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Dull towards last 1/3
This drama is another youth drama that focus on friendship amongst close friends during their high school years. They bring back a lot of memories for me as I can relate. It has a strong start however towards the end it gets really draggy. I got annoyed with the moms loud voice and the grandma is no longer cute. There's way too many episodes on her memory lost. It actually felt themeless towards the end to me. I guess main theme is friendship and not much of chemistry/romance. If you have nothing else to watch, then I guess you can check it out otherwise theres so many other better young dramas out thereWas this review helpful to you?
Great Cast / Familiar High School Romance Plot
Neu Hou is devasatingly handsome in the role of Hua Biao. This is a well-produced drama but the story is sort of your typical high school melodrama. As I was watching the overly-long series, I felt there must be a twist coming at the mid-point — namely the budding frienship between Nua Biao and Li Yu (played by Gala Zhang) might develop into a bromance or boy’s love story. That would have been a far more interesting plot and the two male leads have the right chemmisty to pull it off. A missed opportunity.Was this review helpful to you?
Story/Plot: The plot is simple yet interesting, there's always something you can look forward to each time you watch an episode. The friendship they hold is very sweet and I love how they support each other through everything. The story mostly takes place either at their school or neighborhood, which makes it easier for people to watch as there's not a lot of transitions. As the story goes on more and more of the characters' background and past would be unveiled and we would slowly understand why they are the way they are.
Acting/Case: Their acting is something that I would like to praise. It is obvious that they worked really hard to act out some of the scenes and the emotions they convey in their acting is amazing. The main cast has the innocent looks that make people feel soft for them and I love the gave they would give each other whenever they are all together. The second lead is really cute and his acting is great, however, there wasn't much of a second lead syndrome as his interaction with the main girl can pass as best friends.
Music: I honestly love the music, especially ???, sang by the main actor himself. The songs complement the drama really well and the lyrics convey a lot of meaning to the drama itself.
Rewatch Value: This is definitely a drama that you can rewatch without getting sick of. There's always a lot of small details that you can discover each time you rewatch.
Overall: The drama is amazing and I am sure that those who love school dramas will not regret watching this. As someone who's not really into dramas that are based in the 90s, I love this drama because they don't really try to force most of the scenes to be in the 90s and made everything look very natural.
The ending is not what I expected it to be, it was sad yet heartwarming. Something that's amazing to feel.
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I don't usually like 'contemporary' CDramas (like ones that arent history or war based) because I tend to find them too cliche and sort of cringy at times. But this drama had a simple, common premise on youth and high school, love, friendship etc yet it is unlike anything I've seen before. In a way it's like the Reply series and A Love So Beautiful combined, but this drama shined through with its own colours successfully despite the similarities.
I AM IN LOVE WITH EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER. I love the amount of change and maturity they go through. And their friendships are so precious it makes me envious about how I spend time with my friends. There are so many life lessons and different perspectives of the parents, teachers, adults, teens they present that it really opens your eyes to seeing the good intentions of everyone.
Hua Biao is legit one of my favourite male leads ever now, he has such a beautiful, mature yet playful and caring personality. And his relationship with everyone especially with his grandmother makes my heart warm.
Yang Xi's development is very satisfying, and her caring, bubbly personality made me fall in love with her immediately. At first I thought she was a bit obnoxious, but as she matured she just became more and more lovable. Honestly, everyone in this drama has such a compelling, and caring relationship with each other.
There are no bad guys, no evil second female lead trying to steal the male lead, no ridiculous characters that are in the extreme. Everyone learns respects their own boundaries, which is something so refreshing to see. Just realistic, compelling characters living their beautiful lives.
Not to mention the cinematography. Stunning, and does justice to all locations and people that were filmed.
I really liked how this drama also tackled the common issues with highschool youths in China, and East Asia, because they were able to present these issues through different perspectives of adults. I personally really liked the ending, because it gave more openings rather than it closes them, as their lives take on another journey.
If you enjoy slice of life, and a focus on friendship and family dramas, this is a MUST WATCH.
BTW SEASON 2 IS COMING SO YE.
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Relatable! Highly addictive, touching, enjoyable!
I watched A Girl Like Me starring Neo Hou as Rong Xia and I wanted to see more of this handsome lad. He’s very cute! So good-looking! So, I decided to watch this drama. A bonus point was that the reviews for this drama were very good.What I loved/ Watch because:
-Casting is good and all the actors and actresses acted their parts well.
-Many scenes tugged at heartstrings.
-This drama has many meaningful quotable quotes / lines. I liked what they said about persevering, about believing in miracles, about accepting unfairness in life, about the need to work hard …
-I genuinely liked the characters in the drama. There wasn’t a single villain or awful schemer which was pleasantly refreshing and relaxing.
-The characters are, in general, well-developed and relatable. The parents weren’t perfect people but simply people who were trying their best to raise their kids. The kids weren’t perfect kids but youths trying to find their way at 18 years of age.
-The drama featured a time I knew and was nostalgic.
-The puppy love featured was sincere and tingly sweet.
-I liked that the characters in the show were genuine friends who looked out for one another and stayed steadfast in their friendship. I’d love to get myself a gang/ clique that’s loyal and tight like that!
-I found Yang Xi adorable in her silly way. She wasn’t the brightest of sparks and she had a temper but she’d a good heart. She showed a lot of growth in the drama as the female lead. Of course, I liked Hua Biao. He was very cute! I’d have loved to sit beside this monitor. I felt for this plight and his relationship with his grandma tugged at heartstrings.
-Music is good and fits.
-Rewatch value is good.
I just completed this drama in a short period of time as it’s addictive and easy to watch! I highly recommend this drama. It’s a gem. I miss it already. It has Reply1988 vibes and I loved Reply1988. But, this drama is its own drama in its own right.
Enjoy the ride with these youngsters. I did!
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I watch this drama and feel huang deng deng so optimise while she just a support role. Yang xi was great too both her and huang deng deng was so pretty with a sweet smile, feel like fell in love hahaha..
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This drama was able to portray teenage life in such a fine way, it wowed me. The struggle of teenager with school and family, the enjoyments of a teenager, etc. are perfectly defined through this drama.
For me, the male lead Huo Biao's character would never fail to make everyone fall for him. Overall, all the other characters are also lovable.
Besides the impressive story and the amazing characters in it, the cinematography is beautiful and I love the nostalgic concept of the 90s. The OSTs are great too. The cast also has done a great job in acting each of their characters and were able to portray them in Ann excellently way.
If you're looking for a drama with a pure and realistic plot, alongside with fun-lovable characters and amazing production, this Chinese drama is it. Give it a chance, you won't regret it. ;)
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This review may contain spoilers
It was a roller coaster ride of emotions. You won't be disappointed with each character. If you are a fan of the Korean drama School Series (school 20013, school 2017) then you might get the taste of that genre in this drama. It's not a love story really. It's about high school life, friendship, hardship, heartbreaks, crushes, family. The storyline is really good. It tackled so much about life and I really like it. Props to the grandma though, she was REALLY good portraying her character. The last 3 episodes almost had me in tears. The ending is very open-ended so you might wanna prepare your emotions for that, cause this drama needs a season 2.
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great storyline and acting!
I watched this drama accidentally while scrolling through my YouTube homepage. As I watched it, I felt that it was the most memorable drama I've ever seen. It depicted school life that revolved not only around romance but also daily life. I greatly admired the character Hua Biao, and I would give him all the respect I have. The friendship portrayed in the drama was exceptional, a solid 10,000 out of 10. I love how supportive and loyal they are to each other.One thing that I deeply regret is that Hua Biao's life is too complicated, and he had to sacrifice certain things in his life. He had to choose between studying at the university and pursuing a relationship with Yang Xi. However, I think their separation was a beautiful thing. One should not have a relationship if their life is not yet settled, and Hua Biao understands that. He decided to prioritize making his grandmother happy and improving his own life.
I hope that if there is truly a Season 2, Hua Biao will receive the good things he deserves from the beginning. I finished watching this drama four years ago, but until now, I always miss their story. During my leisure days, I would always rewatch clips of this drama. Then, I would laugh and cry again, just like when I first watched it. This drama will always hold a special place in my heart.
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The romance really comes third in this drama as it focuses primarily on family and friendships. Being such a romance geek, this actually did not bore me in the slightest. It was heart warming and I feel like every character had the developments necessary to make this a great drama.
Of course it's not without flaws. There was a few times the FL annoyed the hell out of me but in the next scene she would melt my heart so it balanced it out I guess. The ML in my opinion came off as wayyyyy to perfect in the first couple of episodes and slowly but surely he mellowed out and his human side started to show.
I really liked how the ML prioritized his life. His Nana always came first so despite the criticism about the ending, I think it perfect. What made this drama great was the distinctive 90's humor that they incorporated so effortlessly along with the true struggles and heartbreak of that era. The tropes were all spot on and the acting honestly top notch. Every single lead did extremely well in their portrayals of the character they played. They made me laugh, cry, frustrated and shared their sense of accomplishments with me along the way.
Rooting for a second season but quite satisfied right now with the ending of this drama. Would definitely re-watch when I need to be reminded about the true value of family and friendship.
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Some parts of drama is really bore ..Ithis drama can be better if they shows their 2nd parts of life after they get separated...What they achieve in their career .So I don't like the ending parts of the drama .The characters I like the most are Huang Deng Deng and Li ue.
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One of my favourite aspects is how every major character has some sort of a background that comes with them there's an entire spectrum of home lives shown through the screen which was fresh as dramas usually only explore the two main characters. Everyone had different interests, different talents, different aims and that's what made this drama so enjoyable. The development allowed you to properly emphasise with everyone and they began to feel more 3D than 2D.
When We Were Young also checked off mentioning exams which is probably one of my stranger and more niche checkboxes that I have when it comes to high-school genres but nonetheless, I think it's a key one. Most dramas usually downplay the effects exams have on students when in actual fact, these exams are the most important ones in the their entire highschool career so they arguably play a pretty major role in student's lives . It was interesting to see a variation of attitudes towards exams, some approaching them without any care, some taking them seriously, some completely getting battered by the pressure. The exploration even extended to the parents and how their attitudes to exams could be the catalyst to the absolute destruction of their child or the motivation.
Many people say that the ending is unsatisfactory or sad but I honestly beg to differ because I felt the ending portrayed the inevitable closure to everyone's highschool life well and rather than sad, I'd go for poignant.
Everyone's character was well acted and no one lost their colour from beginning till the end and it was realistic in the sense that it's not romance which drives us through teenage years, it's our friendships and yourself which you develop and improve as you go which gets you through it.
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