Our Times · reception & legacy
2015 · Frankie Chen
How Our Times has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A monster hit in 2015 — Taiwan's top-grossing local film that year, and huge across the Mandarin-speaking world — while critics shrugged at it as formula nostalgia; a decade on it's settled in as a beloved comfort-watch classic of the Taiwanese school-romance wave.
What's debated
The forever fight: is it a worthy heir to You Are the Apple of My Eye or just a slicker, safer photocopy of it?
Its footprint
Its theme song, Hebe Tien's 'A Little Happiness' (小幸運), escaped the movie entirely — a KTV staple and one of the most-covered Mandarin pop songs of the decade — and the film's Andy Lau worship helped fuel a whole wave of 90s-Taiwan nostalgia.
Where it stands
The gateway drug of Taiwanese teen romance — alongside Apple of My Eye, it's the 'start here' title for anyone falling into the genre on Letterboxd.