Reviews

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  ★★★★ review by Eli Hayes on Letterboxd

  Watch this movie. Don't even hesitate.
  
  It hasn't been out very long,
  
  And I was fortunate enough to catch it early on,
  
  But it's currently rated too lowly on Letterboxd, IMO.
  
  Maybe you can help change that.
  
  I hope you love it as much as I did.

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  ★★★★ review by Enfant du Siècle on Letterboxd

  In the dawn of the cultural revolution, a man escapes from prison to join his family after a ten-year absence; his daughter, for whom he is practically unknown, and under the strong influence of chinese nationalism, betrays him and inflicts damage that seems irreparable. After a few years Lu is released and returns home once again to find a completely broken family; his daughter Dandan lives with great guilt for her past deeds and his wife Feng, who lives trapped in an almost static world, does not recognize him. Coming Home is a story about forgiveness, atonement and the weight of the past in our lives; about oblivion, memory and all those things that tie us together as human beings and evoke our memories. A beautiful, intimate tale of a family trying to rescue what little they have left; a story bathed in melancholy and resignation that features the always captivating presence of Gong Li and a good job behind the camera of Zhang Yimou.

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  ★★★★½ review by Rocco on Letterboxd

  As a huge fan of Yimou's Hero and Raise the Red Lantern, I knew I would enjoy Coming Home. What I didn't know is that I would like it for completely different reasons.

  While his earlier works (at least the ones I've seen) are great because of their aesthetics and technical achievements, particularly with his use of sound, Coming Home is more notable for its narrative. This isn't to say the techniques are not there - the sound is outstanding and the visuals, though bleak, are effective - but that the narrative is so much more enticing than the others.

  During China's cultural revolution, Feng (Li Gong) and Li (Daoming Chen) are seperated. Escaped after a decade, Li returns, however their daughter Dandan (Huiwen Zhang) will not allow the two to meet. When Li is sent to a prison camp, Dandan cuts her father out of all of the family pictures, causing Feng to kick her out of the house. A few years later, Li is released from prison camp, only to come home and find that Feng has a rare form of amnesia and does not remember him.

  Coming Home is both tragic and intensely hopeful. It is, perhaps, the most romantic film of the year and, while the ending may not be what one expects, it is as beautiful as it gets.

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  ★★★★ review by Kirenia on Letterboxd

  Esta es la primera película de Zhang Yimou que veo es desarrollada relativamente en la actualidad, y aunque no estuvo nada mal, sigo prefiriendo las de época.

  Excelente como siempre la dirección, al igual que toda la producción y el ámbito técnico. Y definitivamente Gong Li es una de las mejores actrices de las que he tenido el placer conocer su trabajo, nunca me han decepcionado sus actuaciones.

  Gui lai fue casi como una fusión entre Hachi y The Notebook, pero aún así vale la pena un vistazo. Conmovedora.

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  ★★★★ review by Patrick Bratin on Letterboxd

  If you're the kind of person who thinks old people are cute, the last scene of Coming Home will crush your heart into a million pieces.

  This is a return to a much more personal story from Zhang Yimou but he never forgets the bigger picture. The oppression of Mao's Communist rule is laid bare for all to see as it rips the family at the centre of the film - all played brilliantly by the stoic Chen Daoming (Lu), the ever-brilliant Gong Li (Yu) and the fiercely strong Zhang Huiwen (Dandan) - apart. But the intimacy of the film comes as the shadowy Communist presence is interweaved into the oft-repeated amnesiac lover tale, making it a more tragic affair but making the characters all the more relatable for it.

  Zhang Yimou ranked

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