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Movie Review: The Road Home (Wo de fu qin mu qin) (Yimou Zhang)

Based on a book, this is a love story about a girl in a village in 1950's China who falls in love with the teacher that moves in from the city. The whole movie has a bittersweet tone to it, though, because it is tols as a flashback by their son, who comes back to the village when his father dies to make funeral arrangements. The flashback sequence seems to be the heart of the movie, showing the simple interactions they have where they discover their feelings for each other in very indirect ways. Thinking about it, I'm not sure how people can fall in love with so little interaction, but while watching the movie Ziyi Zhang's performance makes me believe it. I was disappointed when the flashback ended a little abruptly, and we didn't get to really see them as a couple at any point. It turns out, though, that the real heart of the movie comes after the flashback, when his former students come back to help perform the village's tradition funeral march, carrying the casket by hand from the city over the mountain back to the village. It was a very simple but well-told movie, which fit the story excellently. And the look of the movie was extremely well done, with the sets and the costumes and the scenery.