Asian American Film: Reviews

"The Road Home" - directed by Zhang Yimou

06.26 - Posted by Editor

Zhang Ziyi in "The Road Home"

"The Road Home"
Zhang Yimou's latest is paved with loss, longing, and above all, love

Review by Karen Choy

6.26.01 -- In "The Road Home," Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou tells the story of a simple country girl and a schoolteacher who defy social conventions by falling in love. This is a film about the ties that bind and the persistence of memory. The result is as much a romantic homage to China's bygone days as it is a wakeup call to today's Chinese youth.

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Official website

Awards

Berlin International Film Festival: Silver Berlin Bear

Sundance Film Festival: Audience Award

The film opens in dreary black and white as Chinese businessman Luo Yusheng returns to his native village to be with his mother after the recent death of his father. As they discuss the funeral arrangements, Yusheng's mother insists on adhering to the traditional custom of having the body carried from the hospital to the graveyard by local men. The mayor hopes that Yusheng will be able to persuade his mother to agree to have the coffin driven instead, since finding enough capable men would be difficult, if not impossible. Like Yusheng, most of them have left the village in search of better opportunities in distant cities.

As his mother weaves the funeral cloth on her dilapidated antique loom, Yusheng recalls the story of his parents' courtship. Set in a time when arranged marriages were still the norm, the story became well-known as the village's first "love match." In contrast to the opening scenes, the flashback is presented in sumptuous color. We are introduced to Luo Changyu, the 20 year old schoolteacher sent from the city, who is met with warmth and veneration by the villagers. Zhao Di, an 18 year old beauty from the village, becomes instantly smitten with the newcomer. Actress Zhang Ziyi, better known as the ingenue in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon," is captivating as Zhao Di, bringing the purity of the love story to life with her unassuming demeanor and candor.

Zhao Di and Changyu's encounters are littered with stolen glances and coy smiles that hark back to the days of youthful awkwardness and elation we can all remember. Every day, Zhao Di unabashedly waits on the side of the road for Changyu to pass, then treks past the schoolhouse just to his voice from within. She affectionately prepares each dish when it's her family's turn to host dinner for the new teacher. But by the time it appears that Changyu is ready to reciprocate Zhao Di's affection, he must leave the village immediately at the behest of some city officials. Undaunted, she races across the countryside in an effort to catch up with the departing wagon and give him the mushroom dumplings she made especially for him.

Though physically blind, Zhao Di's widowed mother sees her daughter's intentions and warns her against pursuing the matter further. A relationship between a country bumpkin and a scholar from the city, she insists, would never work out. Zhao Di, as stubborn and defiant as any lovesick teenager, passes the time by tending to the empty schoolhouse, determined to wait for Changyu's return.

"The Road Home" is somewhat of a departure for Zhang Yimou, who is better known for "Raise the Red Lantern" and "Shanghai Triad," bigger-budgeted epics tinged with political undercurrents. Although set in the 1950's, the flashback sequence in "The Road Home" only makes a brief reference to the tumult of the Cultural Revolution. For the most part, the characters and audience are kept isolated from the world at large.

Zhang does, however, use the film to address concerns about the disintegration of traditional and cultural identity in contemporary China. The rising tide of consumerism and influence of Western pop culture are referenced in the film in Yusheng's predilection for buying new wares (as opposed to salvaging the old), and in the two "Titanic" movie posters hanging in Zhao Di's present day home.

In an interview about his movie, Zhang expressed a desire to return to the roots of Chinese cinema and narrative filmmaking. He succeeds in grounding the film in reality by focusing on the lives of ordinary people and using emotion as its driving force. The end result is a film wrought with nostalgia and tender sentimentality. Poetry rendered.

Despite the deceivingly simple storyline, "The Road Home" is a film in which dialogue is secondary to the power of emotion.

Karen Choy is a web designer with a penchant for savory cinema and fresh dumplings.

Comments

What's Ziyi Zhang's mothers fathers and brothers name??

Posted by: michelle tran on January 11, 2004 03:30 PM

Below are comments to this review which have been moved over from the old site. Enjoy! -- Editor
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Name: wenlan
E-mail: wenlan@journalist.com

I come from China and I have watched all of Zhang Yimou's movies. The Road Home has sort of repeated Zhang's old stories. I got sick of some of the scenes, like when Zhao Di ran after the wagon in the beautiful field. If you have watched Zhang's other films, you would rememeber at least 3 other times in which he used this trick. Besides, I dont quite understand why Zhang usually based his story on those old times. His explanation is, the current economic boom in this country hasn't been mature enough to host a big theme. "It is too thin." What I suspect is he was trying to please the westerners who would like to see the backwardness of China. I might have been too bold to say so. But anyway, I got sick of those bumpkin stories. It's misleading people on their views about China.
01/28/03 05:32
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Name: Mike Gadarowski
E-mail: mikegad@att.net

Recently my wife and I watched "The Road Home" It is a movie with the ability to move one's heart deeply. Recently we watched "My life as a house" another very moving film. Truly film making at it's best is a vehicle which can do such good when used well. I as a 55 year old retired engineer find it meditatively and intellectually moving also. To consider the ramifications of people's quality of life based on their belief system is quite enthralling. This movie did all of this for me. Just wanted to comment. It also helps me feel at a level where one is not often stirred. This is good for enlarging the heart something not done often in modern cinematography. It was a delight. Mike G.
11/03/02 20:52
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Name: Mike Gadarowski
E-mail: mikegad@att.net

11/03/02 20:45
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Name: Huey Nhan
E-mail: h.nhan@btopenworld.com

Hi Karen, Just wanted to tell you I enjoyed your review. I saw The Road Home in 2000 at the Asian Film Festival in Melbourne, Australia and it had such a profound effect on me. It's become such an important movie which makes me smile whenever I think about it, so I'm glad I stumbled across your review today. It taught me so much about love and gave such immense clarity to work out some difficulties my partner and I were going through at the time. Thanks again for the review. Huey
04/12/02 20:55
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Name: Wulfrich
E-mail: wulfrich@hotmail.com
Web Page: N/A

I think The Road Home was compelling and unforgetable. The movie was based on a book called Remembrance by Boa Shi. The sadiest part in the movie was when Zhoa Di wanted to give changyu the dumpling and when she ran and broke the dish, it broke my heart. To make madders worst, she lost the hair clip changyu. When she found it the next day she was the happiest person in the movie. Also when her mother got the dish fixed she cheered up. This shows that the simplist things make her happy. This movie was in Zhoa Di's point of view. I loved this movie because I got emotionally attached to Zhoa Di. This Shows that Zhang Yimou is an astoinishing director. I give this movie five stars out of five. I couldn't let go that the movie was over.
03/10/02 20:30
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Name: Southern Crane
E-mail: another187@hotmail.com

One of the most beautiful and emotionally touching films I've ever seen. :)
01/03/02 09:47
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Name: asian guy

Haven't seen the film, and would like to very much. I really liked Karen's style of critiquing - it's easy to read, and gets to the point. She should go pro!
07/03/01 22:46
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Name: Hugh

Ms. Choy didn't really review the film. Except for a few sentences she just describes the artwork, albeit quite evocatively. Despite intense physical beauty in the actors and majestic landscapes, this movie has to be one of the most insufferable attempts at a fairy tale I have ever seen. The romance is misguided, banal and not motivated by anything close to reality. There are wonderful elements, such as seeing the craftsmen at work, the reminder of ancient cultural traditions, and not passing but extremely strong references to the impact of the cultural revolution. But all is negated in the inevitable loss experienced by the hopeless characters and by the most miserable musical soundtrack of all time, a low previously reached in Wo/Long. Titanic posters are so widely spread throughout China these days that it is likely that the irony is not a filmmaker's joke but the irony of cultural revolution propaganda and Mao pictures replaced with new icons. The Titanic picture represents not homage to the West but uniformity of a new image replacing the outdated ones.
07/03/01 03:42
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Name: James
E-mail: jamesdmp@hotmail.com

For those of you not fortunate enough to be able to watch this film on the big screen, the VCD and DVD are available at YesAsia.com ($17.68 and $34.00). Of course, see it in the theaters if at all possible. Zhang Ziyi's performance was quite moving.
06/28/01 20:42
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Name: Greg

Loved this movie. It's incredibly sentimental but totally worked for me. Just one detail -- when I first noticed the "Titanic" posters in the old woman's house, I thought, oh, I get it: irony. But by the end of the film, I decided that they were presented entirely unironically. Both "Titanic" and "The Road Home" are deeply sentimental, romantic paeans to true love. Yimou's paying tribute to Cameron there. Kinda cracks me up -- I'd love to hear what those two filmmakers would have to say to each other if they ever met.
06/27/01 00:30

Posted by: Editor on May 13, 2003 03:44 PM

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