Hi! My Mr Right (2023)

Be Careful of What You Wish For (Major spoilers ahead!)

I. The Ugly
Nothing stands out particularly, but trigger warning that this drama explores physical and mental abuse in relationships.

II. The Good
There's an open ending that you can stick a happy ending on. The drama explores an interesting perspective. What happens if your trashy romance novel/ drama male lead actually comes to life? Do your lady bits quiver for the 霸道总裁 bàdào zǒngcái (domineering CEO)? Do you get the warm fuzzies from 奶狗弟弟 nǎi gǒu dìdì (milk dog younger brother)? Do you get a thrill of excitement from the toxicity of a 病娇男主 bìng jiāo nán zhǔ (yandere male protagonist)? While we gush and dream of such characters (don't lie--it is why we marathon short-length dramas), the plots explore the pros and cons of each type of partner.

The female lead (FL) is an intern designer working in a toxic workplace (of course), where a pretty coworker has targeted the FL for bullying and the manager is useless. The FL meets a hobo wizard, who sells her a magical bead bracelet that will turn her lies to truth. To end the spell, the FL and the male lead (ML) must fall in love with each other and say 'I love you'. Later, she lies and a six-feet, eight-pack-bearing, rich, domineering CEO magically appears to save the day (and the FL's career), ousting the two underperforming employees. Episodes 1 to 6 pokes fun at all trashy melodramatic short-length dramas using the same overused plot devices, with the FL realising that it's all shits and giggles until somebody giggles and shits. The domineering CEO with the EQ of a 5-year-old starts ignoring the female lead's wants and needs, including getting rid of her phone (which contained mementos) to stop her from contacting another man.

The FL tells another lie in episode 6, and the ML turns into a milk dog brother whose world revolves around the FL and has never gone against her wishes. Somehow this means that the ML throws out all of his domineering CEO suits and starts dressing like a college kid. The two enjoy a sweet, cutesy romance until the FL realises the ML's childish behaviours are impacting her professional life and does not give her a sense of security. By episode 9, she snaps at the ML for being embarrassing.

In episode 10, the villain baits the FL into lying about a yandere protagonist boyfriend (the execution here was poor, but let's ignore it). His plan to exploit this fails, as it turns out a yandere personality does not make a person stupid. However, the ML's toxicity is very quickly exposed as he controls every aspect of the FL's life, including how she poses for photos in episode 11. In episode 12, he goes batshit crazy, almost physically hurting the FL before the FL lies that her boyfriend would never hurt her and the ML promptly passes out. When the ML wakes up, he has forgotten the FL and why he was in love with her in the first place.

Kudos to LPE who played each persona brilliantly.

III. The Bad
Episode 13 onwards loses the original charm of the drama, becoming draggy and dreary.. It starts out with the FL exploring why she was unable to fall in love with the ML's various persona, but develops an attraction to this 'normal' ML (who basically had his brains blown out by the lie in episode 12). Meanwhile, the ML has moved on and starts dating a more 'suitable' candidate, who purports to be his equal. This hurts the FL and she attempts to put distance between them. Of course, the ML realises he does not have feelings for the more equally yoked candidate, and finds himself paying more attention to the FL. Out of nowhere, in episode 20, the ML expresses his feelings for the FL, and the FL promptly faints. The FL repeatedly faints every time they share romantic scenes (hello, damsel, don't faint during such 'important' relationship development!). The ML suddenly turns cold towards the FL, which is only explained in episode 23. The FL's. bestie had informed the ML that if the FL does not complete the mission, she dies but if she dies, he dies. Of course, in episode 24, they complete the mission and the ML disappears, leaving the FL to live her life with memories of him. In the last 5 minutes of the drama, she wins an award and sees the ML. She calls out his name, and he asks "do we know each other?", to which she replies "of course!". He responds, "you're really a liar", with a smile.

LPE and JMC performed their roles well, but the chemistry is lacking. There was more chemistry between the second leads, in the few minutes of screen time they had with each other.

IV. The Verdict
If you've been to a legitimate perfumery, you'd have noticed they provided coffee beans to cleanse your scent palate in between smelling so many perfumes, otherwise it all blends into one after awhile and you might as well be smelling trash left out in the sun. This drama is a necessary palate cleanser, in between all your trashy melodramatic dramas, but isn't really worth a rewatch.

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