Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles

Chinese director Zhang Yimou follows up his lavish, dreamlike martial arts triumphs Hero and House of Flying Daggers with a gently moving tearjerker about an elderly Japanese man who journeys to a remote area of China on a mission he hopes will lead to reconciliation with his folklorist son, who is dying of liver cancer. Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles is the title of a solo song in a Chinese mask opera that the son had been planning to record on his next trip to China, expressing a special keenness to have it performed by a renowned regional singer. The father decides to travel to China to do the filming himself, and the bulk of the picture is devoted to the trip, during which the old man must depend upon translators to arrange—as a condition of performing—a meeting between the singer (in prison for stabbing a supporting player who insulted him) and his eight-year-old son (whom he's never known). The guiding narrative principle here is clearly the juxtaposition of the stories of two fathers trying to connect with their offspring, but while the film might have become terribly mawkish, Zhang avoids this by deftly mixing humor with the sentimental elements, and is aided by an excellent cast and intriguing locales. Compared to Zhang's recent epics, this is a small film, but one with a large heart. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a 19-minute “making-of” featurette, and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a solid foreign film.] (F. Swietek)