Coming Home

Acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou reunites with his initial muse, Gong Li (Ju Dou), for the first time in two decades for this drama illustrating the human devastation of China's Cultural Revolution. Gong plays Feng, a teacher whose husband Lu (Chen Daoming) has been imprisoned for unnamed crimes. When he is finally released after decades, she doesn't recognize him, no matter what he does to jog her memory. So he becomes her loyal companion, reading aloud the letters that he wrote while in prison (unsent at the time, they arrive all at once in a crate) and accompanying her to the train station to await the return of her "husband." Meanwhile, he also repairs the relationship between Feng and their daughter (Zhang Huiwen), once a promising ballet dancer whose career was halted by her father's imprisonment. Coming Home is a touching story of two people in love who can never be truly together again thanks to the scars left by the Cultural Revolution. Zhang directs with a quiet intimacy that focuses on the devotion, regret, and commitment of the characters, and the film benefits from a nuanced performance by Gong. Recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by director Zhang Yimou, a Toronto Film Festival Q&A with Zhang (19 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for this fine foreign character study.] (S. Axmaker)