Our Times

我的少女时代

Taiwan, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 132 mins.

Director: Chen Yushan 陈玉珊.

Rating: 6/10.

Enjoyable but shallow and unoriginal high-school film, most notable for its two leads.

STORY

Taiwan, the present day. In her mid-30s, Lin Zhenxin (Chen Qiao’en) has a great new job, is outwardly optimistic and driven, but hides her inner stress. One night on the radio she hears a 1994 song, Forgiven Love 忘情水, sung by  Hong Kong pop idol Liu Dehua, that takes her back to the mid-1990s, when she (Song Yunhua) was an awkward 18-year-old at First Senior High School. Her best friends were tubby classmate Zhao Xiaozhi (Guo Wenyi) and the high-spirited He Mei (Cai Yizhen), and she had a huge crush on the school’s basketball champion Ouyang Feifan (Li Yuxi). After she received an anonymous chain letter threatening her with dire consequences unless she passed it on, Lin Zhenxin sent it to the three people she most disliked: school bully Xu Taiyu (Wang Dalu), school beauty Tao Minmin (Jian Tingrui) and disciplinarian teacher Wang Baidan (Na Weixun). When Xu Taiyu had a minor accident after receiving it, he found out that Lin Zhenxin sent him the letter; in exchange for him not bullying her adored Ouyang Feifan, Lin Zhenxin agreed to become his personal errand-girl. However, when she overheared Ouyang Feifan and Tao Minmin secretly talking about “parental responsibility”, she feared the worst – that the two were romantically involved. Xu Taiyu proposed that Lin Zhenxin should help him get involved with Tao Minmin in order to break up her relationship with Ouyang Feifan. She agreed, even though they later discovered the whole thing was a false alarm. Getting to know Xu Taiyu better, Lin Zhenxin found herself starting to like him – especially when she heard about his past history and how he and Ouyang Feifan were once friends – though officially she still fancied Ouyang Feifan and Xu Taiyu fancied Tao Minmin. After Lin Zhenxin confronted Xu Taiyu about his past, he decided to reform himself and become a model pupil.

REVIEW

A surprise summer hit in its native Taiwan that went on to become the island’s 2015 box-office champion, Our Times 我的少女时代 is an enjoyable but utterly unoriginal high-school movie that’s worth watching largely for its two lead performances. The big-screen directing debut of Chen Yushan 陈玉珊, a TV producer-writer-director in her early 40s (Lady & Liar 千金女贼, 2015), it’s a smooth technical ride – with few dull spots even over two hours – but is let down by a routine script by first-timer Zeng Yongting 曾咏婷 that’s bumpily plotted in the second half and cops out of properly examining most of the emotional issues it raises.

The film went on to do warm business (RMB360 million) in the Mainland – proving the continuing appeal of 1990s-set youth movies for the economically powerful “1980s generation” 80后 – and has often been compared with previous Taiwan hit, You Are the Apple of My Eye 那些年，我们一起追的女孩。(2011). In fact, apart from being a high-school movie set in the mid-1990s, Our Times has little in common with Apple. In its story of an awkward teenager becoming unexpectedly involved with her high school’s bad boy, it’s actually closer to recent Mainland examples of the genre, like The Left Ear 左耳 (2015) or, with its strand of 1990s Cantopop, the excellent and little-known Singing When We’re Young 初恋未满 (2013).

Most of all, however, Our Times is a showcase for Taiwan actress Song Yunhua 宋芸桦, 23, who made a remarkable debut as the university student in Cafe. Waiting. Love 等一个人咖啡 (2014) and followed that with the 19-part TV drama Taste of Love 唯一继承者 (2015). After a waste of a supporting role in fluffy Mainland movie Les Aventures d’Anthony 陪安东尼度过漫长岁月 (2015), she’s back in the lead, as 18-year-old student Lin Zhenxin, playing ditzy and knockabout in the first half, with big specs, a funny hairdo and an awkward crush on a metrosexual fellow-student, before getting a new, more adult look in the second half, where she faces feelings divided between her initial crush and the school bully-turned-model-pupil. Song confidently carries the film, making both sides of Lin Zhenxin’s character convincingly part of the same person. But most of all she has good chemistry with her more experienced co-lead, 24-year-old Wang Dalu 王大陆 who, apart from TV drama work, had supporting roles in In Case of Love 街角的小王子 (2010) and Design 7 Love 相爱的七种设计 (2014). The gradual, comic-tragic morphing of Wang’s cocky, Elvis-lookalike brawler into a kind-of-reformed student is one of the film’s delights, even though the script gives his character, like Song’s, as much psychological depth as a gnat.

The film does gain some emotional traction in its second half, but not enough to make the viewer really invest in the leads’ fates. In addition, the script’s bookending with modern sections – in which the 30-something Lin Zhenxin is played not very well by the usually reliable Chen Qiao’en 陈乔恩 (The Allure of Tears 倾城之泪, 2011; The Continent 后会无期, 2014; The Queens 我是女王, 2015) – is unnecessary and adds nothing to the film’s emotional depth.

Zeng’s script is almost entirely focused on its teenage protagonists – the parents of Lin Zhenxin get just a couple of comic dialect scenes – and is uninterested in any background apart from pop music of the period. (From a few clues, the story takes place during 1994-95.) As Lin Zhenxin’s Hong Kong idol, Liu Dehua 刘德华 [Andy Lau] stands in for the whole period of Cantopop, and even makes a dignified cameo at the end. (And why not? The Taiwan branch of his production company was one of the financiers.) Apart from him, the cast is largely young and from the music/youth industries (Li Yuxi 李玉玺, Jian Tingrui 简廷芮), with all filling their roles (prettyboy sportsman, winsome school beauty etc.) well enough.

Despite its shallowness, the film is a smooth ride, with montages, background songs, student larking around and (mostly in the first half) plenty of pratfall humour. Art direction and costumes evoke the period in an unexaggerated way, and editing by Hong Kong’s experienced Li Dongquan 李栋全 [Wenders Li] knits everything together as best as possible. The Chinese title means “My Teenage Years”. The English subtitles saddle Lin Zhenxin with the ridiculous name Truly and her school crush with the even more ridiculous name Extraordinary.

CREDITS

Presented by Spring Thunder Entertainment (TW), Hualien Media International (TW), Focus Media (Taiwan) (TW).

Script: Zeng Yongting. Photography: Jiang Minzhong, Chen Guolong. Editing: Li Dongquan [Wenders Li], Gu Zhengyan. Music direction: Hou Zhijian. Art direction: Yang Chuanxin. Art design: Liao Jian’an. Costume design: Xi Liwen. Sound: Tang Xiangzhu, Du Duzhi, Jiang Lianzhen. Action: Yang Zhilong. Special effects: Wei Zonghan. Visual effects: Li Zhiwei. Executive direction: Lin Ziping. Performance direction: Xu Jiehui.

Cast: Song Yunhua (Lin Zhenxin/Truly), Wang Dalu (Xu Taiyu), Li Yuxi (Ouyang Feifan/Extraordinary), Jian Tingrui (Tao Minmin), Guo Wenyi (Zhao Xiaozhi, Lin Zhenxin’s tubby schoolfriend), Cai Yizhen (He Mei/Meimei, Lin Zhenxin’s perky schoolfriend), Zheng Yinsheng (Shen Jiayi, Tao Minmin’s best friend), Chen Yanyun (Zhou Nianyu/Ying Mu, Xu Taiyu gang follower), Lin Hexuan (Da He, Xu Taiyu gang follower), Zhang Lidong (Zhang Changdao, rival gang leader), Qu Jiarui (Chen, female teacher), Zhong Xinling (Zhuang Shumei, Lin Zhenxin’s mother), Xu Jiehui (Lin Beiyi, Lin Zhenxin’s father), Na Weixun (Wang Baidan, strict teacher), Qu Zhongheng (Quan Zhixian, new headmaster), Shao Xiang (older Lin Zhenxin’s boyfriend), Liu Dehua [Andy Lau] (himself), Chen Qiao’en (older Lin Zhenxin), Yan Chengxu (older Xu Taiyu), Xu Zhanrong (Lin Chengyi, Lin Zhenxin’s older brother), Shi Zhitian (Ma Siyuan, Xu Taiyu’s late friend), An Chenxin (Lin Chengyi’s girlfriend), Li Youting (Li Zhiming), Wu Yijing (Li Xinyi, Li Zhenxin’s work colleague), He Manhe, Zhang Xing, Qiu Zhiheng (other work colleagues), Guang Yu (himself, radio show host).

Release: Taiwan, 13 Aug 2015.