Character Relationship Map: Perhaps Love

Characters

• Lin Jian-Dong (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro) — protagonist

  A Hong Kong movie star and former film student who shares a past romance with Sun Na. He attempts to reconnect with her during the musical production, blurring the lines between his real emotions and...

• Sun Na (played by Zhou Xun) — protagonist

  A celebrated Chinese actress and former cabaret singer who denies her past relationship with Jian-Dong. She stars as an amnesiac girl in the musical, causing movie life and real life to overlap as she...

• Nie Wen (played by Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau) — supporting

  A Chinese film director who produces a musical starring Sun Na and Lin Jian-Dong. He discovers their secret past and mirrors his own emotional struggles by playing an obsessive circus owner in the fil...

Canonical Relationships

Family, romantic, and professional connections based on plot evidence.

• Nie Wen → Lin Jian-Dong (Professional Director And Collaborator) — They are connected through the production, with Nie Wen producing and Lin Jian-Dong directing the film within the story.

  The plot identifies Lin Jian-Dong as the director of the love story starring Sun Na, while the character profile says Nie Wen produces the musical sta...

• Nie Wen → Sun Na (Professional Director And Star) — Nie Wen produces the musical in which Sun Na stars.

  The character profile says Nie Wen produces a musical starring Sun Na, and the plot introduces Sun Na as a star in the production.

• Lin Jian-Dong → Sun Na (Romantic Former Lovers) — Their former relationship resurfaces during filming as Jian-Dong tries to draw Sun Na toward their past, while she confronts the pain and resentment it left behind.

  The plot describes their shared past romance and says that their reunion brings old affection and resentment back to the surface.

Story Analysis

A film production and a former romance overlap, leaving memory, truth, and performance difficult to separate.

Plot Progression

1. Deleted Memories and a New Production — The film opens by comparing life to cinema and introduces the effort to return lost memories. Sun Na is presented as the star of a production directed by Lin Jian-Dong, while the musical's amnesiac he...
2. Fictional Love and On-Set Friction — The circus master gives Xiao-yu an invented romantic past, but Zhang Yang's appearance unsettles that story. Meanwhile, Jian-Dong's criticism of Sun Na hints that their personal history is intruding i...
3. The Past Returns — Old memories and recordings reveal the couple's earlier ambitions and mutual encouragement. A decade of separation has changed their circumstances, but their reunion revives both affection and resentm...
4. Love Confronted by Resentment — Jian-Dong tries to draw Sun Na back toward their shared past, and she confronts him with the damage their love left behind. As filming nears completion, the boundaries between their real history and t...
5. A Departure Without Reconciliation — Jian-Dong confirms that the tapes are real while saying that the previous night was a hoax, then leaves Sun Na with her grief. The production still has one final scene, and the ending preserves uncert...