Hello there people of the Internets. I am here to bring to you a new recommendation that comes in the form of a Taiwanese drama. That drama being Back to 1989. In case you didn’t know I am a huge fan of Romantic Asian Dramas. They consume just about all of my free time. I watch lot’s of them every year and this one that I am recommending to you today was my favorite watch of 2016.

The drama focuses around Chen Che, a man who from the get go is a successful calculating business man but with a heart of gold. His life is pretty well made except for a couple of things: 1.he is somewhat estranged from his mother and 2.the topic of his father is taboo. And one day, out of the blue this guy is caught in an accident and finds himself as the title of the drama would suggest, back to 1989. That is about a year before he was born! Caught back in time the first encounter he has is with a girl named Ye Zhen Zhen and it’s this that gets things into gear. She is a girl who is bit quirky, out there, and often makes mistakes but is committed to her friends. The two get entangled because as luck would have it she is the best friend of his mother. O_O Poor Che then has to deal with meeting his younger mother, finding out who his father is, and his ever growing feelings for his mother’s best friend. O_O”

What I like about this drama is that while overall I would categorize this as a romance drama. There is more stuff going on than just that. You have this mystery and intrigue going on as well, wanting to know who Chen’s dad will turn out to be! Will it be one of his mother’s core group a friends or not? So much anticipation in that. They really build everything up because you actually get to learn about the characters and get invested in their lives. Watching the characters form deep bonds throughout the course of the drama was among my favorite things about it. I didn’t really know or recognize these actors but they did such fantastic work with their roles. I hope they pop up in future dramas I watch. ^_^

Now to the music. I thought it was pretty good but not mindblowlingly good. The OST serviced the drama for the most part but there was one song that felt a bit out of place at times. 😛 I’m talking about that intro theme. Every time you would have a cut for commercial a snippet of it would play and a lot of times it didn’t really feel the mood of the scene it was following. With that said, it was not much of a problem and eventually that song does grow on you. lol

As for the pacing , I thought it was good except for ep. 1. It was a bit lack luster at the beginning but that was only the first 20min. Once the time travel thing happened I was on board ’till the end. Luckily it’s a well shot drama so that kept me chugging through it until it started to pick up some steam. Then once we where back in 1989 I was even more engaged. I gotta say that I have no idea what Taiwan was like in 1989 but I definitely felt like I was transported to a different time. I really liked how the era was portrayed, the costumes and all.

Continuing with positives, my favorite thing for this drama has to be the chemistry between the leads. Che and Zhen played well of each other. You got tender moments that where truly heartfelt and juxtapose to that you have some laugh out loud comedic moments. I was instantly rooting for them. Their dialogue was good and snappy, every interaction between them had a highlight moment in it. It is all then enhanced by the fact that when you think about it, Zhen in away is like his auntie. lol  It never stopped being funny hearing her talk about Che to her best friend because her best friend is his mother! I can’t emphasize enough how weird, funny, and interesting this is. 🙂

I say give this one a shot if you like Asian dramas. And If you have never watched one then I think this would be a cool one to start off with. You can watch it legally for free(has adds) on Viki here.