Back to 1989

I became involved in an online relationship with a woman about 3 years ago. We became incredibly close and fell in love. There's something indescribable about having a love while simultaneously not having her. Your relationship teeters between logic and fantasy, knowing you love her but also knowing that she lives in another world and having your fantasy become reality is nearly impossible. But, despite the impossible reality, we fell in love. Me in America and her in China. Months after falling in love and spending our lives in front of our phones, she had an opportunity to visit the US. We had an amazing 3 weeks together and, impossibly, fell further in love. It was like a dream playing out in fast forward, going skiing, flying, a beautiful date downtown during a romantic snow fall, gazing into each other's eyes across a small sulfur pool, learning each other, struggling with language, but getting closer through the act of communication. I bought her a promise ring, and the night before her flight back to China, I held her hand and with tears in my eyes, told her I loved her and we'd find a way to be together. The fear of knowing that tomorrow, she would no longer be with me wrenched my heart. Our last night together, we made ourselves smile through tears and pain and just held each other, not wanting to let go, ever. The morning alarm went off and I felt the blood drain from my head. An emptiness in my belly, almost emotionless as we made our way around packing her things in the car. We drove to the airport, holding hands, quiet because every word was a struggle to announce choked up with sorrow. We told each other we loved each other. She opened the door and stepped out, suitcase in tow, she went through the airport doors and she was gone. That day was 3 years ago. Despite the odds and after 2 visits to China and an amazing deal of planning and impossible struggles, we are finally married. She is laying next to me asleep and I appreciate every moment we have together. Back to 1989 contains just about everything in my story and is an absolutely beautiful rendition of love, loss, friendships, and family. Amazing!

If you aren't particularly interested in romance dramas, skip this one. If you are interested, you're in for a treat. I came to this drama because it featured Yu-Wei Shao whom I had just seen in "The Perfect Match", also on Netflix. Take Ms. Shao, mix in some good writing, direction and costars, and a form of alchemy takes place where you're transported to another world. The characters Ms. Shao has created in both these dramas are so real, so appealing, and the situations (which are eventually overcome) so heartbreaking. But a warning, the story is not for cynics. Ye Chen-Chen is incredibly innocent and good-hearted. This might sound corny, but the story makes you think about love.

The time travel theme and implications was handled in a reasonably logical and serious way, not cheesy. At 34 episodes, this was a bit long, a lot of it devoted to a less appealing secondary romance and story. As is usually the case in these romance dramas, there is a persistent and highly annoying competitor for Ye Chen-Chen's affections.

Watch it!

This was simply amazing . It brought me to another world and during Covid 19 I needed it. Going back to 1989 and knowing what the stock market will do was a great idea and all the characters were perfect for their parts. I found the series flowed and I was interested the whole time . I did not find it slow at all . The final comment is wow so many twists in the story it was excellent and I had to watch with sub titles but actually found hearing the foreign language made me enjoy it more.

〰 "How is this old thing still running?" 〰 "What do you mean, it's brand new." 〰 "Where's your helmet?" 〰 "Nobody wears them!" 〰 "Can I use your cell phone?" 〰 "If you want to make a call, go to the closest phone booth." 〰 It's 1989. Regular folks don't have cell phones yet. "Let me pay for that with a credit card." 〰 "Didn't Visa just launch in Taiwan? How do you have that?"

B289 is a 2016 release that is rated 8.1 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 34 or 21 episodes, depending on how they cut them. The overall length is in the neighborhood of 26 hrs. The setup is scant. Our ML, Che, is successful and in between jobs. He's being recruited, so money isn't his concern. What he really wants to find out who his dad is. He visits his failing grandfather in the hospital, who is mumbling pieces of the puzzle in his delirium, but his mom won't talk about it. WON'T. He has a heated argument with her, hops on his motorcycle and rides away, after declaring "I don't have a mother!" She's been nothing but miserable his whole life, anyway😤. Inside of a tunnel he has an accident. When he wakes up, everything looks different. You just have to accept it. He's gone back in time. It's 1989, and he's about to be conceived.

When he lands on 1989 asphalt, our FL lands on him with her moped. This leads to the conversation above. Che doesn't have much cash, and his credit cards won't work, so now, money's a problem. He needs to get a job. Nothing's more perfect for the savvy time traveler than the stock market! Looks like it's time to invest in tech.

The acting is a mixed bag. Most is wooden and stiff; some of it is pretty good. The characters are still more likable and relatable than not. Marcus Chang (Lost Romance, Mysterious Lotus Casebook) plays Chen "Che". He's a very nice lookin guy, and an overall excellent romantic male lead. Ivy Shao (Hello Ghost!, More than Blue: The Series) portrays Ye Zhen "Zhen". She's girl-next-door cute. "Are you so gullible?" 〰 "I am! How did you know?" 😆 Che agreed to help her with the moped repairs, but she doesn't even have his pager#! With no valid id, credit history, and a resume that appears faked, Che ends up at Zhen's house, renting a room from her parents. Zhen is his mother's BFF, so being around Zhen is perfect for surveillance. "So this is what it's like to have a father in the house," he realizes.

Mini Tsai (W Series: The Way You Shine, Young Days No Fears) Is Chen Ya Juan, Che's mother. Yorke Sun (Piggy's Counterattack, Home Sweet Home) is the boyfriend that her b!+ch mother doesn't approve of, Li Jin Qin. Chang Chieh (Love, Timeless, To My Dear Granny) as Wang Zhong En, competes for Ya Juan's affection. Ray Yang (The Nipple Talk, Let It Fly) rounds out Zhen's love triangle as the too exuberant Lin Xiao Long. The director is Ker Choon Hooi of Falling Into You, and the screenwriter is Joyce Liu who wrote the amazing Age of Rebellion-9.5.

As the attraction between Che and Zhen builds, she can't understand why he insists that he doesn't like her. Finally, he has to admit the truth to her. This sets up her struggles to figure out a way that they can be together and /stay/ together. All this while he's trying to protect his mother and ensure that she doesn't end up living the miserable life that he remembers her living. As for the romance... this hurts... I really hate to say this... I like the leads;, but they don't completely sell the romance. And he's one fantastic male lead. The love story takes a backseat to the rest of the drama going on.

As with many time-travel stories, the theme is regrets. People don't want to travel back in time to NOT show love. One doesn't /need/ to time travel if one shows love, consideration, caring, forgiveness, and generosity from the start.

"If he were my father, I'd rather not be born." Our male lead keeps an eye on his future mother who is living as a 20-something girl. She's pretty, sweet, and hopeful. She's nothing like the spiky, cold, and distant emotional icicle that raised him. Toxic women tend to drive the plot of many TwDramas. In this one, Che's grandmother is just awful. She's likely the reason his mother grew up to be so miserable. Ya Juan's mother is overbearing, even for an Asian mother. She tries to dominate every aspect of her life including Ya Juan's friends, whom mom shoos away. At one point, she extracts a silly vow. I hate it. Mom's setting Ya Juan up on blind dates. Our two leads decide to follow along to see if she needs any bailing out. Che's just hoping to get a look at his father. He's never met him, and he doesn't know who he is, so he's watching the situation very closely. The truth ends up being a difficult pill. Another theme is realizing we don't understand everything about our parents and we should try to give them the benefit of the doubt when we can.

There's some fun stuff in the show. His plaid jackets are stunning. Most of the wardrobe is hideous. Every time I reacted strongly I had to remind myself about Wild Wear and what everybody else was wearing in the '80s. Still, some of the clothes hurt my eyes. The music is WAY above average. I Shazamed songs by Alien Huang, Nine Chen, and Gary Chaw. The opening credits song is great. Zhen falls on the way to a party and they do the rip-the-bottom-half-of-the-dress-off thing. She goes from frumpy to adorable. They discuss the barbarism of shark fin soup, which is a relief to me. Many Chinese features mention it favorably, which hurts, because it's cruel.

Apart from the average acting, it could be better. Some Taiwanese / Chinese shows try to get away with feeble writing. At one point there's a mini drama because Zhen screws up a stock order by spending 40K on the wrong stock. The narrative is that she owes the client $40,000. The money is still there, she just brought the wrong stock. Even if it went down in value, the value wasn't erased. Stuff like that drives me nuts. Other people don't care. We all have a different threshold. Our ML's grandfather happens to be a physicist and this is his realm of study so as the story unfolds we meet him. (He's on a business trip until episode 13). They never give an adequate explanation from a scientific sense, but they provide a reason for the timeslip from an astral sense. By ep23 things seem like a right mess. And all-the-while, we are hurling towards that fateful day when Che will be born.

This probably would have been better at 25 to 30 episodes. They resorted to filler in the late 20s and early 30s. Just when I was getting very discouraged, eps33 & 34 make a full recovery. There's a nice twist and things are wrapped up very satisfactorily.

Overall, the show is plain cute. It will pass the... time. The final episode involves Che looking at a photo album and his mother (who exudes warmth and peace) recalls his life. Not everything was exactly the same as he remembered it. There's much less to regret.

QUOTES📢

Being in love is like catching a cold. By the time you're aware of it, it's already serious.

Q - Why doesn't he ever take the next step? A - Everyone has their secret. Maybe he has reservations that he doesn't want us to

My future happiness is my responsibility.

From another perspective, all the barriers to love are there to prove that love exists.

〰🖍 IMHO

📣7 📝7.2 🎭6.8 💓6 🦋5.5 🎨5 🎵/🔊8.3 🔚8.5 🤗4 ▪ 🌞5 ⚡3.7 😅3 😭4 😱2 😯4.5 🤢1 🤔4 💤2

Age 13+ there is a sexual assault and other adult themes. Rated TV-PG-13: Parents Cautioned

Re-📺? Doubtful.

I'm gonna be a bit strick with this one, as I was expecting much more. The story itself isn't bad. The concept was nice and fun. However, it was dull. The pacing was a nightmare and I was about to drop it after the third episode, as nothing exciting was happening. The last few episodes, however, were really good, part of the romantic scenes that were plenty, but boring. Yes, the two leads had chemistry, but couldn't the romance be more original? Anyway, the romantic scenes kind of pulled the pace back to the slow slaggish one we had in the first episodes, but at least the story was interesting at last. The mystery of the father, the depth of the characters and their choices that changed the future, everything was thrilling and entertaining. The ending was a let down, though I don't really know how they could have handled the romance otherwise. Other than that, the performances were good and the representation of the 80' era decent.