“Us and Them” is the perfect love story of passion for teenagers, but also for adults. I must admit that the romantic genre is not one I usually pay attention, but if the film is good, I don't care about the genre or where it comes from. In this case, we are talking about a Chinese film directed by Rene Liu and starring mainly Jing Boran and Zhou Dongyu.
“Us and Them” is available to watch already in some countries on Netflix”
The story starts on an airplane. Jianqing meets Xiaoxiao during a plane trip, a woman he is familiar with . The two look at each other from a distance and that's when the memories of the past come to life. The story takes us back 10 years before this event, when these two young people met, during a long train trip. From there on, a very special friendship emerges between the two teenagers. He falls in love with her, but she at first does not feel anything for him, apart from friendship. Both are going to Beijing in a quest to find the life of their dreams. Jianqing aspires to prosper as a video game designer, and Xiaoxiao seeks to fall in love with a Beijing native, already installed in society. As they live together and fight for their dreams in a small apartment, they encounter the harsh reality of the big city and everyday life. Xiaoxiao engages in various relationships with different men older than her, which all result in failure. Meanwhile, Jianqing is frustrated in seeing how the girl he loves does not pay much attention to him. That's when, at the most unexpected moment, the spark arises between the two.
In a romantic movie like this, it's important to have a good couple of actors to hold the movie, and this one is a good example. Jing Boran and Zhou Dongyu are magnificent, creating an immense chemistry between them, also helped by a brilliant script written by Rene Liu, Chin-Yu Pan and Yuan Yuan. The film evolves within a rich editing, starting in the present day and taking you back to the past where everything began continuously. It is important to note that the present is narrated in black and white, and the past in color. The director Rene Liu here plays with your visual perception, giving it a very peculiar and striking style, and it is in a particular moment in the film when this rule changes, when a specific character finds the true color of life.
Many times we refuse to see this type of films because we feel sentimentally manipulated and saturated with a sweet overdose. It is true that sometimes “Us and Them” sins a bit on the trap of using melodramatic music to force your feelings; however, the director also plays a lot with the silence, the image and the actors' own performances as the only means of narration. Ping Bin's Lee's cinematography is also remarkable in in the sense of how his visual work makes you feel so much just by seeing a frame of his. That, accompanied by great actors and a beautiful score by Chien-Chi Chen, makes “Us and Them” a remarkable romantic tale that you will not forget.
In short, “Us and Them” is a great romantic drama film that not only manages to entertain for 2 long hours, but also gets you very emotional. A film that makes us fall in love as it knows how to tell a love story with all its aspects and stages, as well as making us reflect on our ambitions and our goals. Maybe it's not just one of the best Chinese films of the year, but one of the best movies of the year, period.
