Good concept, poorly executed.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

A beautiful movie, "Coming Home" tells the story of a Chinese family broken apart because the Cultural Revolution and politics, a family that will try to still be a family through really difficult times. Shot with simplicity and a clear focus by Yimou Zhang, the movie comes alive thanks to the amazing performances of the three principal characters, played by Li Gong, Daoming Chen and Huiwen Zhang. It is Li Gong, though, who stands head and shoulders above everything around her, with a performance that will most the viewer's eyes and so alive that it will remain with them long after the credits roll.The story, as said above, centers around a Chinese family. The father, Lu Yanshi, is imprisoned by the system during the Cultural Revolution. Feng Wanyu, his wife and Dan Dan, the daughter, stay back home, trying to survive the difficult times, especially as their lives have been marked by their relationship to Lu Yanshi. When Lu Yanshi gets released, he finds a family very different from the one he left.And here is where Go Ling comes to shine. Her character, Feng Wanyu, lives too much trough her husband (one of those abnegated characters that seem to be born to serve and worry about others), but Go Ling just inhabits the character with so much mastery that you won't be able to take your eyes of the screen. Every gesture, sentence, look, every movement of the hand is a piece of work, the creation of a memorable character.This is a movie that lives and dies through its performances. Luckily for us, they save us from a movie that could have been pure cheese and delivers us a vibrant look to life, privilege and loss.

The subject of this movie is noble. It's about a woman whose husband is incarcerated for many years in China's version of the Gulag. She suffers brain damage at the hand of Chinese police thugs and is unable to recognize her husband when he does return. This should have been a good movie on an interesting subject. It wasn't. It faded after the first hour – and that's being generous. Here's what went wrong – It becomes repetitive – we are taken to the train station over and over as the woman awaits her husband. He is with her when this is done. He tries various mechanisms to achieve recognition. This is done over and over again – we got the message after the first couple of tries. It becomes a very boring version of the old Bill Murray "Ground Hog Day".Speaking of the word "boring" the film becomes this. It has no energy whatsoever. There is absolutely no humour at all – two solid excruciating hours of grimness and glumness. The story becomes claustrophobic. In the same room, with the same people having the same conversations, trying so desperately to make this woman remember the past. Too much of the same old thing.

"Coming Home" (2014 release from China; 110 min.) brings the story of Lu, a "rightist bastard" during the Cultural Revolution. As the movie opens, we see a woman (Feng) and her daughter (Dandan) being called into the Propaganda Office of the girl's school, where they learn that Lu (the husband and father, respectively) has escaped from labor camp, and that they are not to see him. Feng and Lu nevertheless decide to meet up at the train station, where Lu gets captured again. We are then told "Three years later, the Cultural Revolution ends", and Lu arrives back home. Much to his shock, Feng does not recognize him. What caused Feng's amnesia? Will she ultimately recognize him? To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from director Zhang Yimou (best known here for "House of the Flying Daggers"), Here he tackles a potentially sensitive topic in China, namely the horrible Cultural Revolution. But don't think that this is a political movie. Instead, it is a love story that happens to be set during and after the Cultural Revolution. Feng is played by the leading Chinese actress Gong Li (think of her as the Meryl Streep of China), and plays the role with restraint and visible hurt. Special mention also for the beautiful Zhang Huiwen in the role of Dandan (check out the ballet performances!). Last but not least, I couldn't help but notice that the piano you hear in the orchestral score is played by none other than Lang Lang. Bottom line: "Coming Home" is a slow-moving (in the best possible way) movie that examines the long shadows of the Cultural Revolution through the eyes of one particular couple.This movie is now a year and a half, yet it recently showed up out of the blue at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati. Better late than never I suppose. The weekday evening screening where I saw this at was attended poorly. A shame. If you are in the mood for a top-notch quality foreign movie that is light years away from your standard Hollywood fare, you may want to give this a try. "Coming Home" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

This movie is just ridiculous. We can know what the end will be 20min after the movie started, and we can even know what brought this movie to the end after half an hour. The movie will not come to an end because time is not up and the unrecognizing affairs are sure to happen over and over because the time is not up. When the time is up, I mean the time that a movie usually takes(for 2 hours APPROX.), she will succeed to recognize him. Isn't it ridiculous? A movie with a childish plot just wasting our time in waiting its end!!!Those so-called touched moments are just like a funny chess play. We know who the winner is so what's the point? Every step seems so redundant!