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Road Home, The
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 18 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Shi Bao (also novel Remembrance)
Directed by: Yimou Zhang
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 25, 2001
DVD: November 27, 2001
Running Time: 89 minutes, Color / BW
Origin: China
Language(s): Mandarin with English subtitles
Summary
RATING: G for General Audiences
Starring Ziyi Zhang, Honglei Sun, Hao Zheng, Yuelin Zhao, Bin Li, Guifa Chang, and Wencheng Sung
The story of a Chinese man who works in the city, far from the village where he was born. When his father dies he comes home for the funeral and spends three days with his mother, thinking back to the period in which his parents met and fell in love. (Sony Pictures Classics)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Curse of the Golden Flower Happy Times Hero House of Flying Daggers Not One Less Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A great love story and a deeply moving celebration of simple lives.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Shines with the kind of honesty that's very scarce in today's ultra-manipulative cinema.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
A gorgeous film with a vision strong enough to sustain heart-tugging, heightened by San Bao's romantic score, that verges on the sentimental.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The result is an enchanting story of love from an idealized past that endures in the mundane present.
Washington Post Desson Thomson
A beautifully textured, disarmingly simple movie about romantic devotion.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
It's the rare film that trusts both its audience's intelligence and its emotions.
Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan
The Road Home takes a path few movies choose to travel these days, but it's a very affecting journey.
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
This is a gentle, engaging narrative of constancy and devotion against all odds, both natural and bureaucratic, in which the past represents enduring family values and customs.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
A cinematic ballad of such seamless construction and exquisite tonal balance it transcends most of the pitfalls of movies that aspire to a classic, lyric simplicity.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The director finds poetry in the face of his lead actress, whose performance is as luminous and moving as the film itself.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
The flutes soar a little too often, but Yimou's film is genuinely moving.
USA Today Mike Clark
It's a sweet tale, but the movie's real subject is Zhang, the camera's muse that the lens adores.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
It's a simple story, reminiscent of the Iranian film "The Wind Will Carry Us."
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
With so many cynical Hollywood romances cluttering theaters, Zhang Yimou's unabashed simplicity is most welcome.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
As luminous as the star presence at its center. It's at once a touching teacher movie and an even more touching love story.
New York Post Lou Lumenick
The lyrical The Road Home is less political and less flashy than some previous films by Zhang Yimou.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Has a graceful simplicity that many will find hard to resist.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
The result is an interesting, if slightly unbalanced, hybrid: a social problem film with the warm heart of a deeply felt love story.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
Takes the simplest of stories and weaves a seductive, extremely moving portrait of a young woman’s unshakable love.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Rita Kempley
A nostalgic paean to China's fading pastoral ways, might easily be taken for an audition tape for Zhang Ziyi.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
Predictable, not so much from his (Zhang Yimou) previous movies as from the work of the many sentimentalists who have already plowed this well-tilled turf.
Read Full Review >New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein
Sad to say, the story is simply too slight to sustain the film.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
The Road Home is foremost enthralled, however, with its lead actress -- wide-eyed and pigtailed, revered in close-up after stunned close-up.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
By all current standards it's a startlingly ingenuous film.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 18 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Dan B. gave it a 3:
I remember being excited to see the new Zhang Yimou movie back when it was released. And then I saw it. And ever since, I have not been so excited about his movies. Pity.
Chad S. gave it a 5:
"The Road Home" is a movie about how cute Zhang Ziyi looks when she's in love. It's clear to us that the other Zhang is in love with his subject, because he alone may find Di's (Ziyi) compendium of long distance ogling at her village's new schoolteacher, a sequence that's made for compelling viewing. Yes, we note how her pigtails slap against her cheeks when she's excited. Yes, Di is adorable...and illiterate. "The Road Home" seems nostalgic for a time when women weren't allowed to be educated. The narrator, the deceased man's son, tells us that his mother never grew tired of eavesdropping on her husband's schoolhouse sessions for the last forty years. This woman's life on the periphery is treated with fond nostalgia. It's the audience's job to supply the horror.
Yoon C. gave it a 5:
Zhang Ziyi as an infatuated doe-eyed girl is annoying to the max, what with Zhimou's inappropriate use of slow-motion and lyrical visual waxing over peasant girl antics. It's interesting, even potentially comedic, that in a remote village a schoolteacher from the city can seem like a rock star, but the movie is so earnest and well-meaning that the only words that came to mind was Mao's "To rebel is justified". I'd like to toss this movie out the window. Zhimou, sometimes a fine director, has no business giving us a lecture on virtue. Yech.
David B. gave it a 10:
This movie is too good to be true!
Edmond B. gave it a 10:
This movie is definetly the best asian movie i've seen.
Harvey C. gave it a 10:
Most touching movie I've seen in a long time.
David C. gave it a 10:
This movie exemplifies the true essence of love and embodies the real reason for making movies. Honor, integrity, courage, and Love.
