Weekend Lover served as Lou Ye's first feature-film since graduating from the Beijing Film Academy in 1989 and is notable for having the youngest production team in Chinese cinematic history upon its release.
[1] Shot and produced in 1993 and 1994, once complete, the film was banned for two years by the Chinese film censors; after the ban ended, Weekend Lover was released internationally at the tail end of 1995.
[2][3] Weekend Lover's noir-style and tales of violent disaffected youth led to its comparison with similar films of the period, notably Zhang Yuan's Beijing Bastards.
Like that film, Weekend Lover is also considered a defining film for the "Sixth Generation" of Chinese cinema, particularly in its tone and subject matter that focuses on modern urban life instead of traditional Chinese history.
[3] It eventually went on to win the Werner Fassbinder Award for Best Direction at the 1996 Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival.