Coming Home 2014

     This film is adapted from The Criminal Lu Yanshi written by Geling Yan and the time period is the last days of the Cultural Revolution in China.  The Revolution lasted from 1966 until 1976.  Lu Yanshi and Feng Wanyu are a couple with a daughter Dandan.  Lu is arrested and sent to a reeducation labor camp.  He breaks out of the camp ten years later, Feng and Dandan are warned not to have any contact with him.  Dandan loses the lead-dancing role in a school program because of this incident even though she was the better performer.  Lu asks Feng to come to the train station to meet him.  She goes there but policemen begin chasing Lu and they only get to see each other briefly.  Lu is released but Feng doesn’t recognize him.  She suffered a fall at the train station and now she has amnesia.  She goes every day to the station to look for Lu.

     There is a lot going on in the background because of the political persecutions of this time period.  The reason Lu was arrested isn’t given but it could be a minor incident or nothing he actually did.  Every day Feng is waiting and looking for Lu but he is living right across the street and she thinks he is someone else.   She doesn’t remember a lot of things because there are notes telling her to turn off the lights and lock the door.  This has a slow pace but it is interesting.  3 ½* (I liked this movie)

     

109 min, Drama directed by Yimou Zhang with Li Gong, Daoming Chen, Huiwen Zhang, Tao Guo, Ni Yan, Chun Li, Jia-yi Zhang, Peiqi Liu, Jiali Ding, Bai Qing Xin, Fen Zu, Xiaoyi Chen.

Note:  Imdb 7.3 out of 10, 92% critic 86% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 3 ½*, Amazon 4.4* out of 5* with 16 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in Beijing China.  There is little information about the Cultural Revolution because a film including this will never be released from China.  Only books can portray what happened to the people and the country.  Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Communist Party believed bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society to restore capitalism.  The movement involved the youth, military urban workers and the Party leadership.  Many senior officials were purged and there was a massive struggle between all classes of society.  This film won the Golden Lotus for best movie in 2014.