Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14798 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-04-16
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: Mandarin Chinese
• Subtitled in: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, Turkish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 86 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The latest film by Chinese director Zhang Yimou, The Road Home (1999) is a story of past and present. In black and white we see a young businessman return to a rural village where his father has died. His mother wants a traditional funeral, which involves carrying the coffin several miles in the depths of winter. Then, in flashback and brilliant colour, we are told the story of his parents' courtship. His father had come as the local schoolteacher and had fallen in love with his mother, a local girl. Political complications ensue and they are separated for two years, but at last reunited. This apparently simply tale is told with great insight and dazzlingly beautiful camerawork, in a style which echoes the Italian neo-realist films of the 1940s. Perhaps it doesn't have the complexity of the director's earlier film, Raise the Red Lantern (1991), which starred the luminous Gong Li, but The Road Home has her match in Zhang Ziyi, who also starred in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).

On the DVD: The quality of the sound and picture (in 2.35:1 ratio) are excellent. There are no additional features except for subtitles in English and 15 other languages. --Ed Buscombe

Special Features
2.35 Wide Screen
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Mandarin
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 Mandarin
Dolby Digital 5.1
Arabic\Bulgarian\Czech\Danish\Dutch\English\Finnish\Greek\Hebrew\Hindi\Hungarian\Icelandic\Norwegian\Polish\Swedish\Turkish

Synopsis
A man returns to the village where he was raised to help his mother arrange his father's funeral in this romantic drama about the courtship of his parents and the value of tradition and devotion. Upon his return to the village of Sanheutun, Luo Yusheng (Sun Honglei) finds his aging mother seized with grief over the death of her husband. She insists that her son help her arrange a traditional funeral for his father in which the villagers carry his casket by foot many miles from the hospital back to the village. In an attempt to assess the importance of his mother's wishes, Luo contemplates his parents's marriage. The grainy black and white footage of Luo's China bursts into vibrant color as the story of the courtship of Luo's parents unfolds in a flashback. Zhao Di, (Zhang Ziyi), the most beautiful girl in the village, falls in love at first sight with Changyu (Zheng Hao), a primary-schoolteacher. As their feelings for each other deepen so does the symbolism of the only road that leads from the village to the city.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful and true
An old village teacher gets caught in a snowstorm while trying to raise funds for a new schoolhouse and dies of heart failure. His grown son comes home from the city to village elders hoping he'll convince his grieving mother to accept a truck or a tractor to transport the corpse back to the village for burial. His mother insists that his friends from the village should carry the coffin on "the road home" in accordance with ancient customs. The village elders and the son all agree that this is unreasonable but make allowances for an old woman in her grief while trying to think of ways to change her mind. But the son gradually comes around to his mother's way of thinking, coming up with a little practical compromise -- he will pay for people to carry his father home in place of the village's young who have all left -- and then finds himself surprised by the turnout as his father makes his last journey home.

The film begins in the present in black and white, enhancing the wintry conditions and the bare poverty of his mother's home and of the village as well as the widow's grief. But as his memory returns to the past, his parents' love story comes to life in gorgeous colour. This transition is not unknown in film (see "Bonjour Tristesse") but its use here is especially effective: the meadows and the trees, the hills, the narrow dirt road, the simple structures, the rustic clothes bloom on the screen in all their hues. The girl's mother lacking sight is almost an irony in all the vivid colour of the past, but you realize that she is no less attuned to her daughter and the goings-on around her. The blacks and whites especially suit the starkness of the village and the snow-covered road in winter and emphasize the cold, bare rooms of the old family home and the old woman's pain. Funnily enough, it also sits well with the affection and the respect that become apparent as the villagers and former students take it in turn to carry their old teacher home.

Loaded with nostalgia and the most cherished human values, bright with an innocence and rich with a romance one suspects have long departed from cinema, "The Road Home" reminds us of what we may have lost in the drive to progress and modernize: there's more to life than getting ahead or the next big thing. We don't always have to leave the past behind. Old customs have meaning. No matter when or where you go, people are different and the same.

A simple and beautiful story
This is a simple plot well rendered. "The Road Home" consists of a frame story, filmed in black and white, and an embedded story (a story within the story), filmed in vivid colour. It is a love story between an illiterate young woman and a village teacher, set in a superbly filmed background - it really makes you want to travel to China. It is a story of great love and rare devotion of a woman to a man. Though only a simple village girl, the heroine achieves her goal through sheer dedication and perseverance. Despite the straightforward plot line, the film is full of symbols, such as a food bowl, a hair pin, a grandmother who wept when her husband died until she became blind, and the road home itself. I found the many references to popular Chinese beliefs and superstitions fascinating, I've learnt a few things about Chinese culture, and I was left with a desire to explore more about it. The film also has a political dimension, not letting us forget that the love story is set in the years of the Cultural Revolution in China, and as a result we get a poignant reminder of how political issues can interefere with normal everyday life.

The cinematography is superb - the fields, the heroine's clothes, the food, the bowl, are filmed in vibrant, eye-pleasing colours, and enchant the eye.

This film is a gem, and I wholeheartedly recommend it!

To honor a teacher
Occasionally, an American film will come along that pays tribute to the teaching profession. MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS (1994) was a terrific one that comes immediately to mind. THE ROAD HOME is a simple and poignant love story, as well as one about the honor accorded a teacher after long years of service. It comes from China, which perhaps has traditionally assigned teachers more social respect than here in the U.S.

As the film opens, Luo Yusheng (Sun Honglei) is traveling back to his birthplace, a mountain village in northern China. (The scenery is perhaps reminiscent of the Rocky Mountain foothills on the eastern slope.) His father has died, and he's returning home to comfort his aged mother. On arrival, he learns that his father, who was the village schoolteacher for the previous forty years, expired in a nearby city. His mother, Zhao Di (Zhao Yuelin) insists that his body in its coffin be brought back in the traditional manner, i.e. hand carried by the local men, such that "he will remember the road home". She also has her son bring out of storage an ancient and decrepit loom, on which she weaves a covering for the coffin. As far as the plot is concerned, this activity serves as the takeoff point to the lengthy 1958 flashback, which tells the story of how the 18-year old Zhao Di (now played by Zhang Ziyi) fell in love with the handsome young teacher, Luo Changyu (Zheng Hao), who arrives in the village to help build the one-room school and begin classes. In that earlier time, Di, as the prettiest maiden in town, had been selected to weave the red banner to be attached as a good omen to the main roof crossbeam of the completed classroom.

The young Di is the reason to watch THE ROAD HOME. Zhang Ziyi is utterly captivating as the uncomplicated village girl, who sets out to win the bachelor teacher's heart by cooking her best recipes. There's absolutely no hint of sex, violence or profanity, much less any special FX. It's the type of film that most Tinseltown producers probably wouldn't even consider making. It's sweet and gentle, and reminds the viewer of the bond that grows between husband and wife during decades of marriage, as well as the lasting influence a good teacher can have on students. Cynics and the maladjusted should stay away or risk Rolling Eyeballs Syndrome.

I found myself liking this film a lot despite its sweetness and predictable plot. Perhaps I should re-listen to my audio self-help tapes on Becoming the Curmudgeon.