Drama Review: Good Times (大好时光）

Another day, another Hu Ge drama

(Image Source: Google)

Recently, I’ve developed a bit of an obsession with Hu Ge, and so I started watching all of his recent dramas! While watching “The Disguiser”, I decided that I needed to take a break from all the melodrama and find something lighter and less stressful to watch.
While Good Times/大好时光 was definitely lighter, it wasn’t necessarily “less stressful”!

Let’s take a look at the plot, shall we?

Good Times is an interesting romantic drama that examines the relationships between a couple in their early 20’s, a couple in their early 30’s and a couple in their early 40’s.
The male lead of our story, Yuan Hao is an up and coming manager at a Tourism company. He’s been in a long distance relationship with his girlfriend Shan Shan for ten years after she moved to the United States to further her education and career. The female lead of our story, Mao Xiao Chun is a talented optometrist who recently split up with her boyfriend of one year after she caught him cheating on her.
Through a series of fortunate and unfortunate events, our two protagonists end up meeting time and time again and eventually become really close friends (or bros/哥们, like they call it in the chinese drama community)!
Their friendship is tested time and time again as the drama progresses and new characters are introduced!
This drama is a pretty hilarious analysis of what it’s like to be a millennial and the struggles they go through to make relationships work.

Our main characters are…

Hu Ge as Yuan Hao

Wang Xiao Chen as Mao Xiao Chun

Overall, I would give this drama a 7/10!
While it was mostly enjoyable to watch, I found some of the plots and characters to be a little…hmm, how do I put this gently, exaggerated.

The main characters had AMAZING chemistry and the side characters were definitely hilarious! The dialogue between the characters was pretty well written as well!  Most of the script sounded very realistic because it really emulated how people talk to one another in real life, which is always a plus to see in a drama!
However, if it wasn’t for the characters and the dialogue, the plot itself is not strong enough to support the rest of the drama and to keep an audience watching!

So if you’re looking for a nice drama to kill time with and want to do some major main character shipping (my new favourite OTP), then give this a try!
But if you want something more plot stimulating and deep, you might want to pass on this one!
But seriously, this has been the most enjoyable drama couple that I’ve seen in a really long time:

(Image Source: Google) OTP ❤

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. CONTINUE READING IF YOU’VE SEEN THIS DRAMA OR IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I WAS SO STRESSED!

 

 

While I did enjoy Good Times as a whole and I appreciated Yuan Hao, Xiao Chun and their friends and family…
I found almost every other character unbearable and waaay too unrealistic.

I mean, I was really happy when Shan Shan left!
Only to figure out that…

….SHE was the actual villain in this drama! (Image Source: Google)

I thought Shan Shan’s character was exaggerated enough with her “USA this, and USA that”…but Bing Bing was WAY worse.
I mean I haven’t seen an antagonist this calculative and crazy since Lan Ling Wang, and that’s saying something!

Aside from those two, there were several more characters that I thought were SO unrealistic.

An Zong (Director/Manager An) and her daughter An Qi were SO annoying.
What kind of a manager places personal feelings above the good of their company?
And then uses her daughters depression as an excuse?
And then puts her depressed daughter in a position to actually lead her company?
Now that I’m reflecting on it, her character might have been worse than Bing Bing.

Auntie Pang was probably more annoying than Shan Shan. At least Shan Shan had morals. Auntie Pang had almost none. But she reflected in the end and did the right thing so I guess I’ll forgive her on that.

Zeng Jian was pretty annoying too, but compared to everyone else he was bearable (just barely though!).

In general, the plot was okay.
I’m always really hesitant to complain about the plot in Chinese dramas because I know that they’ve been edited a lot. Sometimes, they shoot scenes and just completely don’t air it on TV so I never know whether my complaints are valid or not…
For example, I found this picture on Google after some searching:

(Image Source: Google)
The first thing I thought to myself was: DID I MISS THE WEDDING SCENE?
Nope. It was probably edited out.

There were a lot of scenes that I thought would have a further impact on the drama but didn’t actually affect the drama at all because they didn’t exist.
Like the scene where Xiao Chun bakes Yuan Hao a cake for his birthday and takes selfies with it.
I thought that for sure Yuan Hao would eventually find the pictures in Xiao Chun’s phone and know that SHE was the one that cared about him!
But….nope, it didn’t happen.

I also thought that Yuan Hao falling for Xiao Chun happened rather quickly. Bing Bing left and there were some filler scenes and then they were suddenly together. It snuck up that fast on me. But again, maybe there were more scenes that were edited out, possibly to make some room for Xiao Chun’s “blind arc”.

Speaking of which, although the whole “Xiao Chun is blind” arc showed everyone just how caring and sweet Yuan Hao was, it seemed quite unnecessary to me. I would’ve been fine if they had just shown the struggles the two went through with planning a wedding and realizing that dating each other is a lot harder than  being friends!
But I guess they just thought that making Xiao Chun blind was a lot more dramatic.

All the complaints aside, I loved the other two couples a lot as well. The on again off again Zhu Tao and Jian Hui were probably my favourite (how i wish there was a scene with them and their baby though)!

And as much as I loved Luo Yi Yang and Zhang Xue Er, being a 20 something year old myself, I would probably never move as fast as they did in their relationship!
But maybe its the cultural difference or the fact that I don’t have a boyfriend, either way I understood where the director was coming from because they were trying to show the naiveness and innocence of youth.

(Random Side Note: I thought Yuan Hao’s dad was the cutest person ever!)

All in all, I did enjoy watching Good Times and it definitely cheered me up after watching most of the Disguiser!
Especially these fine guys:

(Image Source: Google)

But mainly this fine guy:

(Image Source: Google)