Always Home (Chinese: 樹下有片紅房子; pinyin: Shùxià yǒu piàn hóng fángzǐ) is a 2025 Chinese coming-of-age television drama starring Zhai Xiaowen, Zhou Keyu, Yang Xizi and He Qiu. It follows a group of friends from the same housing compound from high school to college as they navigate friendships, family roles, and pursue their dreams. It premiered on Tencent Video on February 15, 2025. The drama is adapted from a novel of the same name by Chinese writer Xiao Ge.
Contents
Synopsis
In 2007, sixteen-year-old Chen Huan'er (Yang Xizi) moves with her mother from a small town to the large city of Tianhe. In her new housing compound, she meets classmates Jing Xichi (Zhai Xiaowen), an energetic athlete who slacks off in class, and Song Cong (Zhou Keyu), a quiet straight A student. Through high school, college, and beyond, Chen Huan'er and her friends navigate changing friendships, academics, unrequited love, family crises, distance from loved ones, and other growing pains. Although their lives take them in different directions, they continue to find home in one another.
Cast
Soundtrack
The soundtrack was released on QQ Music in February 2025.
Production
Filming
Always Home was produced by Tencent Video and Cailin Wenhua. The drama series began filming in January 2024 and was shot entirely in Fujian province, including at the affiliated high school of Fujian Normal University, according to a Fuzhou city press release. On April 22, the drama finished filming.
Production team
Production companies: Shanghai Tencent Penguin Pictures Cultural Communication Co., Ltd., Xiamen Caibin Culture Media Co., Ltd.
Production company: Xiamen Caibin Culture Media Co., Ltd.
Co-production: Fuzhou Xingluo Culture Media Co., Ltd.
Promotion and broadcast
On April 22, 2024, the series released a wrap-up special; on June 24, it released its first trailer; on the same day, it released youth celebration posters; on October 18, it was selected for Tencent's 2025 major drama lineup.
On February 12, 2025, the series released blooming youth posters; on the same day, it released a love cycle trailer and announced the OST lineup; on February 14, it released Valentine's Day promotional materials; on February 15, it officially premiered on Tencent Video and released a youth diary trailer and posters; on February 16, the OST was released; on February 19, it released themed promotional materials about old friends; on February 21, it released a viewing calendar; on March 7, it released a ten-year special feature about the red house; on March 8, the series concluded.
Reception
Critical reception
The Paper commented: "Always Home waves the flag of nostalgia, with the hospital staff residential compound from the 1990s showing carefully designed aging effects on every peeling wall, bringing people back to their childhood and teenage years, with young actors delivering natural and endearing performances and a relaxed, authentic plot. This series contains much genuine emotion in its nostalgic youth setting, and with the production team 'recruiting' millennium-era cassette tapes and pagers as extras, it indeed manages to squeeze out another wave of generational tears. This is what it means to achieve much with little—a modest production that has won the love and support of many viewers. The series is representative of the youth campus genre, a track that 'produces talent every year' and belongs to the evergreen competitive landscape. The series responds to Chinese audiences' unchanging nostalgic sentiment—lost youth and childhood always have a filter of time that makes them constantly fresh and unforgettable, especially poignant when looking back from the perspective of working adults sandwiched between caring for the elderly and raising children in the 2020s."