Cinderella's Sister

The first half of this series is so good and I know of a very similar rich widower and second wife situation so it felt very insightful and realistic. Kudos to Lee Mi Sook as the wicked stepmother what a performance. Her scenes were the best even when the show started to get bad.

But the second half was draggy and too full of tears angst and self sacrifice. The same problem repeated itself over and over.

The older sister was so unlovable and only showed some affection towards the very end. The younger sister overacted and had such over the top expressions. The contrast of their good and bad points was quite realistic though. People skills. Funny early role for Ok Taecyeon though he looks goofy.

The romance was was frustrating with such a sullen wench as heroine. Had to finish the show because of the good start. But be warned it really gets draggy later on with the endless business problems.

So the first half is 10/10 and the second is 1/10.

You really should watch this series , I wish if they make another season of this series because it's really emotional , thrilling , and dramatic story. I watched so many Korean movies and series and this one is one of my favorite series between the ones I saw.

I'm going to take some heat from the female drama lovers for this review for sure. Cinderella's Sister (aka Cinderella's Stepsister) is a melodramatic "cryathon" that aired on Korean TV a year or two ago. For anybody who's not familiar with this genre, it's basically just a soap opera with a set run time and (hopefully) an end goal. There are loads of Korean dramas like this, and, well my Korean girlfriend (God bless her) really likes this stuff and wants me to watch with her, so yeah, I watched this whole series!

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Your basic story: Widowed winery owner with young carefree "princess" daughter meets unprivileged widow with standoffish "evil stepsister" daughter. Widower and widow soon get married. Widow is more or less just looking to cease going from one loser relationship to another, and she succeeds in accomplishing this by wedding the winery owner. As a result, their daughters are thrust together and are mostly left to get along as newly anointed sisters.

For the first 5 episodes or so, the story focuses on the 2 families getting together, at which time the daughters are 14 year old high school girls. The daughters clash from the beginning, even though the widower's daughter tries her best to welcome her new step sister with open arms. The widower's daughter is bubbly, sheltered, and a little annoying, but she's kind and doesn't mean any harm. On the other hand, the widow's daughter is an abrasive ass; yeah, she's had a tough life to date, but the amount of undeserved vitriol she spews on her newfound sister makes you not want to like her character at all.

Both girls have a crush on some older dude who's working at the winery. Eventually, this dude falls in love with the widow's daughter, but ends up leaving the winery before love can blossom between the two. He doesn't really want to leave his new love though, so he does so via perhaps the most unmanly and idiotic scapegoat way possible; instead of just telling the girl he loves her and wants to be with her, he sneaks off to board a train without any notice, and gives a letter (written in Spanish no less) to the widower's daughter to pass along to her sister, which basically begs the widow's daughter to come stop him from leaving if she loves him. And, he does this knowing the two stepsisters hate each other at this point, and that the widower's daughter is still in love with him, and not to mention the fact the widow's daughter is just learning Spanish. WTF???...This is our hero???...If I tried this nonsense in real life, I'd either get laughed at or ignored, and probably both.

The series then skips forward to when the daughters are in their early twenties, and, goes forward from there as all the main characters eventually re-converge. Dude who took the train out of town shows back up in the sisters lives, and they all have to eventually work together to save the winery. Dude is still upset that widow's daughter didn't stop him from leaving when they were younger. Perhaps he should have been more direct or used a better method years ago, or maybe tried to call or write his love sometime during the 8 years he was away. Idiot!

The rest of the series pretty much goes as follows: love/work/family related problems crop up, the characters cry/yell/do something absurd, melodramatic/happy/romantic music ensues, issues are resolved, then repeat until the story arc is completed. In the meantime, everyone stares off into the distance, and reminisces A LOT! There's also many misunderstandings and wild changes in character's demeanors as events unfold, people faint or die upon hearing bad/shocking news, there's about a billion instances of someone grabbing another person's arm as they're about to walk away, buckets of tears are shed, and of course, there's always some evil person(s)/company behind the scenes, and (perhaps) ulterior motives among all the main characters, etc.

This show really tested my limits I rolled my eyes often at the heavy formulaic melodrama involved here (my GF was not pleased with this!). That being disclosed, I did kinda like this show overall in some strange sort of way, and there's a good bit to like here; both lead actresses gave solid performances throughout, although I could barely tolerate the stepsister character most of the time. The widower was perhaps those most fair and stand up character I've ever seen in any Korean melodrama. And, it was good to see the 2 sisters grow some over time and eventually come to an understanding, which led to a nice touching moment in the finale. Also, I generally felt bad for the widower's daughter who mostly got crapped on by just about everybody throughout the entire series.

As for the male leads, Chun Jung Myung did what he was asked quite well, but his character was not very likable either, although it should be noted that he and the often unlikeable stepsister seemed a perfect match for one another. As for Taecyeon; he has a nice body for the ladies to drool over, but his acting is questionable at best. In his defense though, he's given nothing to do other than follow the stepsister around like a sickly puppy or overhear random conversations for the sake of advancing plot points.

I may have liked this story if it were streamlined into a shorter miniseries format and it cut down on the nonsense some. But, if drawn out to a longer format (with no end in sight), I might have faked my own death in order to avoid watching it. However, I do like this KTV method of airing shows for a specific number of episodes, then moving on to the next show. This particular show, while not without faults, works well enough to recommend ONLY if you're a fan of/familiar with K-dramas. If not, it's borderline excruciating.

7 out of 10 stars.

The main problem of the Korean Drama " Cinderella's sister " is the characters. Most of them are annoying and the progress of the story finds them with close to zero character development.

One of the worst is the sister, the 'cinderella', who cries ALL THE TIME! At first, it's unnoticeable and blends in with the rest of the drama. However, especially after the second half, her crying increases and she gets worse and worse. Not to mention that she acts out of character in the final episodes when she discovers something that she didn't know about her family.

The male lead is also one for the books. He not only plays with the two sisters' feelings, acts selfishly and does the most unreasonable things, but also his reasons for doing what he does are not that great, in the end, and do not justify his actions. His romance, thus, with the leading lady was problematic and, most of the time, frustrating.

The rest of them are either annoying or just okay, except for the father, who was probably the only one who was likable. The sister and leading lady was, after her teenage years when she was simply impossible, pretty decent and she was one of the few who acted rationally at times.

As for the story, it's okay, melodramatic and depressing, but with a good family drama. Though, most of it was predictable. In addition, there were episodes that were boring and dragging.

Finally, the soundtrack was really good and the performances great, especially from the leading lady.

So, overall, three out of ten.

One of the worst k drama I have seen. The basic of the story is interesting, but it was just too much. Special the male lead. I found him so unlikeable as a person and wondering how the sisters didn't kick him out of their life.

He disappear for 8 years, when then sisters are teens and the drama except us to believe the two sister still have these huges feelings for him. It's so unrealistic and annoying. And furthermore he keep forcing the female lead by pulling her or stop her for leaving. I know it happens in a lot of k dramas, but their whole relationship is just too toxic.

And finally he lies and try trick them. In general he is the main reason for most of their business troubles, but we still have to like him and believe he has good intentions. I don't have a law degree, but I find it very unlikely his actions couldn't be considered illegal.

All in all I was very disappointed, special because the concept of an evil step sister was evil because cinderella took everything from her because she was spoild.

So far I can't imagine watching a more toxic family drama, where I keep thinking, "come on... grow up or at least kick him to the curve"