The Road Home (1999) (Chinese)

April 14, 2008 · Posted in Chinese Movies, Drama, Romance

From acclaimed director Zhang Yimou comes this touching film about young love in rural China. Refreshingly unpretentious, the movie looks amazing and boasts fine performances from its cast of relative unknowns. Chinese “It Girl” Zhang Ziyi is her usual wonderful self.

I knew that Zhang Ziyi was beautiful. And I knew she was talented; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon provided ample evidence of that. But what I wasn’t quite prepared for was how absolutely captivating she would be in The Road Home, a simple, old-fashioned love story from Hero director Zhang Yimou. For every single second that she appeared onscreen, I couldn’t help but be enchanted by her presence. There was something so extraordinarily pure and wholly intriguing about her that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But whatever it is, she’s got it and it works. However, even though Zhang is unquestionably talented, I suspect that her magnetic performance in The Road Home is not simply the product of fortuitous casting. No, director extraordinaire Zhang Yimou knows what he’s doing, and one can see a master storyteller at work from the film’s very first frame.

Based on the novel Remembrance by Shi Bao (who also wrote the screenplay), The Road Home begins and ends its tale in the present day. But, in a nice reversal of standard movie language, the modern sequences are shot in dreary black and white rather than in the usual color. In the first of many moments that will echo the film’s title, a young businessman named Luo Yusheng (Sun Honglei) heads back home to the tiny village of Sanhetun. It seems that Yusheng’s father Luo Changyu, a beloved schoolteacher, has passed away while trying to raise money to construct a new schoolhouse. In Sanhetun, Luo finds his mother, Zhao Di (Zhao Yulian), mourning at the school. In accordance with an old Chinese tradition, Di insists that her husband’s body be brought back home from the hospital on foot.

Director: Yimou Zhang

(Director of Raise the Red Lantern, House of Flying Daggers, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles)
Genre:Drama / Romance
County: China
Language: Mandarin
Year: 1999
Genre: Drama/Romance
Runtime: 1hr26min
Subtitles: English .srt
IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0235060/