Us and Them

Xiaoxiao and Jianqing meet on the same train back from New Year. Both come from the same provincial town, both are trying to become something in Beijing. Over the years they are flatmates, then lovers, then two people apart. The film looks back from the day they run into each other at an airport a decade later. The form rests on a single decision: the past is in colour, the present in black and white. The director is less interested in why they split than in why the relationship did not survive money arriving. The best scene is not a love scene but the one about the father who has been writing letters to his son's girlfriend for years. Rene Liu's first film as director, with Zhou Dongyu and Jing Boran in the leads. The box office story got more coverage than the film. After the April 2018 opening, tickets bought online were refunded en masse across nearly four thousand cinemas. Refund rates normally stay under a third of one percent; this film reported six percent, said to total two hundred thousand tickets. China's Film Bureau called the pattern abnormal and opened an inquiry. The film still took over two hundred million dollars. Who it is for: anyone who likes melodrama and relationships told back and forth in time. Who it is not for: anyone who keeps distance from emotional manipulation. The last half hour does it openly.