Coming Home [Blu-ray]

The stunningly successful team of Chinese actress Gong Li and director Zhang Yimou come together once again to produce another beautiful movie to add to their legacy.Set against the Cultural Revolution and the years in the aftermath, Coming Home (based on the story by noted Chinese writer Geling Yan), focuses on a husband and wife who are separated when the husband Lu (a brilliant, understated performance by Chen Daoming) is sent away for "re-education," leaving his wife Feng (the incomparable Gong Li) and young daughter Dan Dan behind. Ten years later, a brief encounter occurs and the repercussions from that meeting form the basis for the rest of this emotionally engaging and heartbreaking character study.Superficially, Coming Home is a heart-rending love story. Underneath, it speaks to the tragedies that linger long after the political landscape has shifted. It amazes me that Yimou is able to produce these movies in today’s China, despite the governmental oversight of all art (the film won the Golden Lotus for best movie in 2014). While not an in-your-face indictment of the policies that underlie the plot, it does force the viewer to consider the long-term effects of Mao’s years in power. Regardless, Coming Home is a gorgeously filmed, emotionally draining, and thought-provoking powerhouse of a film.The Blu-ray disc offers a commentary from the director as well as a Q & A with him from the Toronto Film Festival.

This movie is really beautiful but also profoundly sad. Gongli is of course, perfect as always as the protagonist with memory issues. The acting is stellar. Great movie about what love should be like!

This is a great movie with beautiful acting, solid story, and superb directing. Yimou Zhang proved again he is a master director.

The is a love story that will grip your heart. The wife loses her memory but faithfully goes to the train station to meet her newly released imprisoned husband. Her husband did arrive sometime earlier and tries to restore her memory of their life together. Although she never does remember, he faithfully stands by her.

I caught myself watching this movie (like Red Lantern) because one moment led to another to another and then I couldn't stop watching.....and i don't think i breathed much through this movie either. This movie is all about subtlety - little said but so much in facial expressions. I've now watched several movies with Gong Li and the director and being an English-only speaker I think enhances my attention to the detail this pair brings to the screen. Yes i read the English subtitles but I could almost watch the movie without them. I can't recommend this movie highly enough. I bought the DVD, as I did with Raise the Red Lantern.

China's greatest film director, Zhang Yimou, tells the story of an anti-climactic homecoming for a released political prisoner in Coming Home. Powerful portrayals by the lead male and female players, Chen Daoming as Lu Yanshi and Gong Li as Feng Wanyu, as a doomed couple whose marriage has been wrecked by the harshness of the Cultural Revolution, lift the film to the level of the memorable. The prisoner finds his wife is suffering from amnesia and does not recognise him and, with infinite patience, he tries to awaken her memory of their love. Although slightly static in its latter sections, this film stands as a subtle social commentary embedded within a humane story of struggle.

Just another great movie by Gong Li and Zhang Yimou. Political prisoner husband comes home but wife has Alzheimers and can't remember him. This is another great acted and well shot movie by Zhang and Gong Li. I own all of her movies and she never disappoints. To Live, Raise The Red Lantern, Ju Dou, Red Sorghum, Farewell My Concubine and Shanghai Triad.

Repetitive sentimental nonsense with some interesting historical background.