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4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
93
WALL-E
86
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Edge of Heaven, The
83
Paranoid Park
80
Encounters at the End of the World
79
Visitor, The
78
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
75
Boy A
74
Mongol
73
Kung Fu Panda
73
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
72
Priceless
72
Transsiberian
71
To the Limit
71
Tropic Thunder
70
Standard Operating Procedure
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
65
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
63
Planet B-Boy
63
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, The
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
63
This Christmas
62
Mister Foe
61
Stuck
61
On the Rumba River
61
Incredible Hulk, The
57
Stone Angel, The
57
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
55
Sukiyaki Western Django
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
54
Get Smart
54
What We Do Is Secret
53
Mister Lonely
52
Milarepa
49
Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie, The
48
Death Defying Acts
47
Strangers, The
46
Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Henry Poole is Here
39
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37
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35
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34
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33
Elite Squad
32
Perfect Holiday, The
25
Hell Ride
20
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Beer for My Horses
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles
Sony Pictures Classics
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG for mild thematic elements
Starring
Ken Takakura,
Kiichi Nakai,
Shinobu Terajima,
and
Jiang Wen
From three-time Academy Award nominated director Zhang Yimou comes a moving story of one man's journey across China's heartland. (Sony Pictures Classics)
| GENRE(S): |
Art/Independent
|
Drama
|
Foreign
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Yimou Zhang
Jingzhi Zou
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Yimou Zhang
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: February 6, 2007
Theatrical: September 1, 2006
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
107 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Hong Kong / China / Japan |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Mandarin / Japanese (with English subtitles) |
Original title "Qian li zou dan qi"

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...
100
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
This is a movie for all cultures and all people, for families and especially for those who have lost them.

90
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
It's a masterful little film, and, thanks to Zhang's seasoned hands, it's subtly heartfelt but never manipulative.

83
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
Zhang Yimou is a master of intimate character pieces.

83
Entertainment Weekly
Scott Brown
Ken Takakura, a great rain-creased oak of an actor, delivers a quietly massive performance.

80
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
This new picture will reach only a few devoted American spectators. That's too bad, because once you get used to the apparent flatness and emotional reserve of this picture, it's a sad, slyly comic tale of family trauma and reconciliation that packs a wallop.

80
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
Turning away from his highly entertaining epics "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers," Zhang Yimou goes for utter simplicity in Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, a film of much distilled wit and wisdom.

75
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Zhang's film is sweet and sentimental nearly to a fault; luckily, he's such a master, you'll hardly notice how shamelessly you're being manipulated.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
G. Allen Johnson
Although "Riding" is a small-scale movie as opposed to a big-scale epic, it is just as ambitious.

75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Bill White
Zhang is a master of detail and spectacle. There is also plenty of comedy, particularly in the scenes with linguistically challenged translators.

75
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
It's a film that can leave you on the fence. There's great facility with non-pro actors, with unusual locations, with both intimate and epic-scale scenes. Yet at the same time, Takata's reserve overwhelms the picture and makes its efforts to elicit emotions seem clumsy.

75
Miami Herald
Marta Barber
Cynics may not fall for its melodrama, but Riding Alone is good for everyone else, including children.

70
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
Embedded here in a culture of formalities, with some of the arcs and gestures of that culture, it almost becomes an opera of its own.

70
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Thomas
Unlikely to be ranked as one of Zhang's greatest accomplishments but is clearly the work of a major filmmaker. It is best seen as a heartfelt tribute to Takakura, as heroic and enduring a star as John Wayne.

70
Variety
Russell Edwards
A simple, low-budget, contempo dramedy -- with plenty of clever plot reversals.

70
The New York Times
Nathan Lee
A little uncanny (has it been digitally manipulated?) and a whole lot clichéd, the tableau speaks of melancholy graced by a pale sliver of hope. You'd roll your eyes if they weren't so dazzled.

67
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
It's the kind of story that shows more than it tells, a story that's forged in the spaces that exist in between characters and spaces.

63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
My mood kept fluctuating, as did my reaction when the end credits rolled: This is seriously lovely; this is fluff; this is seriously lovely fluff.

60
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
Slow and pretty and duller than you'd hope for from an art-house sophisticate like Zhang.

50
New York Post
V.A. Musetto
Riding Alone features a moving performance by Takakura (often called the Asian Clint Eastwood), as well as pretty cinematography. But the mushy script, co-written by Zhang, never rises above that of a TV soap opera.

50
Christian Science Monitor
Robert Koehler
This is not storytelling by a confident artist. Even Zhang's former mastery of visual form has become shaky, with a pedestrian handling of dramatic scenes and a surfeit of picture-postcard landscape shots.

40
Film Threat
Phil Hall
Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou has created so many memorable films (most recently the wuxia double-play "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers") that one can easily excuse his new clinker Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles.


The average user rating for this movie is 9.1 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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