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The Road Home [1999]
![The Road Home [1999]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EB85SJPML._SL160_.jpg)
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
RRP: £19.99
Our Price: £4.76 (subject to change)
Editorial
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).
Simply beautiful!
Review date: 2008-03-13 Rating: 10 out of 10
A cynic would probably say that this film represents an idealised view of love,but so what.
One soon becomes wholly immersed in the story,and completely captivated by Zhang Ziyi's portrayal of a young woman in love.
One can see in this early film Zhang Ziyi's ability to convey emotion by a subtle facial expression that was so apparent in "House of Flying Daggers"
If you do not find this film touching,I suggest you check you still have a pulse!
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Reviews
A Beautiful Film
Review date: 2007-10-31 Rating: 10 out of 10
I have read all the glowing reviews on Amazon and I have to wholeheartedly agree with them.
This is a wonderful film, with a simple but touching plot and as we have come to expect from a Zhang Yimou film it looks beautiful and has a score to match.
Its just achingly beautiful, capturing the essence of love and devotion a woman can have for a man, from the first day they meet to the last, as a romantic at heart I dont think I have ever seen it done better than this.
And as for Zhang Ziyi she is, and was always going to become a star, she lights up the screen.
I can only say you have to see it.
The most beautiful movie which you have ever seen...Unforgettable
Review date: 2007-08-04 Rating: 10 out of 10
The most beautiful movie which you have ever seen...Unforgettable !!! Make you question yourself who you really love.
World, Meet Zhang Ziyi
Review date: 2007-07-14 Rating: 10 out of 10
Try to endure the monochrome prologue and epilogue portions of this movie. It'll be worth it because the core of this movie is a brightly colored flashback to a Chinese village in the 1950's. The story is essentially one long flirtation as a young woman over the course of four seasons tries to win the attention of the new schoolteacher.
This was Planet Earth's introduction to the delightful Zhang Ziyi (or, for Westerners expecting the family name last: Ziyi Zhang). It is hard to believe that this exuberant girl is played by the same actress who later played the dour whirlwind in 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon'.
Just as it was inevitable that the schoolteacher fall in love with the young woman, it was inevitable that legions of movie-going Earthlings would fall in love with Zhang Ziyi.
Beautiful and true
Review date: 2007-02-21 Rating: 10 out of 10
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.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Hao Zheng
Bin Li
Honglei Sun
Ziyi Zhang
Yulian Zhao
Director(s):
Recording label: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
EAN: 5035822283831
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2001-04-16
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audience rating: Universal, suitable for all
Region code: 2
Running time: 86 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1999
Language: Arabic (Subtitled)
Language: Bulgarian (Subtitled)
Language: Czech (Subtitled)
Language: Danish (Subtitled)
Language: Dutch (Subtitled)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: Finnish (Subtitled)
Language: Greek (Subtitled)
Language: Hebrew (Subtitled)
Language: Hindi (Subtitled)
Language: Hungarian (Subtitled)
Language: Icelandic (Subtitled)
Language: Norwegian (Subtitled)
Language: Polish (Subtitled)
Language: Swedish (Subtitled)
Language: Turkish (Subtitled)
Language: Mandarin Chinese (Original Language)