When We Me 2025 Movie Review

『A Tender Encounter and Farewell Between Two Women Bearing Past Wounds and Complex Emotions』

🎥 Film Overview

🎬 Title: When We Met (去年烟火, 2025)
🌍 Country: 🇨🇳 China
🎞️ Genre: Drama / Romance / Short Film
📢 Director: Wu Chuanxin
📺 Platform: Chinese film festivals and online release

👩‍💼 Cast: He Lei (何蕾) – Ji Qingqing (季情慶)
Ni Jia (倪佳) – Peng Yun (雲姐)

🧩 In-Depth Story Analysis (Spoilers)

🍂 Solidarity in Loss and Loneliness

Peng Yun and Ji Qingqing may appear as ordinary neighbors at first glance, but in reality, they are individuals abandoned by their families in their own ways.

• Peng Yun’s trauma: She carries the painful past of having been deceived into marriage. She married a man without knowing he was already married with children. The subsequent divorce, financial ruin, and complex legal battles left her exhausted. Her divorce represents not merely separation, but a desperate struggle to escape the betrayal that undermined her life and reclaim a 'normal life.'

• Qingqing’s trauma: After her father’s affair, Qingqing endured the pain of being abandoned by her mother and was raised by her grandfather. This background left her with a deep sense of family disintegration and abandonment.

The two meet in the isolated spaces of a small-town shop and street stall, gradually filling each other’s loneliness and finding psychological stability.

👭 Realization of Love and the Shadow of Truth

Qingqing’s feelings develop not from mere curiosity but from true love arising from deliberate approach, forming the film’s central conflict.

• Motivation for approach: Qingqing seeks Peng Yun out, curious about the life of the woman who had been involved with a married man, the same type of woman who caused her father’s affair. Her approach stems not from revenge but from a complex desire to understand how a fellow ‘abandoned person’ survives.

• Discovery of love: The deliberate approach transforms into sincere love for Peng Yun. Qingqing searches her phone for lesbian information to understand her feelings. When Peng Yun discovers this and mentions her own aunt being a lesbian, reassuring Qingqing that her feelings are "not a disease," it becomes a pivotal moment showing how familial history allows acceptance and understanding of her emotions.

• Revelation of painful ties: Peng Yun discovers that Qingqing is the daughter of her ex-husband’s mistress, i.e., connected to the man who hurt her. This truth casts the shadow of past painful ties over her budding love, reflecting the inescapable presence of past trauma.

💥 Choosing ‘Ordinary’ vs. ‘Complex’

Peng Yun’s final rejection is not due to lack of genuine love, but because of the weight of her trauma.

• Peng Yun’s cry: Having endured a life marked by betrayal, complicated litigation, and social ridicule through her prior marriage, she wishes to avoid further entanglement. Her desperate desire is to live 'an ordinary life like everyone else'.

• Collision of love and trauma: Qingqing urges, "Let’s abandon all complexities and move to the city to live simply," yet for Peng Yun, love with Qingqing is genuine emotion while simultaneously a risky choice pushing her back into complex fate and urban life. She chooses ‘safe solitude’, rejecting Qingqing.

Ultimately, Qingqing leaves alone for the city. Her departure marks the heartbreak of love, while for Peng Yun, it is the outcome of a solitary choice to refuse love due to trauma. 《When We Met》 quietly portrays the arduous process for wounded women to follow their true feelings, needing to overcome not only societal norms but also the shadows of the past.

🎯 Personal Rating

💕 Love Scene Intensity: ♥♥
⭐ Overall Rating: ★★★☆