小時代 (Tiny Times) is an 2013 film out of Zhong Guo. The four main gals are Yang Mi, Amber Kuo, Hsieh Haden Kuo, and Hsieh Yi-lin. The four male leads are Kai Ko, Rhydian Vaughan, Li Yue-ming, and Cheney Chen. The movie was a big box office hit in Zhong Guo, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
The four female leads start the film performing at their high school graduation. The voice over is Lin Xiao, played by Yang Mi. The movie centers on her part time job at a fashion magazine, M.E. Amber plays Lily, a buddy leader of people. Haden plays Nan Xiang, a artist at heart trying to make her way into the fashion as a designer. The comic relief is provided by Hsieh Yi-Lin as Ruby, the not so feminine badminton athlete that dreams of being the toast and beauty of the party. Ko plays Gu Yuan, Lily's boyfriend, as a spoiled rich brat. Rhydian plays Gong Ming, the publisher of M.E. and Lin Xiao's boss. As they find their way through college and a future, a fashion must happen. Along the way, romance happens, hearts are broken, and the show must go on. The fashion show that is.
This film is strange to me. I am no longer in that "coming of age" demographic. My life is set, I've kids to raise and mortgage to pay off. These kids are out of high school, trying to find life after college. They have their whole future ahead of them. Their collegiate coming of age story in a sense. However, this was from a Zhong Guo perspective. Yet, it's not much different than how we do things here in the good ol' US of A. Succeed and be good at what you do. There are specific mainland themes, but money wasn't all much of a factor in general. There's are rich kids, middle of the road kids, and poor kids. The four gals and doods covered the spectrum.
I've mentioned this in other post of Zhong Guo films with a modern coming of age themes. I hope that the youth and trend setters look to set new one born out of ideas on the mainland. I hope they don't rely on trends from the US, Europe or even Japan. Because I am based in the US, when they copy, it looks cheezy. How does Tiny Times do in this regard? I think they still look to the US for their trends. Yet, there's a modern Zhong Guo feel to the movie.
Another side note is that 3 of the four gals and 2 of the four doods are Taiwanese. And rightfully so, the recent "hip" youngsters coming out of Zhong Guo don't look so "hip". And all four main gals are post mid twenties. Maybe its because the Tiny Times movie series will take them through various life stages.
I enjoyed the movie and do recommend it. I look forward to watching Tiny Times 2 soon.
