My Best Friend's Story (2020)

Beautiful cinematography series but with plot loopholes

The start of this series is slow and cringe worthy when both FL leads are playing younger roles. But it does get somewhat better, especially when Nan sun's dad committed suicide.

Both FL's character personality changes are also huge for this series. From Suosuo's love and greed for money to suddenly giving up everything to have a "family" even when she has a daughter (this is very different from the novel). Likewise for Nan sun, to have been so trusting, "loving" and even emotionally dependent on Zhang an ren in the early episodes but yet she changes drastically once she is in debt and with a seemingly perfect Wang Yong Zheng. This character flip flop for both the FL is just hard to buy.

Its hard to watch the changes as well, which i feel is not clean nor weave the series well. Reality vs Idealist seems to the be the theme for the later episodes.

The plot loopholes are a major annoyance for me in this series.
1. Nan sun debts that are owned isnt even a huge amount (look at the list, maybe 11 names? less than 2 million yuan surely) if she could return it to so many debtors, she could secure a loan (especially when she is connected to so many rich people) and repay to just 1 party. When she requested that Zhang an ren helped them when her dad ran into those debtors but yet refuses to reveal it to Wang yong zheng.

2. When Ye jin yan can give up his position in jing yan just for Suosuo, this is a huge plot twist from the novel and made me sigh at the unrealism of it, especially when Daisy went back to jing yan to help him, saying he doesnt care. But eventually adding the story of her daughter's suicide still doesnt make it convincing and just because suosuo have the same birth date as his daughter.

3. In spite of all the debts that Nan sun have and suosuo not having a job, they still live well, can still afford that huge rental, eating heartily every time, doesnt look to be suffering from poverty anytime soon.

Its still a watchable series, not for the plot (the plot, character and ending have been changed from the HK movie adaption and the novel too) but for the FL leads and great support casts (there's so many great support casts to mention) which carried this with their acting abilities. Suosuo always looks sensual and sassy through out this series and Nan Sun has that innocence attraction.

As for the friendship, that is at least convincing due to the acting and the extreme challenges that both FL faces. I am sold that both FL will do anything and protect each other. Yet it does not carry this series, the hook really is the romance of both FL. For Nan sun and WYZ, this pairing works because WYZ is so carefree and seemingly perfect, even her ex boyfriend Zhang An ren did well being a selfish, self centered and scheming character, Li Yi Fan is another romance interest but his character is bland and robotic. For suosuo, she has 4 controversy romances with the driver MA, her cousin's infatuation, ye jing yan and finally xie hong zu. Yet the romances arent a huge part for this series, it exists but its not everything.

However ending is very open ended and doesn't clean up any of the loose ends. This is where this series failed badly.

The OST is memorable, the cinematography and palette used is warm and calming which have a slice of life feel.

Read More

I started watching this drama because my mom noted that the two female leads were quite famous (my knowledge of C-Drama actors / actresses is rather limited unless they're people who I've watched in other dramas before). In my opinion, the storyline started off pretty slow and I was honestly ready to drop it after the pilot episode. However, one of the things that we always do is end up hopping around dramas after episode one so decided to try our best to continue on.

The drama did progress to get more interesting, and I found the actors to do a great job at portraying their roles. I've really come to love some of the characters even if I found them to be a bit annoying at the start.

[ spoilers below ]

However, there are so many plot holes that I can't understand.

1) Nan Sun - her breakup with Zhang Anren was never fully explicit until you realize she's suddenly with Wang Yong Zheng, which was strange considering how she was portrayed as having really disliked him in the past (and it didn't really seem like it was just because she had a boyfriend though that certainly did contribute to it). However, it was like they were enemies one moment and the next, ready to make out without much development.
2) Suo Suo - her relationship with Xie Hong Zhu also makes no sense. One moment she's professing her love to her ex-boss and the next, she's getting married to the guy who's been chasing her who she's told time after time that she doesn't want to be with him. While I admired Xie Hong Zhu's persistence, I think that if I were in Suo Suo's shoes and really didn't have any interest in him, I'd be thoroughly irritated to have this guy following me around all the time. Maybe these things will get sorted out in the final nine episodes, but for now, it feels almost random that she's rebounding off of him like this.
3) Yuan Yuan - her reappearance in the drama shocked me. I knew she looked familiar but it took me a moment to realize just who she was with her new name and new identity. I'm not sure how much time has passed since we last saw her, but it's surprising to me that she's suddenly recreated herself in what seems like such a short period of time.
4) Ye Jin Yan's obsession with helping Suo Suo - throughout the drama, I quite literally thought that maybe he was her dad or something with how much he cared for her, only to find out that wasn't the case at all. Even the scene where he explains why he's helping her makes the whole idea seem rather ridiculous. Not sure anyone would actually have such a good heart to help this woman that has no relation to him aside from the fact that she shares a birthday with his late daughter.

And then just how the whole story ended ... oof, I felt no resolution as it quite literally ended with Nan Sun listing off everything that happened but it felt like a rushed way of trying to tie everything together when they probably could have cut out a lot of things throughout the drama to properly end it in some way. Love myself a time skip but there was no actual time skip to show for (maybe they didn't have any more money to do so, who knows).

[ spoilers end ]

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this drama to others. There were some heartwarming and funny moments that I enjoyed, but as a whole, it felt lacking in direction and ended up a bit choppy in its flow. Also, time passes A LOT in the drama, but it's hard to gauge just how it passes as it feels like it's just happening over a span of a year at most but actually must be a lot longer.

Read More