has its share of issues, but undeniably works as a fun and enjoyable youth romance. TV drama producer Frankie Chen directs this nineties-set comedy, which superficially resembles the popular 2011 film
but places a woman rather than a man in the protagonist role. It also offers more situation comedy alongside the required coming-of-age themes and generic wisdom about respecting yourself and wanting the person you love to be truly happy. While the drama might feel familiar, Frankie Chen’s comedy is very funny and well timed, and she pulls charismatic and likable performances from her two young stars.
) stars as Truly Lin, who narrates the story of her high school years when she was a klutzy nobody who wore glasses, had terrible tangled hair and possessed zero sense of style. Truly adores Hong Kong star Andy Lau and collects all his memorabilia, yet also has space in her heart for Ouyang (Dino Lee), a dreamy classmate who can play guitar and basketball, and is the school’s top student to boot.
However, there’s animosity between Ouyang and greaser-hair-sporting bad boy Hsu Taiyu (Darren Wang), so when Truly receives a chain letter that curses her with bad luck if she doesn’t forward it to five other people, she makes Taiyu one of the recipients.
Taiyu gets hit by a car soon after receiving the letter, and once he discovers that Truly sent it to him, he blackmails her into being his slave (doing homework, delivering food but nothing perverted). What she gets in return is Ouyang’s safety, i.e., Taiyu won’t try to fight him.
Meanwhile, Taiyu has his own crush on class beauty Min-min (Dewi Chien), but she rejects his advances. When it’s discovered that Min-min and Ouyang may be together, Taiyu and Truly team up to self-servingly split them apart. Of course, this break-up plan is really a mask for our heroes’ burgeoning attraction to one another.
Frankie Chen develops Taiyu and Truly’s romance in an amusing and eventually moving manner. Besides turning Truly from an ugly duckling into a swan,
Pygmalion-style, it’s revealed that Taiyu is really not that bad, and suffers from a past trauma that informs his current rebellious streak.
The turn from comedy to drama changes the film’s tone somewhat abruptly, but by then the characters have grown on the audience. Rising star Vivian Sung is terrific as both a clumsy ditz and a sweet, pretty schoolgirl. More surprising is Darren Wang, who easily convinces with his charismatic smile and sharp physical presence.
Sung and Wang are so enjoyable to watch together that the film actually stumbles when it replaces both actors with bigger stars for its framing device, which features the older Truly (Joe Chen) remembering her high school days.
However, those scenes are redeemed by the appearance of a certain Hong Kong superstar playing himself – a fun development for those familiar with Asian entertainment obsessions both past and present. Our Times smartly plays on the nostalgia and experiences of its Asia audience, reflecting not only the times they grew up in but also the times that we live in now. The film is the very definition of a crowd-pleaser, and its blockbuster status in Asia only confirms that.