‘The Sun Rises On Us All’ review: Estranged lovers reunite in Cai Shanjun’s slow-burn drama

Dir: Cai Shangjun. China. 2025. 131mins

The past isn’t finished with the estranged lovers at the centre of The Sun Rises On Us All, a brittle drama about lingering guilt and new beginnings. Chinese filmmaker Cai Shangjun tells the story of a young woman who’s pregnant by her married boyfriend — only to unexpectedly run into her ex, who has been released from prison for a crime she actually committed. Less a romantic triangle than a study of the inexorable connection that keeps this former couple still chained together, the slow-burn picture is all about the things left unsaid, until the repressed emotions come flowing out near the end.

Teases the audience with moral questions

Premiering in Venice in competition before screening in Toronto, The Sun Rises represents Cai’s return to the Lido for the first time since 2011’s People Mountain People Sea, which took home the Silver Lion for Best Director. (His most recent picture, the 2017 drama The Conformist, debuted at TIFF.) The Sun Rises stars Xin Zhilei and Zhang Songwen, and those enraptured by enigmatic love stories will seek out a film sure to see more festival selections.

Xin plays Meiyun, the mid-30s owner of a modest clothing shop. As The Sun Rises begins, she visits her doctor about her unexpected pregnancy, which could bring complications due to a previous abortion. Anxious about her future, Meiyun realises that a man from her earlier life, Baoshu (Zhang), is at the same hospital for cancer treatment. 

They are shocked to see each other — they used to be romantically involved, but then he went to prison for five years. Her sadness over Baoshu’s illness is compounded by the guilt she still harbours for his incarceration — it was Meiyun who was behind the wheel during a hit-and-run accident but he told the authorities he was driving to spare her from being punished. Meiyun has been having a long-term affair with married man Qifeng (Feng Shaofeng), who has no idea about her pregnancy, but he has reservations about her decision to care for Baoshu as he undergoes chemotherapy.

With a script co-written by Shangjun and Han Nianjin,The Sun Rises depicts Meiyun as a woman in flux. Although unsure about having a baby, she is nonetheless concerned when the doctors have trouble detecting the heartbeat. Qifeng thinks that perhaps he will divorce his wife so the two of them can start a family, but this too feels like a precarious scenario. With Meiyun’s store struggling as well, Baoshu seems to represent a temporary oasis from her myriad anxieties. But does she still have feelings for Baoshu, or does she simply want him to forgive her?

Xin leaves Meiyun appealingly opaque, and she and Zhang capably convey the awkward, faded rapport of people who once were in love but are now strangers to one another. As we learn more about the accident and its aftermath — and, most importantly, how exactly she ended their relationship during his prison stint — the clearer it becomes that this unexpected reunion offers an opportunity for reprisals but also reconciliation. The Sun Rises’s slender storyline is strengthened by Meiyun and Baoshu’s uncertainty regarding how this delicate situation will play out.

Shangjun teases the audience with moral questions he’s not inclined to settle. How beholden should Meiyun be toward Baoshu because of his self-sacrifice? Should there be a statute of limitations on her guilt? And when Baoshu behaves shockingly towards her during one troubling scene, are his actions in any way mitigated by his sense of betrayal? With its restrained tone and measured performances, The Sun Rises creates a fragile world populated by characters who don’t know how to move forward — either separately or, perhaps, together.

Despite the film’s air of ambiguity, Guo Sida’s score sometimes crackles with an electric tenor more common for a thriller, which would appear to run counter to the story’s melancholy, reflective spirit. But Shangjun is laying the seeds for the tumultuous emotions underlying both Meiyun and Baoshu’s reserved demeanour. The Sun Rises’s third act culminates in surprises that don’t always organically evolve from what came before, but Xin and Zhang’s impassioned performances help to alleviate some of the conclusion’s perceived farfetchedness.