It's been awhile since I watch an awesome movie that I just need to talk about it, This movie was released in 2015 and was very popular, grossing a total of US$84,4 million with only a budget US$2,7m. But I only watched it around three days ago.
When I was a child, the fairytales that I red always involved prince and princesses which to me was something really magical. As we grew older we knew that childhood stories will remain as a childhood story, it was just a fantasy and life is never that easy. Yet there is that yearning inside of us for something more, something that is magical but looks real enough and feels real enough that we could relate to but still gives us that sense of happiness like when we watched the Disney movies.
‘Our Time’ is a movie that I think successfully delivered all that was mentioned above. The movie started with an analogue from the female lead “When we were a teenager, we often dreamed of having a great career, a perfect relationship, a perfect life in the future. But when we are finally at that age, we realized that our job is not as great as it sounded and our relationships are often not perfect. Our life is just… so-so.”
The female lead then goes back home after a grueling day at work and opens a box that contains her teenage memories, at the same time the host of the radio she was listening to started to ask ‘Have we forgotten that teenage heart in ourself, the heart that though naïve was brave to dream.”
On the next scene we was shown the female lead as a high schooler, she was that basic girl that most people could relate to and and the first ten minutes of the movie, we were served by what looked like a cliché teenage movie. There is that pretty and perfect girl that every boy likes, the popular guy that every girl falls for and who always seems to be in a basketball team, the bad boy of the school and of course the female lead who is just a common high schooler and doesn’t look pretty at all.
It is just another high school story, one would say especially when the story then led us know how the girl accidentally caused the bad boy into an accident and have to become his ‘friend’ aka slave till he says it is enough. We were also led to believe for a moment that the popular girl and guy of the school has somehow slept together and is going to have a baby.
But as the story progress, we learn that the bad boy was actually good person and an honour student who turns bad due to an event in his middle school. We learn that the popular guy is indeed kind and the popular girl is indeed kind too, without any agenda behind her. We also learn that the common female lead learns to have a backbone and grew into a courages girl.
Then here is where the fairytale starts, the girl gets teh bad boy to be a better person and when a new principle came to the school and insisted that the bad boy cheated, she stood up for him which led the whole school does the same, kind of reminds me of Sidney White. As touching as this scene is, in what world could this happen? Of course, we have dreamt of it, touching scenes like this, students getting together and everything.
The girl finally gets together with teh popular guy and the bad boy also got together with teh popular girl, but by this time the girl realized that she had fallen in love with the bad boy instead. What happens next, I will not tell you as it is the most touching and beautiful scenes in the movie. It was kind of unexpected yet also expected, but packaged in such a beautiful way that I couldn't help but smile and cry at the same time.
Does it have a happy ending? I wouldn't call this a fairytale movie if it doesn't. I will just give a small spoiler for the ending. The adult version of the girl finally found herself back.
I couldn't help but hope to have the bravery of the girl, be it her high shcool version or her adult version but reality are never as easy as movies, hence for me... this movie is a fairytale that everyone in their thirties and above will definitely enjoy despite it being a high school story.
There are definitely a few quotes that I love from this movie :
"When we grow up, we became sophisticated and tend to compromise in order to survive. We become someone we don’t recognize. Would you sometimes miss the time when you were rather naive and dared to dream? Is that part of you still there? Do you still remember those people who played an important role in your life? "
"If you never skip class and get out with your uniform, you will regret it in the future"
"We didn’t know until years later, the first person you throw your ballon at, is not someone you dislike, but someone you can’t take your eyes off. – Lin Chen-Shin "
Cast :
From left to right : Dino Lee, Vivian Sung, Darren Wang, Dewi Chen
Here is the soundtrack and trailer of the film. The soundtrack became really famous and everyone in chinese communitties all over the world.