Flash Review: The Best Day Of My Life [China] – The Fangirl Verdict
At just 14 episodes of only 30 minutes each, a premise that sounded tropey-but-cute, and a good-looking pair of leads, I thought this little show would be a shoo-in as a great little drama nightcap for me.
In the end, I enjoyed this less than I’d hoped, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you wouldn’t like this one.
Here’s the quick review to lay it all out, so that you’ll hopefully be able to figure out if this one could be for you.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
The new client director whom Xu Mu (Jiang Zhi Nan) meets on a new project, unexpectedly looks just like her high school deskmate, Xie Shi (Zhang Jiong Min).
Stuff happens, and Xu Mu unexpectedly finds herself in a contract marriage with him.
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS / THE VIEWING LENS
I feel like there’s just one key thing to keep in mind, to maximize your enjoyment of your watch, and that is:
Expect broad strokes execution
What I mean is, don’t expect Show to go into a lot of detail about a lot of stuff – including fleshing out our characters and their relationships.
If you can adjust your viewing lens for that, it would probably help quite a bit.
STUFF I LIKED
I’m going to keep this short and simple, since this is such a short and simple show, so here are my main likes, in a nutshell:
1. The concept
I thought the concept was cute, and I do have a soft spot for contract marriages, so this had my name all over it.
2. The OTP, in broad strokes
I thought they were cute together, and I liked the idea of them growing closer, while navigating their contract marriage.
STUFF THAT WAS OK
1. The humor
I was just ok with the humor, which mostly came from the office setting. I mostly found it kind of awkward, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker.
2. The secondary OTP
As with most fluffy dramas, the secondary OTP (Wang Chuan and Yan Zhi Chao) comes together in a way that feels quite random, so I didn’t mind this, in principle.
I did find the vibe with this couple rather too cutesy and try-hard for my taste, so overall, they fall into the neutral zone, for me.
STUFF I DIDN’T LIKE SO MUCH
There’s one key thing that I didn’t like so much, and that is:
The skimpy execution
I know that Show’s only got 7 hours of screen time to work with, but I’ve seen more and better, from dramas with less screen time than that (see What Comes After Love which only had 6 hours of screen time to work with, but which did a more solid job, I felt).
My key issue with Show using a broad strokes approach to the general execution, is that the characters don’t feel enough like real people, and the relationships don’t feel enough like real relationships.
This means that I felt unable to truly engage with this story, nor properly care about these characters and want to root for them.
I found this to be Show’s big flaw, and wish that it could have done better.
THOUGHTS ON THE ENDING [SPOILERS]
Of course this fluffy little show serves up a happy ending; there was never any doubt in my mind, about that.
On the upside, I liked that we get to see Xie Shi proposing to Xu Mu, asking her to marry him again, now that they’ve come to a deeper love for each other.
I thought this scene was nicely done, and I liked that Xie Shi tells her, that she had always been his starting point, and is also his end point; it’s quite romantic.
And of course Xu Mu says yes, and they hug and kiss, and I would have been quite happy to have had our story end here.
However, Show goes and does a 6-year time skip, and throws in a bit of misunderstanding around whether Xie Shi actually wants to have kids, just to add some last-minute dramatic tension, for good measure.
(Of course he wants to have kids, and of course Xu Mu soon gets pregnant, and they celebrate.)
After that, we get lots of voiceovers, amid a highlight reel of happy moments featuring our main characters, which, in itself, is fine in concept.
My main issue here, again, is that Show has, in my opinion, done so little to flesh out these characters, that I found myself struggling to care, particularly after the time skip. 😅
In a way, I felt like Show was belaboring the point; like, look how happy these characters are, with their little families, and these kiddies, and all these touching reflections about life and relationships.
I liked the idea of this, but I’m sorry to say that it all just failed to capture my heart. 🙈
THE FINAL VERDICT:
Better in concept than in execution, but is still low-key cute, with the right lens.
FINAL GRADE: B-
TRAILER:
WHERE TO WATCH:
Show is available on Viki, and YouTube.
Getting around geo-restrictions
If you’re geo-restricted, a VPN service would help you get around that. Not only does it provide online safety, it also gives you access to lots of great geo-restricted content.
I personally use NordVPN. You can find my review of NordVPN here.
You can use my affiliate link (here!) to enjoy up to 74% off, plus 3 extra months, with prices starting as low as US$3.09 per month.
An article on why it’s not illegal to use a VPN to access legal streaming content can be found here.
