Light & Hilariously Fun

It's light and definitively a romantic *comedy,* so if you're looking for something deep or serious, this isn't your drama. That being said, the comedy is, indeed, comedic! The physical comedy is amusing, the misunderstandings are but around funny things and not "if you literally asked one question everything would resolve itself" things, and the friendships that form are unexpected and hilarious. (Assassin-thief sismance for the WIN.) Both leads' acting was great, but the FL *carried* this for many scenes. Her acting and timing are excellent. I laughed so hard at the drunken martial arts posing scene with her and the ML. Are there unrealistic moments? Yes. But this romantic comedy knows what it is—it's very intentional, and you know it's not trying to take itself seriously.

(Translation note: It helps to understand the English subtitles, some miscommunications, and the situations better when you know that Chinese uses only one pronoun for both male and female. So "tā" can mean him/her, his/her, or he/she. It's gender non-specific.)

As a gender-bender, it's not bad. They didn't hide her figure well, but her face, hair, and dress could pass as a boy, much more so than in many I've seen. And that she *doesn't* pull it off perfectly is noted early on, so it's not like everyone is pretending to be a brainwashed idiot and see nothing.

The character development isn't massively convincing, and some pieces of the story feel rushed or unexplained, but...hey, it's a short-form comedy. There are scenes of action, intrigue, and angst, but mostly it stays light. The story's serious points (politics, fighting, etc.) are only included as backdrop or fodder for the relationships among the main characters. The romance is slow to build, but very sweet once it picks up, and I like how they grow into a warrior power couple.

Much better than expected" is the summary phrase. Considering it's a comedy built with 10-minute episodes, my standards bar was set low, but this was so much unexpected fun!! I look forward to Season 2.

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Sincere, Sweet, and Irresistibly Likeable

This drama is like eating a holiday meal of favorite comfort foods. There are no big surprises, but you thoroughly enjoy each dish, and afterwards you feel warm and happy for having eaten well of good foods.

That being said, "New Life Begins" was itself a delightful surprise. Given how young the leads looked in promos, I confess to not having expected much from this C-drama. Maybe something light & fun. Which this is! But there's also enough substance to keep it interesting, & the characters are all likeable enough (or insanely hateable enough) that you're invested in their outcomes.

The drama focuses on relationships. Even the political questions or conflicts are really just another way of illustrating the relationships between characters involved. It's slice-of-life set against a fictional, 9-region political backdrop, with the central mechanism being that women are often used to keep the peace via interregional marriages. The questions many of these women come back to asking is: Their lives are used to barter for peace, but *should* they be? Isn't there a better way, one that doesn't sacrifice their own futures & dreams on the altar of politics?

**Mild, baby-sized spoilers below - nothing earth-shattering**

CHARACTERS
I liked pretty much every single character by the end. (The abusive as*h*** of an Eldest Prince excepted...may he meet with misfortune every 30 minutes.) There's growth on everyone's part throughout the story, & the relationships that unfold are a pleasure to observe. You end up rooting for all the couples & most of the characters, as even the annoying ones learn from their mistakes & evolve. The couples (or princes & their harems) are all well-matched. I laughed so hard when the extreme-introvert couple decided to send out gifts instead of hosting a housewarming party for their new home, so that they wouldn't have to converse with anyone. #relateable Even the ML’s second marriage partner in addition to the FL—a woman who, by all the laws of drama-watching, should be loathed—is brilliant & thoughtful & so absolutely cool that she navigates a 3-way marriage with the 2 leads without much conflict at all, & you end up wanting to cheer for her, too. I’ve never admired a forced love “triangle” before, but this…worked, somehow (temporarily).

Both leads (ML & FL) act more maturely than most C-drama protagonists, despite their youthful appearance. They make *good* assumptions about each other & ask questions instead of jumping to the worst conclusion. (Also, the ML’s voice is lovely deep.) The leads are great about communicating with each other & having the other's back. (They do start out a bit rocky & grow into this...please wait for it. :) The ML's manservant is my favorite side character. (I officially petition the Drama Overlords for MORE servants who overshare in order to quickly clear up misunderstandings between protagonists.) Their (ML & FL) relationship progression from strangers in a political "business" marriage, to allies & friends, to lovers at last, is slow, sweet, & natural, so that you actually believe the ML & FL genuinely *like* one another by the time they're confessing. Forget grand, first-sight, "destined" love—give me more couples who sincerely enjoy spending time together day-to-day, who communicate well, who help & support each other, who can tease each other & laugh together, & have all of this seem natural. (That’s far better than “soulmates” who can’t go a 5 minutes without arguing or misunderstanding—you wonder how they’ll survive with each other day-to-day in their “happily ever after.”)

Strong, ambitious, clever women are everywhere. Held down by outdated traditions & pompous men? Yes. But they don't let that stop them from dreaming & scheming anyways. Does their behavior sometimes stretch the bounds of belief around what would actually be allowable in a society such as theirs? Eh, maybe. Just ignore that—enjoy them changing their world single-handedly.

PLOT
There manage to be serious moments throughout the drama without it being very heavy. The two caveats to this lightness are the abusive Crown Prince (who can walk off a cliff already) & the side storyline about his concubine's postpartum depression (with that husband, is there any wonder?!), but these don’t get massive chunks of screen time & are thankfully resolved faster than you'd expect—no dragging it out into the last 5 minutes of the show.

There aren't any massive twists to the plot; its predictability is offset by the character growth you didn't expect, the healthy relationships, & the variety of situations the characters face together. The story could have been a bit more compact, but it still makes you want to keep watching to the end.

Are there tropes & clichés included? Yes—‘twouldn't be a “drama” without them.
--->The FL can be immature sometimes, esp. in the beginning.
--->There's a pouty, childish SFL who is desperate for the ML’s attention for a while.
--->The ML has idiot brothers with hearts of gold & wives who are clearly too good for them, but who they eventually become better men for.
--->Etc.
HOWEVER, these tropes aren't executed annoyingly (for the most part), misunderstandings get resolved quickly, & the overall effect is enjoyable.

This isn't a perfect drama. I could pick apart & criticize a number of details, especially around character idiosyncrasies. For example, the "strong" princess married to her idiot "weak" prince—their relationship, while believable by the end, is borderline abusive for the first 2/3 of the show. Like...ANY effort to show some of the playful warmth that she claims with people in her home province would have helped. But I digress. Main point – it’s imperfect, yet these few irritating details don't detract from the overall enjoyment of the story.

TL;DR - If you want something that isn't too heavy, that holds your attention, & that makes you feel good for watching it—less like you've eaten cotton candy or sweets, more like you've eaten a several-course holiday dinner—then I highly recommend this drama.

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The power of words in media & wrestling with the gray areas

“The pen is mightier than the sword,” or in our day: The news media can literally wield the power of life and death in the information they share. After a terrible accident, a family is ripped apart because of poor fact-checking by the media. Mother is dead, father is who-knows-where, and the youngest son missing-presumed-dead, leaving the eldest son alone in the world.

The youngest son is rescued and adopted by an adorable found family whose daughter has Pinocchio syndrome—she cannot lie without hiccuping, which means that she must be honest, sometimes brutally so. Her dream? To grow up and become a journalist like her mother…who was responsible for destroying the boy’s family.

This drama follows these two children into young adulthood. She pursues her dream of becoming the first reported who cannot lie (cos of the Pinocchio syndrome); he decides to also become a reporter, solely for the purpose of exposing those who destroyed his family and getting revenge on them all. BUT WAIT! Is it that simple? What really destroyed his family? Was it poor fact-checking? Deliberate editorial choices for sensation and views? Or something far more sinister and high-reaching into the rich elite class?

The two reporters-in-training, along with their co-trainees and the veteran reporters around them, follow this thread while exploring what it means to be a true reporter through exhausting weeks and ethical dilemmas. And when the critical moment comes, which will be more important: revenge and personal resolution? Or justice and answers for the greater good? Either way, you get to look at the same male lead as in “W,” so it will be worth it! #leejongsuksupremacy

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FLuffy office rom-com fun

An art gallery curator—posh, cultured, professional, etc.—is also a die-hard K-pop fan and photographer who runs a famous online fan site for a particular idol singer. Her job and her hobby clash violently, culture- and topic-wise, so she keeps them 100% separate and hidden from each other. Our female lead gets a new boss—cold, arrogant, aloof, the usual—from whom she desperately tries to keep her hobby a secret. But mostly she just ends up accidentally looking incompetent and revealing too much info—oops! Their paths start to intersect with her K-pop idol, with his dangerously passionate young fandom, and with other characters whose sole purpose is to create ridiculous levels of drama. A little deeper commentary around adoption, art, and abandonment, but mostly just a fun, sweet ride.

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Sweet, sexy, fun, & very affirming

An overweight professional woman accidentally ends up in several embarrassing situations (the second-hand embarrassment is painfully real…I almost couldn’t watch) that connect her with a famous fitness trainer. After some negotiation and mild blackmail, they work through her health issues and his trauma together, eventually falling in love. His family is rich and famous, so the couple has to deal with the Disapproving Family trope, but they are resilient.

Fun supporting characters. Top-notch banter. Sweet and sexy all around. (Also, that she gains back ALL of the weight in the last scene—and is still loved—feels very affirming to me.)

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Engaging action fantasy romance

A young doctor gets sucked into the webtoon world her father created, where she finds the main character bleeding to death and immediately saves his life. As her father repeatedly attempts to kill off the main character—for personal reasons—she continues trying to save his life, and how could the male lead not be fascinated with his beautiful savior? Cue dangerous action sequences. As the show goes on, more characters start jumping between worlds, making the resolution process messier instead of…well, resolved, and the line between worlds grows more blurry. Attempts to “reset” things only bring pain and further conflict to everyone involved. Things worsen further when the webtoon author—the woman’s father—accidentally creates a nemesis that takes on a dangerous life of its own and starts coming after them all.

The pace keeps moving, the interactions are snappy and sweet, and the concept is brilliant overall. A screenshot of the male lead in this show is my phone lock screen, and I am not ashamed—he brings me happiness every time I see him.

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Hilarious office romance

Hilarious office rom-com and the spiritual successor to “What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim?” A woman goes on a marriage-prospective blind date with a chaebol heir in place of her friend, with the intent to scare him off. The man is 100% work-focused and figures that if he just marries the first woman he meets, then he won’t have to waste time on further blind dates, right? Additional complication: He’s the president of the company she actually works for at her day job, which means that they could run into each other at…any…time. Cue “avoid him at all costs” hijinks.

The female lead is hilarious. The secondary couple is equally, if not more adorable than the lead couple, and I could happily set up camp and live in the secondary male lead’s dimples. Friendship between the female lead and her absolute warrior queen BFF is affirming and life-giving and makes me appreciate my empowering female friends so very much. The male lead’s drama-loving (and drama-causing) grandpa is my favorite, and I would pay a substantial amount of actual money to see an entire special episode consisting solely of scenes between Drama Grandpa and Chaotic Female Lead.

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Petite Powerhouse Fun

Rom-com/thriller: From birth, women of the Do family are gifted with supernatural strength that they must use for good and not evil. A young tech CEO sees the protagonist using her strength against gangsters and—since someone is threatening his life—convinces her to be his bodyguard. The teensy, powerful woman and genius tech CEO are surrounded by a cast of hilarious characters, including a delightfully handsome second male lead vying for Bong-Soon’s heart. In the midst of hijinks, there is a psycho serial killer in the background who decides he will become her nemesis and destroy her.

Bong-Soon’s “done with your s**t” attitude when people are being So. Extra. is relatable as heck, and I love, love, love her for it. (Also, you have to admire the man who looked at this Tinkerbelle of a woman, found out that her singular talent is snapping bad men in half with one hand, and immediately said, ‘That’s the sexiest thing I have ever seen in my life. And also I like her so, SO much. #adorable #cutestever #pleaselikemeback’)

The funniest scene happens when the FL acts helpless and asks her crush (who doesn’t know about her super-strength) to open a jar for her, and the male lead can only gape from the background at her audacity. Also, I would willingly take either (or both) of the male leads home and adopt them. They are Worth It.

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Not what you'd expect, but defo touching & sweet

This was not at all what one might expect from the title or from the official blurb. To start with, it is not a legal drama…the characters just happen to be law students and lawyers. A woman is stuck in a dead-end job under a relentlessly picky boss. After getting professionally back-stabbed—at possibly career-ruining levels—by her ex-boyfriend, she gets into an accident and seems to time-travel back 10 years, where she has the chance to try and re-do her years in university.

Her choices end up focusing on her current boss, who appears to be the villain competing for every good thing in her life for years, ever since they studied together as classmates. However, as the “time-travel” part of the show plays out, she realizes that many of the choices he made which seemed to go against her…were actually quiet expressions of his heartfelt care for her. This initially seems like a sci-fi rom-com, but turns out to be a touching slice-of-life melodrama that happens to center around a romance and include moments of comedy. Also deals with societal expectations, grief, and poverty as a decision-driver. All with lots of sweet romantic scenes peppered in.

One of the funnier and more thought-provoking side storylines includes the female lead desperately trying to avoid a guy at university who she knows that she will date and then break up with in the future. But it’s tricky trying to explain to the infatuated guy why she refuses go out with him…without telling him that in the future he will turn from a dedicated sweetheart into a back-stabbing scumbag. If she tells him, would it change his choices? Would it change who he becomes? Or is he unavoidably destined for scumbaggery? Oh, the drama!

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When the university student gets his idol <3

A famous singer gets signed on to represent a video game as the celebrity endorser, but she cannot actually play the game. So she needs a tutor, of course! A university student—yes, the guy is a few years younger—and tech whiz gets connected to the tutoring job via a mutual friend, and although he is a die-hard fan of the singer, he has no idea that she is the terrible player he’s trying to tutor online. Cue friendship-building sequences.

This drama is not particularly gripping, but it is usually engaging and entirely wholesome. There are others vying for the leads’ attention, but these two don’t seriously look at anyone else, and they support each other so beautifully. (What can I say? I’m a sucker for a stable relationship.)

The video-game and real-world interaction is fun and well-filmed! They “enter” any game that they are playing, which makes for many action/adventure scenarios—James Bond, guerilla warfare, zombie soldier attack, etc. The music is fun—the main song that the singer returns to throughout the series is on one of my frequent-listen playlists.

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Small town slice-of-life; watch to feel happy

A big-city dentist returns to her seaside hometown and sets up her own practice, at first clashing with and then falling for the local part-timer (and town leader) whose only goal is to remain a part-timer for life. Their worldviews, expectations, and future goals are different, but they manage to find ways to get along. And eventually start “getting along” more intimately. The entire community is fun and beautiful, and I love their interactions. There’s a semi-dark backstory, but this trauma is not the main theme. Also: #dimple #couple #goals. This show is joy and warmth all around—watch to feel happy.

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Nothing unexpected; everything done well

A timid girl who has been viciously bullied for being “ugly” learns to do makeup and then transfers to a new school, where she gains immediate popularity for her “beauty.” People from her past keep showing up and threatening to expose her secret, while the male lead—who once saved her life, although she doesn’t know that for half the series—supports her unconditionally and competes with the local “bad boy” to win her heart. Great exploration on beauty, worth, and the things we do to fit into societal standards. The two male leads’ bromance is delightful to watch.

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Laugh & cry about mental health struggles in relationships

Starts off a little weird/awkward rom-com-ish, looking at the psychosexual hang-ups of a psychologist who house-shares with another psychologist and a guy with Asperger’s syndrome. The house’s owner—an arrogant author—moves in, and the female lead clashes with him before they fall hard for each other.

After that, the plot takes a turn, developing into a fairly deep exploration of how we deal with—or don’t deal with—mental health, as well as how mental disorders (schizophrenia in particular) affect our relationships and the choices we make around them. The direction shift from “weird rom-com” to “serious, heart-wrenching drama” surprised me, but I laughed and openly cried at this one.

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“Soft” psychological thriller/university melodrama

A brilliant, arrogant student with crazy-low empathy skills manipulates things around him to suit his whims. He has zero patience for suffering fools and never directly goes after anyone, but…he’s always the one pulling strings, and it usually ends badly for whoever crosses him. Like, sometimes “badly” on a scary level.

A fellow student who notices his manipulations jumps to conclusions about him and calls him out on something, making her the next target of his machinations. Although after he observes her a while (while tormenting her), he realizes she’s actually a fun and fascinating person, he decides he likes her (instead of viewing her as human trash or disposable pawns like he seems to see everyone else), and he starts to pursue her…which then follows that he starts manipulating things in and around her life, as well. Always for her own good, of course. Always to help or support her. Regardless of who else it might hurt.

There are difficult family relationships, societal expectations’ commentary, etc., and not many super-healthy relationships, but the show always keeps you wanting to watch more. Psychological suspense, but I liked that it wasn’t a VERY tense psych thriller, just mildly tense. The happy ending is there, but only just barely—you have to watch carefully in the last few seconds to catch it.

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