Review: COMING HOME Is Poignant, Beautiful

COMING HOME, the latest film from Zhang Yimou, is a period piece set amidst the Cultural Revolution. I don't want to get bogged down in a half-assed history lesson, but this context is kind of important.

So deal with the half-assed history lesson or skip the next paragraph.

In the 1960s, following the catastrophic failure of the Great Leap Forward (or, as The New York Times put it, "Mao's Great Leap to Famine"), Chairman Mao Zedong was more than a little worried about his legacy and China's commitment to the ideals of communism. Hence, he initiated the Cultural Revolution, mobilizing the youth of China into Red Guards with a directive to attack any and all things traditional and/or bourgeois (i.e. the biggest threats to himself and communism). This manifested in attacks on authority figures, intellectuals, and the elderly with the ultimate goal of destroying the "Four Olds" (old ideas, old customs, old habits, and old culture) and bringing art and social institutions in line with communist ideology.

By the time the Cultural Revolution came to an end in 1976, many had died, many were imprisoned and millions had been sent to the countryside for re-education in work camps. A little over a decade later, Zhang Yimou released his first film, 1987's RED SORGHUM, and has since become arguably the most well-known Chinese director in the world, responsible for RAISE THE RED LANTERN (1991), HERO (2002), and HOUSE OF THE FLYING DAGGERS (2004) - among others.

In his new film COMING HOME, based on the latter half of Geling Yan's novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi, Gong Li plays Feng Wanyu, a schoolteacher whose world is turned upside down when she's told her husband, a political prisoner named Lu Yanshi (Chen Daoming), has escaped from a labor camp. Despite the warnings of government officials and the vehement disapproval of her daughter, Dan Dan (Zhang Huiwen), Yu makes plans to meet with her husband. After a failed rendezvous that sees Lu captured and Yu injured, three years pass. The Cultural Revolution comes to an end and Lu is given his notice of rehabilitation and released. But when he finally returns home, he finds his wife no longer recognizes him. Told she has amnesia, and discovering his wife and daughter are now estranged, Lu begins the agonizing, arduous task of trying to reawaken his wife's memory and rebuild his family.

Generally speaking, Chinese cinema is known for its melodrama, and COMING HOME is certainly melodramatic. The film is sentimental, poignant and beautifully scored. Though Zhang Yimou is known for his cinematography, COMING HOME is, dare I say, drab and muted (at least compared to his previous work). But it is not to the detriment of the film. It serves to emphasize the film's excellent performances.

As Yu, Gong Li conveys so much through a furrowed brow and the angle to which she holds a comb to her hair. Her performance, coupled with subtle shifts in lighting (as in one heartbreaking scene where sunshine momentarily brightens Yu's face, the audience as optimistic and hopeful as Lu before the shadow of reality once again settles across her features), is devastating. Gong's interactions with Chen Daoming are a particular treat. Chen is determined and patient as Lu, which makes it all the worse in the moments he begins to break .

Dan Dan is an especially difficult character, but Zhang Huiwen plays her admirably. Zhang plays the headstrong nature of youth with her chin raised defiantly, but even as she whines and lashes out, as Lu reminds us late in the film, Dan Dan is only a child. (A child raised in a world with messages like "My parents may love me, but not as much as Chairman Mao" I might add.) In the second half of the film, Zhang impresses, displaying Dan Dan's inner turmoil quietly, with eyes cast low and soft-spoken half-answers.

It should be noted that COMING HOME is not without controversy. Zhang Yimou has received some criticism for skipping over (and then glossing over) the worst of the Cultural Revolution by focusing on Lu's return home, instead of his time in a work camp, to appease Chinese censors. And, to be fair, the eventual answer to a question Dan Dan asks Lu about her mother's memory loss ("If it was all to be close to her, to take care of her, does the rest really matter?") is also quite telling as to where this film leans politically. But let's not ignore the fact that in COMING HOME, forgetting is still a terrible tragedy.

Recommended Reading

China's Cultural Revolution: son's guilt over the mother he sent to her death

Writing China: Yan Geling, 'The Criminal Lu Yanshi'

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COMING HOME, directed by Zhang Yimou, stars Gong Li, Chen Daoming, and Zhang Huiwen. It is rated PG-13 for some thematic material.

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