Coming Home (2014)

I love this movie so much

Please don't spend money on this.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The combination of Zhang Yimou and Gong Li has proven to be quite promising in the past, with movies like "Raise the red lantern" or "They live". With Zhangs ability to pick such interesting source material and his incredible and unique directing ability and Gong Li's ability to make such breath taking and believable performances its really no wonder. Now, with their latest release "Going home" it seems to me they hit their old mark.As described in the synopsis, the movie is a drama about a wife not remembering her husband as he comes home after two centuries of separation, since he was a political prisoner during the Cultural Revolution.The pacing of the movie was very well and the cinematography was overall quite nice, not outstanding like in Zhangs other movies, such as "Hero" or "Raise the red lantern", but it fits the movie.The acting of this movie was excellent, especially from Gong Li. It's nice to see her in a role that is so unique compared to everything she did before (although I have to say I haven't got the time yet to see all her works). She really likes to choose her roles to challenge herself and experience new things and that's one thing I really like about her. But also Chen Dao-Ming made a great performance and I really have to check out more movies with him. Also worth mentioning is Zhang Huiwen, she made a very nice performance as well and it was her debut role I might add.There are only two things in the movie I disliked. For one, I think many of the plot devices of the movie were unnecessarily shuffled into the face of the audience. I always appreciate it more when directors make certain details about character and their motivations not that obvious, only for people who pay attention. There are stories that don't really need it and it never bothered me in Zhangs works before, but I really noticed it in "Going home", because it could have given the movie another layer to it.Another thing that I disliked about the movie was its soundtrack. A really well composed soundtrack would have helped the emotional scenes be even better. Now they had a nice little piano piece rather at the end, but that alone wasn't enough. It was unusual for Zhang since his movies had such fitting scores before, making emotional scenes so complete. But I have to add that I really like how Zhangs can make scenes touching without using any soundtrack at all.So overall I can only recommend for you to check out Zhangs "Going home", it's a lovely and touching story, with very strong performances. I think it is very relatable even if you have never experienced something like that in your own life.

I'm disappointed in IMDb's tone-deafness in listing the Chinese names in reverse order, Westernized with family names last. For example, world famous, remarkable actress Gong Li is inexplicably listed here as Li Gong.The film itself, by great director Zhang Yimou (not Yimou Zhang), is a powerfully intimate story of a family broken by the Cultural Revolution. It offers just enough subtle orientation to facts and culture to draw me into the core of its story about three people struggling to sort our pain and confusion. It's a very beautiful and painful film.

The film contains absolutely minimum information about the dark side of the cultural revolution,which the books was all about. If you want to know more about that history, try read some books or some foreign documentaries, because a commercial movie that reveals those will never be released in mainland China and probably wouldn't even be finished, especially from a highly influential director like Zhang.The brilliant side of Zhang, is that if you know enough about that time period, none of those ugly facts that this movie missed needs to be described. The novel was fictional anyways, it is a reflection and a look at that ugly truth from a narrow but interesting angle. But Zhang didn't want the film to be about that. He chose only the last 20-30 pages of the book, beautifully painted out a love story of that generation, and stopped there. It is like a rotten apple covered with nice tasty chocolate, you take a tiny bite, you see a little bit of what's under and realize it is bad, but then you still tries carefully licking only the chocolate cover, without touching or even thinking about the ugly inside, and by the time you finish you will still remember mostly the nice tasty part of the story.If it is the ugly inside you are looking for, if you want to know how bad did it get during that time. Like mentioned earlier, go read the novel or look for other documentaries. Born well after that time period, even I can't bare the pain sometimes when I hear stories of that period. So thank you Zhang, for making some warm memories, and something not too bitter to chew with.

Coming Home is a great example of the way in which a movie can move you, play on your emotions, without being sentimental in a negative sense. Without being a tear-jerker. And without harsh images of struggle and war. But with excellent acting, small gestures and not so much words. This movie is all about empathy, first among the characters in the story depicted, but by consequence also among the audience, that is swept away and taken in by the sentiment.This doesn't mean that the story is only about love and compassion. The Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976) was far from being peaceful and compassionate. People were separated for years without any information, were forced to report any 'wrong' behavior that could 'harm' or 'threaten' the Communist Party. Coming Home shows how such an environment affects people at the individual, family level. People get damaged and family relations are shattered because of betrayal.Coming Home succeeds in portraying the consequences of such a regime, by showing what humanity and compassion mean. And that is what makes it special, and refreshing in a world where it sometimes feels like these values are hard to find.