Us and Them [Houlai de women]

Released: 2018    Viewed: January 2019

This is a straightforward romantic drama from first-time director René Liu (better known as singer and actor) with cinematography by Mark Lee Ping-bing. The film traces the on-off relationship of Xiaoxiao (Zhou Dongyu) and Jianqing (Jing Boran). The couple (both from the same rural area) initially meet on the train home for Chinese New Year and the film is structured around successive New Years and uses them to highlight the issues of urban-rural and parent-child relationships and disjunctions.

Their final (filmic) meeting is again around the New Year when their return to Beijing is delayed by bad weather and the two have the opportunity to review their past relationship. Unusually the current (2018) scenes are filmed in a cold black and white while the past is filmed in warm colour. But this is not a nostalgic yearning for the past (and certainly not for the housing conditions in late 2000s Beijing).

The film is a (reasonably) realistic portrayal although the director never allows the personal to become political. Ms. Zhou is excellent in the role of Xiaoxiao bringing life to her character although we know almost nothing about her back story. Jing Boran gives what is probably a rather accurate portrayal of some Chinese men (OK not just Chinese!): putting material success above relationships and unable to convey deeper feelings (assuming he has them) to either girlfriends or his father (Tian Zhuangzhuang who seems to be now specializing in this type of role after a rather similar part in the inferior Love Education). Jian Qing is, however, a difficult character to warm to for precisely these reasons.

The film does not develop any clear message, expect perhaps that no matter how much of a mess we make of our lives everything will be OK (at least for the couple of hours spent watching this films and perhaps a few hours afterwards)

Ultimately the film (like its stars) is perhaps too glossy to succeed fully at an emotional level, but just glossy enough to succeed very well financially (the film was eleventh in the 2018 box office).  However, Us and Them marks a promising debut from Ms. Liu and retains a core of honesty (unlike the awful SoulMate in which Ms. Zhou also starred).

BTW, its available on Netflix.