General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

When We Were Young (人不彪悍枉少年)

When We Were Young (人不彪悍枉少年) is a 2018 Chinese youth campus web drama, adapted from a same-name novel that grew out of a popular Tianya community forum post, following a group of high school seniors in 1996 who form the "Flying Car Five" (飞车五人组) as they navigate study, friendship, family, and first love in their final year before the gaokao.¹^•² It was directed by Deng Ke, written by Sun Xiao, and streamed on Tencent Video from 22 November 2018 in 24 episodes.¹

Key fact	Detail
Type and run	24-episode youth campus web drama on Tencent Video, first aired 22 November 2018, two new episodes each Thursday and Friday at 8 pm¹^•³
Setting	Yucai High School (育才中学) in 1996, evoked through old electric fans, cassette tapes, Huanggang exam papers, and the Atlanta Olympics⁴^•⁵
Source	Adapted from a same-name novel derived from a Tianya community post; a 2009 book of that title was published by Liaoning People's Publishing House²^•⁶
Main cast	Hou Minghao (花彪), Wan Peng (杨夕), Zhang Yao (李渔), Dai Luwa (黄澄澄), Li Mingde (司徒二条), Pan Meiye (杨肖和美), Wang Sen⁷^•³
Viewership	Online play count passed 1 billion (10亿) by the finale on 20 December 2018⁸
Ratings	Douban 7.7 shortly after launch, peaking at 8.0 during the run; Tencent Video score 8.6⁹^•¹⁰
Production	Jointly produced by Penguin Pictures (企鹅影视) and Yaoke Media (耀客传媒); chief producers Li Eryun and Wang Rouxuan¹¹

Spoilers

Plot

The story opens in the summer of 1996. Yang Xi, a fast-running high school student, wins a new bicycle from her parents as a reward for her long-distance results, only to have it stolen in broad daylight. Chasing the thief, she is caught in an explosion in the school laboratory, injures her leg, and loses her chance at a long-distance race that carried bonus points for the gaokao, the national college entrance examination.⁴

When the new term begins, Yang Xi discovers that the person responsible for the explosion has transferred into her class and taken the class-monitor post she had wanted to keep. This boy is Hua Biao, a hot-blooded, loyal, somewhat impulsive science genius.⁴ The class initially treats his arrival with wariness, but after he rescues the class's Mid-Autumn Festival show, sets arcade game records, and helps his classmates without hesitation, their suspicion dissolves and he joins the friend group.⁴

The five friends then spend their last year of senior high together: Hua Biao the hot-blooded genius, Yang Xi the fast-legged girl, Li Yu the warm and reserved childhood friend, Yang Xiao Hemei the gentle literary girl, and Situ Ertiao the outgoing son of a well-off family.¹¹ Each carries difficulties at home. Li Yu's parents' marriage has broken down; Hua Biao's parents both died young, and his habit of saving meal money leads to severe anemia; Yang Xiao Hemei faces her parents' quiet intellectual pressure; Situ Ertiao learns the ways of traders from his parents.¹² Director Deng Ke reads the title's word "biaohan" (彪悍, strong and fierce) as the refusal-to-give-up spirit of youth, shown in a chemistry experiment exploding, the whole class staging an eight-trigram formation to cheat at a Mid-Autumn event, and scolding street thugs.⁵

Ending: Reception

Ending. The 24-episode run closed on 20 December 2018 with an open ending, and viewers repeatedly asked for a second season in later reviews.⁸^•¹⁰

Origin and production

The drama is adapted from a same-name novel that grew out of a hit post on the Tianya community forum.² The 2009 book 人不彪悍枉少年, by the two authors Yi Lanshan (易阑珊) and Houkofanyuci (后空翻鱼剌), who had been high school classmates, was published by Liaoning People's Publishing House in 277 pages; on Tianya the underlying post drew over 1.3 million clicks and more than 20,000 replies.⁶

Producer Wang Rouxuan, vice president of Yaoke Media, encountered the project in her third week at the company and followed it from script development through post-production; preparation began in 2015, when the youth-drama market was not yet saturated.²^•¹³ She and screenwriter Sun Xiao aimed for a "panoramic" youth drama that also shows parents, grandparents, and teachers during the characters' adolescence.²^•¹³

A deliberate look. Although the picture has the nostalgic feel of the 1990s, the production used no filter; the period atmosphere was achieved through camera language, lighting, and post-production color grading kept close to the original footage, with full Dolby processing for sound and picture.² Period markers in the series include the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where Wang Junxia won the women's 5000 m gold medal and 25 world records were set, Huanggang exam papers, wuxia novels, cassette tapes of Faye Wong and Jacky Cheung, and the Japanese drama Long Vacation.⁵^•¹⁴

Deng Ke, whose earlier credits included the web dramas A Seven-Faced Man (柒个我) and My Amazing Boyfriend (我的奇妙男友), said he deliberately mixed registers: not a purely sweet idol drama and not a strictly documentary-style period piece, aiming for a warm comedy in the spirit of In the Heat of the Sun rather than a "painful youth" story.⁵^•¹⁵

Reception

Ratings and heat. The show premiered on 22 November 2018 with eight episodes released at once on Tencent Video.⁹ Its Douban score stood at 7.7 shortly after launch, above the 7.3 of the preceding hit A Love So Beautiful, and rose to a peak of 8.0 during the run; at the finale on 20 December 2018, three related topics, #花彪终于亲上了#, #李渔黄澄澄没在一起#, and #人不彪悍枉少年收官#, trended on Weibo, and total online views passed 1 billion.⁹^•⁸ Trade press called it a standout of the 2018 youth web-drama market, in a year when most youth titles stayed in the low-traffic range.⁸

The Reply 1988 comparison. Many viewers and critics treated the show as a Chinese counterpart to the Korean drama Reply 1988, praising its warm depiction of friendship, family, and school life without scheming second leads or melodramatic suffering.⁸^•¹⁶ Critics of that framing found the period recreation shallow by comparison: the filters, clothing, and characters' open behavior looked contemporary, the plot repeated small-romance conventions such as the simple heroine and the silent childhood-friend second lead, and some judged the lead acting uneven.¹⁷^•¹⁴

International release and cast notes

The drama reached audiences outside China through subtitled releases on WeTV and on Viki under the English title When We Were Young, where it is described as a nostalgic 1996 drama about a tomboyish runner and a hot-blooded genius.⁴^•¹⁸ A reviewer writing for an American audience in 2022 argued that the series handled friendship and growing up with unusual care for a high school drama.¹⁹

Lead actress Wan Peng made her screen debut here as Yang Xi after a year of acting training at her agency, a casting that director Deng Ke praised as fitting the character.²⁰^•¹⁶

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 Sp to Z

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

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