Can “Our Times” Defeat “You Are the Apple of My Eye” In the Box Office?
Taiwanese film Our Times <我的少女時代> is taking the Hong Kong box office by storm. The romantic comedy film directed by Chen Yu Shan (陳玉珊), which opened in Hong Kong on October 15, has grossed over $8 million HKD in just a week, making it one of the fastest-grossing films of the year in Hong Kong. This puts the movie’s total gross to over $100 million HKD. Andy Lau (劉德華) is one of the investors of the film.
Our Times is a story about four high school students, portrayed by Vivian Sung (宋芸樺), Darren Wang (王大陸), Dino (李玉璽), and Dewi Chien (簡廷芮). In the film, Vivian has a crush on the popular student Dino, but she later develops feelings for Darren, the school’s resident “bad boy.” Joe Chen (陳喬恩) and Jerry Yan (言承旭) make surprise appearances in the film as the older versions of Vivian and Darren.
Many Hong Kong moviegoers expressed that the film is very nostalgic, bringing back many fond memories they had while they were still in high school. Hong Kong netizens praised the well-written script, which had its moments of comedy, drama, and sadness. A male netizen said that many men in the theater had tears in their eyes after watching the ending, including himself. Many netizens agreed that the movie is better than You Are the Apple of My Eye.
The movie is earning critical success as well; lead actress Vivian Sung, who only made her debut last year, is nominated for Best Actress at the Golden Horse Awards, competing against seniors such as Shu Qi (舒淇) and Sylvia Chang (張艾嘉).
Due the film’s similarities with the 2011 box office hit You Are the Apple of My Eye <那些年，我們一起追的女孩>, Our Times is being regarded as the female version of the Giddens Ko (九把刀) film. Although Our Times has failed to beat You Are the Apple of My Eye’s record-breaking four-day box office in Hong Kong, analysts say Our Times has a chance to outgross You Are the Apple of My Eye’s lifetime Hong Kong gross of $61 million HKD.
Source: Yahoo! HK
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
The poster I saw in TGV website is very catching but the plot synopsis made me lost interest. It seem very formulaic school life idol drama plot. Well maybe execution of it is very interesting.
Synopsis from TGV website:
“Set in 1994, the story follows Lin Zhen Xin, a plain high school girl who falls in love with the popular OuYang Fei Fan. She hopes that OuYang would take notice of her but when she finds out that he is going out with the school beauty, Tao Min Min, she seeks help from Xu Tai Yu, the school gangster, who is in love with Tao.”
The only thing one can glean from this is just to show how viable the milllenial and GenZ’er market is in HK.