This review may contain spoilers
Slowburn drama that’s so slow it forgets where it’s headed
Our Generation is a slow-burn character study about youth — first crushes, academic pressure, and the awkward stretch from small-town innocence into the messier world of adulthood. At its core Our Generation is a collection of realistic moments of how childhood memories can grow into something that transcends time and distance.
The best part
Zhang Linghe as aloof math genius Jiang Qiaoxi, is why you want to see this. I’ve been following him since Love Between Fairy and Devil, but this is the first contemporary drama of his I’ve watched. (I know I know there’s The Best Thing). He’s extremely talented — while he shines in idol and costume dramas, his subtle performance here is a real standout and feels different from his more popular roles. I liked that the creators didn’t just throw his “face card” at us to distract from character development. He isn’t scared to be shown in an unflattering light here. And I respect an actor with entire image built on his looks attempting to do something different for a change. And that honesty might be the best part of the drama, that tired, beaten down young man in Hong Kong stretch of episodes. If for nothing else (and there is truly nothing else), the drama is probably worth watching for Zhang Linghe’s performance alone.
Zhao Jinmai as Yingtao is good, but I’m not a big fan overall. Her performance here doesn’t measure up to her work in The Princess Royal, which I enjoyed much more because she was actually convincing there. In Our Generation there are really great emotional moments where she lands the feelings like a blow, but her overall portrayal as a high school girl didn’t fully convince me and it was a little hard to watch at times. It’s like you can tell it’s a grown woman acting as a little girl. I don’t think she’s cut out for those roles. She has her strengths elsewhere. Still, I like Zhao Jinmai in this drama better than in Shine on Me. Plus the emotional scenes between her and Zhang Linghe when they are both playing adults is where she really packs a mean punch.
There are lot of interesting supporting characters, but this is also the drama’s one of biggest issue. Some supporting roles got a lot of screen time while others felt like they were there just for the sake of having supporting characters. The stories weren’t distributed evenly across the gang. A lot of stories had foundation, but nothing ever came out of that foundation. I wish the drama had either stayed tightly focused on the main couple or actually distributed storylines evenly among the whole group.
I liked the family dynamics between in Yingtao and her parents. I liked how they were contrasted with Jiang Qiaoxi’s completely opposite family dynamics to showcase why he is the way he is. It’s an understanding and loving family against a dysfunctional family that doesn’t remember what it means to be a family. Still I wish they showed his parents at the end asking for forgiveness, even for a second, especially his mother. There was so much emphasis on her broken relationship with her son at the beginning of the drama that it felt strange not to have their story come full circle.
Pacing is the biggest problem
The show has a really strong foundation, but it drags. And I mean it. You can skip through minutes and minutes of dialogue and still not miss anything crucial to the plot. Yes, this is mostly character-driven rather than plot-driven — slice-of-life youth vibes for the most part — but the pacing still hurts the overall impact. Stretching the high-school portion of their lives across so many episodes and leaving only a handful of episodes for their adult reconnection does the story a huge disservice.
The drama does have a great ending — you get butterflies — but the last couple of episodes feel almost like a different drama: faster paced, upbeat, with comic relief we hardly see earlier. That tonal shift is jarring but it does leave you satisfied.
Bottom line
If anything, watch this drama for Zhang Linghe’s performance. I skipped quite a lot, and his acting was the only reason I powered through. There is plot, but it’s paper thin and nothing new and so much screen time could have been just taken out and it wouldn’t affect the plot one bit. The show has real heart and honest moments, but uneven supporting arcs and painfully slow pacing keep it from being great. Still, when it works, it really works — just be ready to grit through long stretches to get there. Or skip. In the end, it’s hard to say if the show is trying to be a youth drama, a family drama or a romance.
The best part
Zhang Linghe as aloof math genius Jiang Qiaoxi, is why you want to see this. I’ve been following him since Love Between Fairy and Devil, but this is the first contemporary drama of his I’ve watched. (I know I know there’s The Best Thing). He’s extremely talented — while he shines in idol and costume dramas, his subtle performance here is a real standout and feels different from his more popular roles. I liked that the creators didn’t just throw his “face card” at us to distract from character development. He isn’t scared to be shown in an unflattering light here. And I respect an actor with entire image built on his looks attempting to do something different for a change. And that honesty might be the best part of the drama, that tired, beaten down young man in Hong Kong stretch of episodes. If for nothing else (and there is truly nothing else), the drama is probably worth watching for Zhang Linghe’s performance alone.
Zhao Jinmai as Yingtao is good, but I’m not a big fan overall. Her performance here doesn’t measure up to her work in The Princess Royal, which I enjoyed much more because she was actually convincing there. In Our Generation there are really great emotional moments where she lands the feelings like a blow, but her overall portrayal as a high school girl didn’t fully convince me and it was a little hard to watch at times. It’s like you can tell it’s a grown woman acting as a little girl. I don’t think she’s cut out for those roles. She has her strengths elsewhere. Still, I like Zhao Jinmai in this drama better than in Shine on Me. Plus the emotional scenes between her and Zhang Linghe when they are both playing adults is where she really packs a mean punch.
There are lot of interesting supporting characters, but this is also the drama’s one of biggest issue. Some supporting roles got a lot of screen time while others felt like they were there just for the sake of having supporting characters. The stories weren’t distributed evenly across the gang. A lot of stories had foundation, but nothing ever came out of that foundation. I wish the drama had either stayed tightly focused on the main couple or actually distributed storylines evenly among the whole group.
I liked the family dynamics between in Yingtao and her parents. I liked how they were contrasted with Jiang Qiaoxi’s completely opposite family dynamics to showcase why he is the way he is. It’s an understanding and loving family against a dysfunctional family that doesn’t remember what it means to be a family. Still I wish they showed his parents at the end asking for forgiveness, even for a second, especially his mother. There was so much emphasis on her broken relationship with her son at the beginning of the drama that it felt strange not to have their story come full circle.
Pacing is the biggest problem
The show has a really strong foundation, but it drags. And I mean it. You can skip through minutes and minutes of dialogue and still not miss anything crucial to the plot. Yes, this is mostly character-driven rather than plot-driven — slice-of-life youth vibes for the most part — but the pacing still hurts the overall impact. Stretching the high-school portion of their lives across so many episodes and leaving only a handful of episodes for their adult reconnection does the story a huge disservice.
The drama does have a great ending — you get butterflies — but the last couple of episodes feel almost like a different drama: faster paced, upbeat, with comic relief we hardly see earlier. That tonal shift is jarring but it does leave you satisfied.
Bottom line
If anything, watch this drama for Zhang Linghe’s performance. I skipped quite a lot, and his acting was the only reason I powered through. There is plot, but it’s paper thin and nothing new and so much screen time could have been just taken out and it wouldn’t affect the plot one bit. The show has real heart and honest moments, but uneven supporting arcs and painfully slow pacing keep it from being great. Still, when it works, it really works — just be ready to grit through long stretches to get there. Or skip. In the end, it’s hard to say if the show is trying to be a youth drama, a family drama or a romance.
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