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New Life Begins chinese drama review
Completed
New Life Begins
1 people found this review helpful
by hey887984
Dec 18, 2022
40 of 40 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 10
Story 10.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 10.0
Rewatch Value 10.0
This review may contain spoilers

Feminism done in the right way

I came to watch this drama because I crave dramas that have touching story about friendship. I usually don't watch historical romantic-comedies drama because they tend to be more melodramatic, however, I underestimated this drama before watching it. It has a lot of elements that I love, which are comedy, pure friendship, and admirable love story.

Firstly, this drama has a lot of feminism touch which I love. Not going to lie, a lot of Asian dramas tend to portray female characters as a weak individuals, at least to my knowledge. However, this drama portrays women as strong individuals who's equal to men.

The drama tells a story about Xin Chuan state bringing young women from the 9 states and forced them to become princes' concubines. The Female Lead, Li Wei did not want to become a concubine and forced to become one with the 6th prince who everyone thought is the weakest and invincible prince among all the princes in the palace. Meanwhile, Hao Jia is a concubine's child who were forced to climb the ladder by seducing the crown prince due to her situation and greediness. However, along the way, Li Wei got the most sincere and kindest prince among all of them, meanwhile, Hao Jia, who has the most ambition, got the worst, sick and cold-blooded prince who abuse women.

What I love the most in this drama is how the writers did not turn Hao Jia's character to become evil. What I noticed every time I watch Korean&Chinese dramas, when side-female characters got into hardship, they tend to become jealous and evil, so they betrayed their friends or the loved-ones.

What I dislike about this drama is how netizen views this drama. (Please keep in mind, NOT all viewers think this way) I watched this drama on VIKI, and they have a time comments section where viewers can comment while watching this drama. Honestly, it scares me how they always blames female characters no matter what. For example, Yin-An, the 3rd Prince has a legal wife, and 16 unregistered concubines. He lures the 16 concubines by helping them in their lowest moments in exchange for them to become his concubine. However, not only he did not remember their names, he abused them mentally (and kind of physically) by starving them if they gained weight. He's also forcing them to have sexual intercourse and get them pregnant. Then, when the time comes, the 16 concubines and his wife turns their back on him and leave him because they had enough of him.
I thought the viewers would be happy for the concubines because they finally got their freedom, but no, some viewers thought the concubines were ungrateful towards the 3rd Prince - who abuse them.

Moreover, there were a lot of comments who thought the female lead, Li Wei, was ungrateful towards the male lead, YinZheng. They were saying that Li Wei is ungrateful and annoying by denying 6th prince as she wants to leave the palace to reunite with her family. I find the comments who find Li Wei annoying is very shallow and unjustified. I understand her position a lot because she was forced to become someone's concubine/side wife and not a wife to a complete stranger from a young age. Though her life may be grand in economic perspective, there were a lot of strict rules in Xin Chuan, who are unfavored towards women. If she has to choose between life in Xin Chuan and her family, of course she would choose a life with her family.

However, despite all the comments, this drama is worth the watch. I'll probably will watch this drama many times as I love how the writers portray each character.
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