I Swear…
7天
China, 2025, colour, 2.35:1, 119 mins.
Director: Qiu Yujie 邱玉洁.
Rating: 7/10.
A fanciful but well-developed light romance that’s cleverly developed and finally gains some real emotional clout in its third act.
STORY
Jiao island, somewhere off the coast of China, the present day. For some time Chen Choushi (Jiang Qiming), a dentist, has been haunted by a dream in which numbers appear in the sky and he finds a sickle buried on the seashore. He visits Jiao island for the wedding of a fellow dentist, Luo Tingting (Huang Miyi), who has a practice there. Visiting her surgery, he meets one of her patients, Wen Qian (Zhang Yifan), and above her head he immediately sees the number “7”. They end up having dinner together and talking the whole night; she’s visiting her mother who still lives on the island, and is staying at the same hotel as Chen Choushi. Next afternoon she accompanies him to Luo Tingting’s wedding reception and he sees the number above her head is now down to “6”. Luo Tingting’s husband (Sheng Gangshuai) falls sick and Chen Choushi ends up driving the whole party in a coach to the hospital. As they leave the hospital next morning Chen Choushi and Wen Qian bump into the latter’s mother (Guo Keyu), who didn’t know her daughter was on the island. They accompany her to a children’s theatre, where the mother is rehearsing a play, and Chen Choushi is asked to perform a role. Everyone has an enjoyable time; but above Wen Qian’s head Chen Choushi sees the figure “5”. That night, on the roof of Bar Luna, they kiss. They end up in her room but, because he won’t talk about their future beyond the next 4-5 days – when, coincidentally, both have to return to work – she tells him to leave. As he leaves, he tells her he can see the remaining length of their relationship above her head – 4 days, 14 hours, 45 minutes. Exhausted by lack of sleep, Chen Choushi wakes up the following evening and finds Wen Qian has checked out of the hotel. He returns home to his parents on the mainland, where his father (Yang Haoyu), a surgeon, undergoes a high-risk operation that he doesn’t survive. At the funeral parlour, Wen Qian suddenly turns up, with “3 days, 23 hours” above her head. She is with her mother, who was once a patient of Chen Choushi’s father and still feels grateful for what he did. That evening Chen Choushi asks Wen Qian to stay, as he loves her, but she asks what is the point if he sees their reationship only lasting a few more days. She disappears again, leaving behind a note that she will be at Bar Luna in seven years’ time. Seven years later, he arrives at Bar Luna, which she says she bought following the death of her mother, whom she’d returned to the island to care for. Chen Choushi sees “3 days, 6 hours” above her head. But even though each deeply loves the other, it is to be years before the relationship comes to full fruition and a hidden secret is revealed.
REVIEW
A light romance that jogs along pleasantly for an hour-and-a-half before suddenly hitting the viewer with an emotional sledgehanmmer, I Swear… 7天 is an interesting first theatrical feature by writer-director Qiu Yujie 邱玉洁, 36, following her online horror The Skin 夺皮 (2020). A variation on the “limited-time romance” idea, it doesn’t push its luck too far and is helped by good screen chemistry between the two leads (both in their first lead roles) and a screenplay that keeps the audience guessing. After premiering in the Asian New Talent competition of the Shanghai festival, it took a modest RMB62 million this summer.
Ningxia-born Yu graduated in 2010 from the literary department of Beijing Film Academy and, after winning a prize for her script Li Tiebao 李铁宝 and co-writing crackerjack whodunit thriller The Shadow Play 风中有朵雨做的云 (2018, dir. Lou Ye 娄烨), was the main creative force behind The Skin, a 68-minute, widescreen production centred on a model with emotional issues who attends the funeral of her late mother’s best friend. Yu wrote and (with Mao Sitong 毛思彤) co-directed the thoughtful psycho-horror which is largely set in an old mansion. Since then she’s had a more checkered record: apart from working on several TVDs, she was a co-writer on the somewhat contrived daughter-mother drama The Oldtown Girls 兔子暴力 (2020), script planner on generic youth romance Love Will Tear Us Apart 我要我们在一起 (2021) and co-writer on Flaming Cloud 三贵情史 (2023), a good-looking but messily written post-modern fairytale.
I Swear… finds her back on track, with a simple idea that may be fanciful – a man sees a digital clock above the head of every girl he dates, denoting how long is left to their relationship – but isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of the whole movie, which depends on the slow evolution of the central relationship rather than gimmicks. Qiu has kind of been in such semi-fantastic territory before: apart from her horror movie The Skin, she and co-scripter Yuan Jixi 袁继犀 were among several writers on the 15-part TVD Reset 开端 (2022), centred on a young couple caught up in various time-loops after “dying” in an exploding bus. And for her first full-scale feature Qiu has been smart and surrounded herself with a very experienced crew, including Taiwan d.p. Yu Jingping 余静萍 (SoulMate 七月与安生, 2016; Better Days 少年的你, 2019; Girl on Edge 花漾少女杀人事件, 2025), Mainland editor Zhu Lin 朱琳, Hong Kong stylist Wu Lilu 吴里璐 [Dora Ng], Mainland art director Zhai Tao 翟韬, Japanese composer Otomo Yoshihide 大友良英 (in his first score for a Chinese film since the late 1990s) and creative producer 监制 Yin Lu 尹露. Yin has worked with several first-time directors in recent years, as she has with several of this film’s crew.
After describing the dream by which the main character, dentist Chen Choushi, is haunted – numbers in the sky, a seashore, and a sickle in the sand – the film opens on Jiao island, somewhere off the coast of China, where he’s visiting a fellow dentist for her wedding. In her surgery he happens upon one of her patients, Wen Qian, above whose head he sees the figure “7” (as in the film’s Chinese title, meaning “7 Days”). She’s visiting her mother on the island and is staying at the same hotel as Chen Choushi. They end up having dinner, talking all night, and next day attending the wedding reception together, after which he sees the figure “6” above her head. For a while, the film becomes a “will-they/won’t-they” story as the clock keeps counting down in Chen Choushi’s mind. But when he finally tells her what he knows – and she believes him – the whole relationship comes under threat, as she sees no point in pursuing it with only a few days left.
That’s just the opening half-hour in a story that keeps reinventing itself in clever ways – as the two, while confessing their love for each other, keep parting and re-meeting, sometimes for years at a time. What started as a cute idea develops into a love story that’s beyond just simple sex. And just when it seems that Qiu can’t string the concept out any longer, there’s a lovely twist around the 85-minute mark that takes the story from a clever, well-played light romance to one with real emotional clout (especially from Wen Qian’s perspective) and a powerful finale.
After theatre parts and movie character roles (the alcoholic friend in mockumentary Journey to the West 宇宙探索编辑部, 2021; a lawyer in Article 20 第二十条, 2024; a supermarket worker in Land of Broken Hearts 负负得正, 2024), Nanning-born Jiang Qiming 蒋奇明, 32, a graduate of Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama, makes a good fist of his first lead role, convincingly handling a character who ages somewhere into his late 40s (and beyond) and is emotionally tightly bound. He has good chemistry with Changchun-born ballet dancer/girlbander-turned-actress Zhang Yifan 张艺凡, 25, also in her first lead role after several varied supports (the suicide schoolgirl in Better Days; dancer/escort girl in police drama Walk the Line 扫黑 决不放弃, 2024; office worker in light comedy Moments We Shared 云边有个小卖部, 2024). She ages somewhat less convincingly into her early 40s but is emotionally more the heart of the film in a movingly contained performance.
Shot around Quanzhou, in Fujian province, with extra material shot up north in Tianjin by equally noted d.p. Piao Songri 朴松日, the film largely has a sunny, natural look with few dramatic effects. Scoring is gently romantic piano music, atypical of Otomo’s personal style. For the record, the film has no connection with the Singaporean ghost movie Seven Days 七天 (2023), directed by Mainland-born Wu Kejia 吴可嘉 [Grace Wu]). And actress Zhang is not to be confused with the identically named Zhang Yifan 张艺凡 who co-wrote road comedy Breakup Buddies 心花路放 (2014) and scamming drama No More Bets 孤注一掷 (2023).
CREDITS
Presented by Zhejiang Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), Tianjin Zoe Pictures (CN), Zhejiang Hengdian Film (CN), Hainan Canno Studio Pictures (CN), More Visual Production (CN), China Film Group (CN). Produced by Horgos Hefeng Qingmu Culture Media (CN).
Script: Qiu Yujie, Yuan Jixi. Photography: Yu Jingping (main unit), Piao Songri (Tianjin unit). Editing: Zhu Lin. Music: Otomo Yoshihide, Chen Xiaoshu. Art direction: Zhai Tao. Costumes: Liu Huan. Styling: Wu Lilu [Dora Ng]. Sound: Si Yilin, Li Danfeng. Visual effects: Liu Ying, Liu Shanshan, Zhang Kexin (More VFX). Executive direction: Liu Yiqiao, Liang Haidong, Zhang Zhengquan.
Cast: Jiang Qiming (Chen Choushi), Zhang Yifan (Wen Qian), Yang Haoyu (Chen Choushi’s father), Liu Dan (Chen Choushi’s mother), Guo Keyu (Wen Qian’s mother), Huang Miyi (Luo Tingting), Sheng Gangshuai (bridegroom), Li Zheting (high-school student), Zhang Wanqing (girl in bar), He Qilong (Luo Tingting’s trainer), Fu Zhenye (Nicholas), Wu Di (Qiongqi boy).
Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Asian New Talent Awards), 20 Jun 2025.
Release: China, 29 Aug 2025.