‘The Sun Rises On Us All’ features great performances and languid drama

Eventually, and mercifully, Cai clarifies the nature of each relationship and allows his movie to temporarily blossom, as it transforms into a drama of hardened hearts, steeped in remorse and spiritual debts. Baoshu has recently been released from prison, but there’s more to his crimes than meets the eye—something Meiyun knows, so she tries her best to care for him, even welcoming him into her cramped apartment when he’s discharged from the infirmary, albeit after he imposes. All the while, the young shopkeeper balances her struggling business (and having to promote it on social media vlogs with a brave face) alongside the defeatist possibility that she may never be a mother, or find contentment, so long as she’s chased by the phantoms of her past.

Zhang rides a remarkable line between stern and wounded, as Baoshu follows Meiyun around, including to the mall where she works—he’s practically a living ghost, haunting her waking moments—but he isn’t quite sure if confrontation will be healing. His bitterness towards her is ever present, even though he seems aware that holding onto the past is an act without purpose. Meiyun seems to feel the same way, but her guilt over landing Baoshu in hot water seldom subsides, leading to scenes of simple conversation wherein both Zhang and Xin seem like they could burst into tears or yelling matches at any moment. That they hold back makes their close ups all the more dramatically interesting—which is to say, as interesting as the film can be, when it so frequently presses pause on its unfolding plot.

From left, Zhilei Xin and Songwen Zhang play two people who reunite after being separated for many years in "The Sun Rises On Us All."

Still from "The Sun Rises On Us All"

After a while, dramatic developments seem to take place off-screen (Qifeng, for instance, all but disappears) while shots remain steady for such lengthy periods that they lose all meaning. Even with actors as capable as this, there’s only so much a close up can do if a movie lacks all sense of rhythm or musicality. The low hums of The Sun Rises On Us All aren’t in the right range to register with the human heart, rendering its impeccable leads mere bells and whistles once it’s all said and done. Cai is more than capable of capturing crowded space, daily routine, and the hustle and bustle of modern Guangdong, an urban fabric rife with class struggle, which South Korean cinematographer Kim Hyun-seok makes inviting through warm and deeply human textures. Unfortunately, the movie’s editing gives the game away; its threads always feel as if they’re left dangling in mid-air, as if waiting for someone to string them together with dramaturgical precision.

Make no mistake: there’s a great movie in there somewhere, one in which Xin’s performance builds gradually, and admirably to moments of implosion and explosion in equal measure. Unfortunately, The Sun Rises On Us All is not that work, given how outstretched it feels, and how its unmotivated languorousness robs even the most pulsing human emotions of their enrapturing power. That Xin is able to capture and convey her character’s story despite these failings is perhaps her greatest strength. Without her, Meiyun wouldn’t be nearly as alluring, as a modern woman caught between the follies of professional and private life, and trapped by a past that just won’t let her go.