General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Back In Time (匆匆那年)

Back In Time (匆匆那年, Cong Cong Na Nian) is a 2014 Chinese youth romance web drama produced by Sohu TV, directed by Yao Tingting, and adapted from Jiu Ye Hui's best-selling novel of the same name. It follows five high school classmates, centered on the first love between Fang Hui and Chen Xun, through their coming of age as members of China's post-80s generation.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Chinese title	匆匆那年 (Cong Cong Na Nian); English title Back in Time¹
Format	16 episodes of about 45 minutes each; youth, school, and romance genres¹^•²
Broadcast	Sohu TV, premiered 4 August 2014, released weekly in pairs of episodes¹^•³
Source	Adapted from the novel 匆匆那年 by Jiu Ye Hui¹
Main cast	Yang Le (Chen Xun), He Hongshan (Fang Hui), Bai Jingting (Qiao Ran), Cai Wenjing (Lin Jiamo), Du Weihan (Zhao Ye)²
Production	Director Yao Tingting; producer Zhu Zhenhua; production company Sohu TV¹
Significance	First project of Xiaotangren (Sugarman Media); credited with starting the wave of realistic Chinese youth web dramas from 2014 onward⁴

Spoilers

Story and characters

The drama centers on five high school friends with distinct personalities: Fang Hui, Chen Xun, Qiao Ran, Zhao Ye, and Lin Jiamo. Fang Hui falls in love with Chen Xun, but the relationship ends because of the immaturity of their first love; after the pains of growing up, Fang Hui leaves for Australia.² DramaWiki's synopsis describes the setting as the 1980s, while other accounts and reviews place the story's high school years in 1999 and follow the characters through university and into adulthood.¹^•⁵

The series treats friendship as prominently as romance. A Soompi review highlights the loyalty among the five friends, including a scene in which Fang Hui comforts the heartbroken Lin Jiamo by singing "Everybody" by the Backstreet Boys, and notes that the drama depicts poverty, absent parenting, and betrayal openly: Zhao Ye's family struggles financially, and Qiao Ran has looked after himself since age 16.⁶ The same review praises the drama for giving its male lead realistic flaws rather than portraying him as perfect.⁶

Production

Sohu Video positioned the series as a premium web drama. It was shot in 4K, and its first two episodes were premiered in a movie theater, a first for a Chinese web series; episode length was extended from the industry-customary 20 minutes to 45 minutes, and the per-episode budget was reported at more than one million yuan.³^•⁷ A companion report describes the investment as close to one million yuan per episode, a figure that drew attention at the time.⁸

Casting and crew. The production used entirely new actors, Yang Le, Bai Jingting, Cai Wenjing, and Du Weihan among them, chosen so that their ages and backgrounds matched the novel's characters, departing from the web-drama practice of relying on established stars.³ The screenwriting team comprised Tian Bo, Ding Jieru, Pan Yue, Liu Yanfei, and Zhuo Yue Pao Mo.¹ Screenwriter Tian Bo added a small title to the head of each episode, with lines such as "I forgot all the formulas, I only remember how you smiled," which viewers collected and shared online; during production, Sohu also ran mid-shoot screenings and audience surveys to identify slow plot points.⁹

The drama made a point of period detail, working in markers of late-1990s student life such as Huanggang exam papers, cassette tapes, Pu Shu's 1999 song "New Boy," and the then-popular My Fair Princess and Slam Dunk.¹⁰

Place in Chinese youth drama

Back In Time was the first project made by Xiaotangren Culture Media, the company founded by producer Zhu Zhenhua, who recalled that its preparation coincided with online video platforms becoming mainstream media.⁴ The youth-drama wave it helped start around 2014, alongside series such as With You and Stand by Me, established an aesthetic of realistic visuals and plain storytelling in contrast to the melodramatic youth films then common in cinemas, and the trend it set off was still running seven years later.⁴^•¹¹ Zhu Zhenhua went on to produce further well-received youth dramas including With You (Zui Hao De Wo Men), My Huckleberry Friends, and Exclusive Memory.¹¹

A contemporary commentary in People's Daily on the 2014 film adaptation criticized the broader youth-film genre, including Cong Cong Na Nian, for relying on a single note of nostalgia and for avoiding larger social themes; it noted that in the story Chen Xun's greatest sacrifice for his first love is deliberately giving up 13 points on the college entrance exam so he can attend the same university as Fang Hui.¹²

Film adaptation

A separate feature film of the same novel, released in 2014 under the English titles Fleet of Time and Back in Time, was directed by Zhang Yibai and starred Eddie Peng, Ni Ni, Zheng Kai, and Wei Chen; it was adapted by a team including the novelist Jiu Yehui.¹³ The film broke the 500 million yuan box-office mark within half a month of release.¹² Reviewers who knew the web drama generally judged the television version closer to the spirit of the original novel.¹⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles symbols to Co

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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