Zhang Ziyi (the girl-warrior in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) gives a brilliantly earnest and girlish performance here as an idyllic rural teenager in 1950s China who falls in love with her remote village's new schoolteacher (Zheng Hao), a young man barely her senior. Ziyi's delicate, eager, ingenuous performance is the centerpiece of this unabashedly and deeply romantic film (even though there's not a single kiss, nor even an embrace due to cultural formalities), which is bookended by a moving present-day act in which the son of these two lovers returns to the village for his father's funeral. A wonderful work of emotional purity and simple visual gracefulness from acclaimed director Zhang Yimou (Not One Less), this is highly recommended. (R. Blackwelder)
The Road Home
Columbia TriStar, 89 min., G, VHS: $98.99, DVD: $29.95, Nov. 27 December 3, 2001
The Road Home
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