General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

A Time to Love (情人结)

A Time to Love (情人结) is a 2005 Chinese romance film directed by Huo Jianqi (霍建起), written by Si Wu (思芜) and Zhang Renjie (张人捷), and starring Zhao Wei and Lu Yi as childhood sweethearts whose love is opposed by their feuding families. It was released in mainland China on 13 February 2005, timed to the Valentine's Day holiday.¹^•² The film is adapted from the reportage of the woman writer An Dun (安顿); Huo Jianqi has described it as a Chinese counterpart to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.¹^•³

Key fact	Detail
Chinese title	情人结 (Qing Ren Jie), literally "lovers' knot"¹
Director and writers	Directed by Huo Jianqi; screenplay by Si Wu and Zhang Renjie¹
Cast	Zhao Wei as Qu Ran (屈然) and Lu Yi as Hou Jia (侯嘉)¹
Source	Adapted from An Dun's reportage; the Sina interview names the source novel 《爱恨情仇》 and the project was earlier titled 《致无尽的莎士比亚》 (To Endless Shakespeare)¹^•³
Release	13 February 2005, mainland China, ahead of Valentine's Day¹^•²
Principal award	Zhao Wei won Golden Goblet Best Actress (金爵影后) at the 8th Shanghai International Film Festival, June 2005⁴
Story span	The protagonists' love persists through 12 years of family opposition and separation³

Spoilers

Plot

The story begins in the early 1980s. The boy Hou Jia (Lu Yi) and the girl Qu Ran (Zhao Wei) grow up in the same government work-unit compound (机关大院), where they are childhood companions and gradually fall in love.¹^•² Their affection turns to opposition from both families, especially Hou Jia's mother, who is confined to a wheelchair, because of an old grudge between the two households.²^•⁵

The lovers' predicament drives them apart: Hou Jia goes abroad, and Qu Ran waits for him for seven years. The impasse breaks when Qu Ran's father develops late-stage cancer; he telephones Hou Jia's mother to tell her of his illness and to apologize, the enmity between the families dissolves, and the two finally marry.² Huo Jianqi described the emotional core as a plain, persistent love that survives despair between two hostile families and becomes lasting at the moment of reconciliation.³

Origin and production

Huo Jianqi said he came across the story by chance in a newspaper in 2000 and was struck by the persistence and courage of the real people behind it; An Dun's reportage was based on people she had interviewed in person. He kept the clipping for three years before production became possible: in 2003 he reached agreement with China Film Group (中影集团) and Peking University Starlight Group (北大星光集团), and the film went into production. An Dun supplied additional material for the adaptation and later said she was glad to see her story brought to the screen.³

The screenplay adapts the novel while respecting its style, filling out plot and detail with devices suited to film. Huo said the production aimed at an authentic "made in China" (中国制造) portrait of Chinese ideas of love, without lavish sets or contemporary fashion, using restrained narration and graceful imagery, with warmer colors and a livelier rhythm than his earlier work.³ Some media framed the film as Huo's move toward commercial cinema, but the director insisted the style would remain that of an aesthetic, melancholy romance film.⁶

Title and Shakespeare motif

The title works on two levels. The character 结 (knot) expresses the knot in the hearts of the two protagonists, played as entangled across many years.⁶ Within the story, the "lovers' knot" is a leather button-knot the two like to play with, often wound around their bicycles, a sign that their hearts are in tune; the near-homophony of 情人结 (lovers' knot) and 情人节 (Valentine's Day) reinforced the film's holiday release.²

Shakespeare supplies the film's central symbol. Huo noted that the emotional entanglement of Romeo and Juliet is a key thread in the original play and functions as a key symbol within the novel and the film; he described the film as a lovers' knot woven by Shakespeare, in which the play re-binds the knot between the two hearts.³ An English-language review likewise called the film an homage to Romeo and Juliet, noting direct references such as a replication of the balcony scene.⁵^•⁷

Reception and awards

The film competed at the 8th Shanghai International Film Festival in June 2005, where it was nominated for the Golden Goblet Award for Best Film and Zhao Wei won the Golden Goblet for Best Actress.¹^•⁴ At the 11th Huabiao Awards it received a nomination for Excellent Feature Film, and Zhao Wei won the award for Outstanding Actress; at the 8th Changchun Film Festival in 2006, Huo Jianqi was nominated for the Golden Deer Award for Best Director, Lu Yi for Best Actor, and Zhao Wei again won a Best Actress award.¹^•⁴

Commercially, the film opened against the romances 《美人依旧》 and 《鸳鸯蝴蝶》 over the Valentine's Day period and out-earned the two competitors combined.² A contemporary analysis credited the idol pairing of Zhao Wei and Lu Yi and well-timed commercial promotion for that result, and described the viewing experience as a classical, aesthetic romance suited to the holiday.² Reviews abroad were mixed: one praised the director's sense of imagery and the intimacy he drew from a familiar plot,⁷ while another found the story conventional and criticized the final title card.⁵

References

情人结, 快懂百科
宫爱玲 (2012). 现代情人节里的古典"情人结"——解析影片《情人结》, 湖南大众传媒职业技术学院学报
《情人结》霍建起上演情人节"完美风暴", 北京娱乐信报 via 新浪娱乐, 2005-01-25
北京星光国际传媒作品——电影《情人结》, 新浪娱乐, 2008-05-16
[(A Nutshell) Review: [China Digital Film Festival] A Time To Love (Qing Ren Jie), 2006-12-02](https://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/12/china-digital-film-festival-time-to.html)
《情人结》杀青　赵薇陆毅纠缠20年, 大纪元, 2004-07-25
Review: A Time For Love (2005), Heroic Cinema, 2005-11-25

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedy-drama films

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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