Mr. Cinderella (Vietnamese Series)

Compared to some of the other Vietnamese BL shows I have seen, this one had good production quality, better acting and direction but sadly this is not enough. With a paper thin plot and a story that is unnecessarily stretched far too long. This show which is 8 episode long almost clocking 35-40 minutes each episode, could have been told in 3-4 episodes of 20 minutes each. The things just keeps going in cycle and there is rally not much meat in the basic plot.

Dung is a street thug who gets beaten up by local goons. A doctor named Khoa treats him. Dung finds a picture of two kids (a boy and a girl) in the doctor's office and starts wondering about it. It seems Dung knows the picture. The dup have some sort of attraction. Being a graduate of street smartness, he has learned to adapt, be suspicious and not rely on anyone. However, there is something about Khoa that draws him intuitively, as if he knew him previously. Despite his outward appearance, Dung’s heart is utterly pure. The doctor is an upfront individual but is too easy-going. His acceptance of all people is almost his downfall rather than an asset. It turns out that the two boy used to hang out as kids, but that time for some reason, Khoa dressed up like girls and had long hair and Dung used to call him as Cindrella and the girl he will marry. So as expected after some flirting the love story starts. We have the regular villains: Khoa's assistant was his ex-boyfrien who is still obsessive and protective of the doctor and does everything in his power to make sure the duo cannot get together and their love story cannot get started. But Dung's street brother meets this assistant and they have their love story going on. We also see Dung's ex-girlfriend who goes in and out occasionally. As expected, the ending is that of a happy one.

The story is paper thin. Its a simple love story, of two kids who used to hang out together, they lose touch, somehow come back in each other's life many years later and reconnect without knowing their true identity. The only twist here is that one of home used to dress up like a girl, so now. Dung is confused between his love and sexuality and is unsure on how he should proceed. The two leads share a good chemistry with each other and their continuous bantering and teasing each other, which seems almost annoying at times, are portents to the development of their relationship. But all the other side characters are most annoying. The doctor's assistant, who is extremely obsessive to a damaging extent is a person you wanna be away from for miles. He is clearly a very very toxic person and is hard to imagine, how an educated sane person like Doctor Khoa would tolerate such a person. The female assistant forever drooling and flirting with the doctor also gets annoying after first two couple of times. It gets repetitive in every single scene. Of course, I can nit-pick saying how come the hospital has only 3 people working or why would a doctor invite a street thug stranger and open his house to him but we all put our beliefs on the side for such love stories. So, essentially besides the two good looking leads and their chemistry, the show has pretty little going on for it.  It is a fable of a journey for love that does not go linear but swerves into different geometric patterns. And don't even get m started on the blatant product placement and obviously advertising about it in every single episode. It is such a downer, when you an't do such things intelligently rather than in your face promotion. The show is below average at the best. (4/10)