Our Times
Directed by Yu Shan Chen
Screenplay by Yung-Ting Tseng
Taiwan, 2015
Our Times is a Taiwanese comedy/romance film directed by Yu Shan Chen (Frankie Chen). The film is a sweet as honey coming of age story that will appeal to those with a love of the standard will they or won’t they rom-coms, schmaltzy drama, and slapstick humour as well as those who get a kick out of 90’s nostalgia.
Truly Lin (Joe Chen) is a sad-sack 30-something, suffering through the doldrums of life in Taipei. Truly has an unfulfilling yet demanding job, gets ragged on by her underlings, and her boyfriend is a dick. Just as the audience starts to fully grasp Truly’s lowly existence, Our Times flashes back to her high-school life in the 90’s (where Truly is played by Vivian Sung). As a high-school student, Truly is young, vibrant, and bristling with enthusiasm for all the possibilities life offers — namely fantasizing about cute boys. Unfortunately for Truly, she is awkward, nerdy, and not the type of girl that appears on popular boy’s radars. A series of hijinks and shenanigans results in Truly befriending Taiyu (Darren Yang) — her school’s resident bad boy — and the two of them join forces to break up their school’s hottest couple so that they can date them their-selves.
Our Times unsophisticated storytelling and broad themes both help and hinder the movie. The film is a light and easy watch. Despite a 2-hour running time, Our Times breezes by, making it the perfect film to sit down and enjoy without having to put much thought into what’s transpiring onscreen. On the flip-side, the story just oozes melodrama and features silly characters engaging in cartoonish antics. Our Time’s style is an acquired taste and the movie will turn off most people that fall outside of its target audience.
Frankie Chen’s Our Times is a straight forward coming of age story that hits all the genre’s usual feel good beats. Rom-com fans and those in the mood for a light-hearted pick me up will want to devote a couple of ours to watching Our Times, everyone else may want to sit this one out.
