

Needless to say, I don’t have high opinions of the second 2 folks. Not even He Lianjing, whom I referred to for multiple episodes as Not-Song Qi until he became Yaoyao’s love interest, and then he was Not-Ding Qi until he fell in love with another character.

Second 2 Is a Lot More Conventional
When I wrote earlier that the drama is original, I really meant season 1. Maybe it’s because I haven’t watched enough Chinese historical dramas, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the gangs of the pugilist world depicted as literal organized crime families before. They always tend to be… lofty and… weird in a cult-like way, living in mountain and shit. Not here. These people are literal gangsters with gangster problems, and I just think that’s hilarious.

Season 2 is a lot more entrenched in politics and the usual tropes of “main female character marries into a family out of her social standing.” There’s a wicked stepmother who wants to oust the main male lead from the family, a two-faced love rival who stops at nothing to steal the main male lead, an emperor with numerous sons fighting for the throne, all that stuff. The pro is the plot is a lot easier to follow. The con is it’s not as interesting.

The Villain Is Surprisingly True-to-Life
The single best scene in the drama for me is when Yaoyao confronts the Prince of Yu for actually being the inventor of the time machine and a fellow transmigrator. These two have such great chemistry and energy together that I was really, really bummed out when the Prince of Yu turned out to be the end boss—him being the villain is far from unforeseeable, I just got caught up in the female lead’s joy of finding camaraderie.

The Prince of Yu is an incel. Not in the literal sense of the term, although once he got the idea that he and Yaoyao belonged together, he did take on that meaning as well. It’s that he feels so aggrieved by the slights he suffered (his professor stole his research in his old life, his new identity/body as a prince was of one mistreated badly enough by everyone that he committed suicide) that he becomes convinced that the world he reborn into owes him, and that he’s entitled to what he wants by virtue of him being a superior “modern” man. You know your villain’s good when someone can look at him and think, “I know this dude. I know multiple, real life examples of this dude, and they’re all pathetic and sad.”

He is the perfect foil to Yaoyao, who kept her chin up and kept forward despite suffering similar setbacks in both lives.

Cringes and Surprises
If there’s one thing I don’t like about Yaoyao, it’s her sense of fashion in season 1.

I’m sorry, but she dresses like how a nine-year-old thinks a stylish person should dress. Is that mean?

I could’ve also done without the random bursts of bad rapping and choreographed dances.

One thing I’m surprised by is how integral Yaoyao being a chef is to the story. I had expected the drama to abandon that idea altogether early on, like some other, much worse time-travel/transmigration dramas *cough* Instead, Cinderella Chef went all out and pursued actual chef and food related plot lines, which I really appreciate.

Final Rating and Recommendations
Cinderella Chef’s great. What else can I say but “go watch it” and “put it on your rewatch list if you’ve seen it already.”

It’s got a kick-ass main lady who wants her man but doesn’t need him, two stories for the effort you’d normally put into getting to know one, a pretty nifty endgame villain, and it’s an absolutely great take on the time-travel/transmigration trope.

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SEM EPOILER - Assistido em 2023

No início da série somos apresentados aos protagonistas, e a uma dinâmica estilo "My Sassy Princess", ou seja, a garota perseguindo o garoto. Logo isso muda um pouco, pois há tantos segredos entre eles e tão pouca confiança que qualquer coisa os abala. Diversas mentiras são contadas para encobrir segredos, o que torna o relacionamento instável. Chegou ao ponto de no meio da série eu realmente não ver problema caso os protagonistas resolvessem tomar rumos diferentes, e ficar com pessoas diferentes.

Até o meio da série foi bem arrastado de assistir, porém há uma mudança drástica (Não contarei o que ocorre, fique tranquilo), porém, basicamente eles reiniciam (resetam) a série, como se do nada resolvessem começar uma nova série, como se quisessem começar tudo de novo, em outro lugar e com outras pessoas. Em geral isso é péssimo de se ocorrer no meio de uma série, porém, devo dizer que depois disso ESSA série ficou um pouco melhor e mais fluída. Acredito que foi uma boa escolha, por que antes estava muito arrastado.

Ao longo da série a protagonista não fica mais pensando em voltar, e acabei até me esquecendo que ela vinha do futuro, por que não é mais comentado. Então a série acabou se tornando uma série normal de época até chegar ao final e resolverem voltar a falar sobre a viajem no tampo. Em vários momentos ela nos dá exemplos de séries que ela viu, e por isso acaba agindo de forma extremamente inteligente, porém em outros momentos ela é extremamente boba e infantil, mas assumi isso como sendo parte da personalidade dela, e tendo em vista que nem sempre somos o nosso 100%.

SOBRE OS SEGUNDÁRIOS: Os personagens secundários da 1ª parte da história são irrelevantes, já os secundários da 2ª parte da história são interessantes, porém não deram muito tempo de tela para eles. Há vários personagens que morrem nessa série, personagens queridos. Meu conselho é que não se apeguem muito a eles. São muitas mortes mesmo, no início tinha uma morte a cada 2 ou 3 episódios...

Resolvi assistir essa série por que queria ver os primeiros trabalhos da atriz Zhao Lu Si, sendo apenas uma coadjuvante, porém no meio da série ela saiu e me abandonou hahahaha e tive que continuar assistindo até o final.

NO GERAL: Não é uma série relevante, não há necessidade de assisti-la tendo tantas séries boas por aí.

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Terrible

Si buscas un buen drama, no lo veas, realmente es un sin sentido, empieza como light drama pero los plot twist son totalmente absurdos, y no el absurdo del tipico drama de fantasia, absurdos a nivel drama.
No es el tipo de "Stron female lead" , matan a los personajes mas carismaticos, todo mundo muere y mata sin una logica, creo que quisieron darle una trama interesante y no supieron como. Ni el final tuvo un nexo coherente entre las idas y venidas del tiempo.....
El villano termina con mejor final que el resto de personajes adorables e inocentes que murieron sin una razón logica, mucha matanza y golpes a mujeres sin justificacion....

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Well. This drama is special. It's sometimes hilarious to watch.

The main heroine is cute and funny but sometimes absolutely ridiculous. The main hero is good looking but their interactions are sometimes impossible. He does not believe what she is saying and he has really really weird relationship with secondary women characters. But they really look like that they are in love relatively quickly.

Music in this drama doesn't stand up and it's boring.

Plot is sometimes really great but sometimes really bad. And you are wondering why are you watching this.

There is so many different secondary characters that you sometimes forget about what actually happened to them. The villains are often really useless and sometimes you have to wonder what are they doing and why.

But cooking is really awesome in this drama. When main heroine is cooking everything is really interesting.

The costumes and special effects are awesome.

It is really funny drama to watch.

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