Us and Them 2018

The film unfolds across two interwoven timelines, with a quiet patience that lets memory and longing breathe. The past is bathed in color, a bright, tactile world where two strangers form a fragile bond, while the present is rendered in stark black and white, as if memory itself has drained the color from what remains.

During the Chunyun travel season, Lin Jianqing and Fang Xiaoxiao meet on a long train ride home. They quickly sense a shared hunger for success in Beijing, where both chase different paths yet tread similar pressures. Jianqing dreams of becoming a game-maker, wrestling with money worries and a constant lack of time. Xiaoxiao, living with her boyfriend but strained by his mother’s meddling, ends up moving into Jianqing’s cramped room in a small apartment complex. Together they improvise a life, earning money by selling computer software and—risks and all—Japanese porn, carving out a precarious but hopeful space for themselves.

In the present, Jianqing happens to encounter Xiaoxiao again on a Chunyun flight. A delayed journey forces them to share a night in the same room, and they drift into memories of a relationship that once felt like a turning point. The scene shifts back to the past, where Chinese New Year celebrations mark the beginning of love between Jianqing and Xiaoxiao. Their early days are buoyant—both land new jobs and the world seems open to them.

But the next New Year arrives with a different bill to pay. Jianqing spends lavishly trying to impress friends and family, while two acquaintances return home and spend time with Jianqing’s father. A blunt truth is voiced: there is no need to pretend to be rich if you aren’t. The couple’s stability begins to crack when they are evicted from their complex, and a volatile moment at work sees Jianqing pick a fight with a caller, leaving him battered. He becomes angry and distant, and the relationship strains under growing friction. Xiaoxiao’s patience wears thin, and she ends the romance while Jianqing is absorbed in a late-night gaming session.

When Xiaoxiao vanishes, Jianqing follows her to a subway, where they stand in silence as the doors close and the train departs. This moment becomes a turning point; he channels his energy into finishing his game, which becomes a hit and lands him a worthwhile job. Xiaoxiao sees him on television, listening as he explains how the game’s story was inspired by their past and connected to her.

The years continue to turn, and during another Chunyun season Jianqing asks Xiaoxiao to join him back home. His father reveals he is gradually going blind, and when Jianqing insists they move to Beijing to care for him, the tension peaks. The elder insists on staying, and Jianqing, moved and frustrated, leaves—Xiaoxiao follows. On the street, Jianqing, now successful, asks for a second chance, but Xiaoxiao speaks with hard honesty: she didn’t stay with him for money or a house, but because she genuinely liked him. She tells him he never truly understood her, and then she walks away.

Back in the present, a clearer truth emerges: Xiaoxiao is single, while Jianqing is married with a child. The two confront the possibility that the love they shared might have been something real, or perhaps a destined meeting that was never meant to become a lifelong arrangement. Xiaoxiao admits she loved him, and they lament what might have been, while acknowledging the paths that led them apart.

Jianqing drives Xiaoxiao home, and they embrace before saying a bittersweet goodbye. He tells her that true love will come again for her. En route home with his wife, Jianqing’s father briefly mistakes his daughter-in-law for Xiaoxiao, a moment that underscores the ache of lifelong longing. The father, who had been blind, realizes the mistake and writes one final letter to Xiaoxiao, confessing that he had hoped she would end up with his son—yet life unfolded differently.

After the father’s death, Jianqing visits the restaurant where memories linger like old flavors. In the final turn, Xiaoxiao re-enters their shared world by playing through Jianqing’s game, discovering hidden messages that speak to her. The color of the present returns as the two characters reconcile with their past, suggesting that the past, however altered, remains a living part of who they are today.