Our Times 我的少女时代 (2015) Taiwanese

Vivian Sung, Darren Wang, Dino Lee, Dewi Chien

Movie rating: 8/10     Neck score: A

I randomly saw a review of Our Times in my YouTube suggestions, and I was like: is that Darren Wang? And then I looked it up and got super interested and found a subtitled version to watch. It's a really fun coming of age/high school/first love type movie, about a girl who gets a chain letter and sends it to the school's bad boy because she saw him picking on her crush, the school perfect prince. The great part is that he figures out who sent it to him (and made him get hit by a car) and she is forced to be his errand girl. But then of course they are going to actually become friends, especially when they figure out that their respective crushes are in a relationship and they team up to break them up and help each other get with their crush. It's definitely on the light hearted side, even though Darren Wang is playing a bad boy who is the leader of a gang and constantly getting in fights. He is more like a hurt puppy whose bark is worse than bite, which is honestly a role that Darren Wang excels at. 

It's full of 90s nostalgia, even to the point where the whole movie is a flashback, as grown up Lin Zhenxin is looking back to the good old days and wondering how 18 year old her would think about current her. In this sense it's very coming of age, as we get to see her awkward transitions. It's actually got one of the better "makeover" scenes, as we see her trying to dress up for a date and looking very "90s teen trying really hard but doesn't know what she's doing," to buying fashion magazines with her crush's "ideal type" on the cover, to asking her older brother's girlfriend to give her advice. I actually love that girlfriend. She was great. Not sure why she's dating the jerk older brother, but we assume that his actual character is tainted by the Zhenxin's memories, since this is 100% from her perspective.

I actually really loved how the story was told from her perspective, from her memories, and we only see what she does, what she knows. And then as she knows more, we get a fuller picture of what happened and it is extremely touching. I really thought it was well done narratively. While it is naturally full of those coming of age/first love tropes, it stays fairly grounded. It's super cute, and I love the chemistry of the leads. They did a good job at all the stages. I highly recommend and I'm super glad I randomly found it and watched it.