''Coming Home'' () is a 2014 Chinese

historical drama A historical drama (also period drama, period piece or just period) is a dramatic work set in the past, usually used in the context of film and television, which presents history, historical events and characters with varying degrees of fiction s ...

film directed by

Zhang Yimou Zhang Yimou (; born 14 November 1950) is a Chinese filmmaker.Tasker, Yvonne (2002). "Zhang Yimou" i''Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers'' Routledge Publishing, p. 412. . Google Book Search. Retrieved 21 August 2008. A leading figure of China's Cinem ...

and starring

Chen Daoming Chen Daoming (born 26 April 1955) is a Chinese actor who has starred in various genres of film and television series. Career Chen graduated from the Central Academy of Drama. His first notable role was Puyi (the last emperor of China) in the 19 ...

Gong Li Gong Li ( zh, s=巩俐, t=鞏俐; born 31 December 1965) is a Chinese-born Singaporean actress. She is regarded as one of the best actresses in China today, known for her versatility and naturalistic performances. She starred in three of the ...

, and Zhang Huiwen. It was released in the US on September 11, 2015, and first shown to the public on the May 20, 2014, at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...

. The story is adapted from the novel ''The Criminal Lu Yanshi'' written by novelist

Geling Yan Geling Yan (; born 16 November 1958) is a Chinese-American author and screenwriter. Early life Yan was born in Shanghai, China in 1958. She is the second child of Yan Dunxun and Jia Lin. She has an elder brother Yan Geping (严歌平). Her fath ...

Plot

Lu Yanshi was a professor before being sent to the

labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see British and American spelling differences, spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are unfree labour, forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have ...

during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

. He escapes from the labor camp in

Xining Xining is the Capital (political), capital and most populous city of Qinghai province in western China and the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau. As of the 2020 census, it had 2,467,965 inhabitants (2,208,708 as of 2010), of whom 1,954,795 l ...

to meet his long-missed wife Feng Wanyu and daughter Dandan. However, the police were already waiting outside the house to arrest him. Dandan, a teenage ballerina, could not play the leading role in '' Red Detachment of Women'' due to her father's outlaw status. Under the temptation of regaining the leading role, Dandan reveals her parents' secret meeting plan to the police. The meeting ends with the capture of Lu, but Dandan still does not get the leading role. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Lu comes home only to find his family broken- his wife suffering from amnesia and his daughter working as a textile worker. Under the shock of a former official's sexual harassment, his wife sometimes mistakes Lu as Officer Fang instead of her husband. To reawaken his wife's memory, Lu disguises himself as a stranger so he can be near his wife. She recognizes him only as a letter reader or a piano tuner, and he never could live close enough with his chaste wife because of her trauma. During these years, Lu continued to write to his wife as a way of communicating with her and to convince her to forgive their daughter. Several years later Feng is waiting to receive her husband outside the railway station on a snowy day, and Lu is standing with her, pretending to be a pedicab driver.

Cast

as Lu Yanshi *

as Feng Wanyu, Lu Yanshi's wife * Zhang Huiwen as Dandan, Yanshi and Wanyu's daughter * Guo Tao *

Liu Peiqi Liu Peiqi (; born 30 November 1957) is a Chinese actor. He started his training in 1979 when he joined Military Art School. He joined Military Drama Group in Xinjiang Province in 1983. In 1985 he starred in his first movie, '' Father and Son'', d ...

Zu Feng Zu Feng (; born February 23, 1974) is a Chinese actor and director. Zu first attracted attention in 2008 for his role as Li Ya in the successful TV drama '' Lurk''. He has earned and been nominated for numerous awards during his career, includi ...

* Yan Ni *Xin Baiqing *Zhang Jiayi *Chen Xiaoyi *

Ding Jiali Ding Jiali (; born 16 December 1959) is a Chinese actress. Her career accolades include two Plum Blossom Prizes and Golden Rooster Awards, a Hundred Flowers Award, Flying Apsaras Award, Huabiao Award, Golden Phoenix Award, Chinese Film Me ...

Production

The film was shot in

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

and

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

Releases

''Coming Home'' had its international premiere at the

2014 Cannes Film Festival The 67th Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2014. New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion was the head of the jury for the main competition. French actor Lambert Wilson hosted the opening and closing ceremonies. Turkish filmmaker Nuri ...

in the out of competition section. It was scheduled to be screened in the Special Presentations section of the

2014 Toronto International Film Festival The 39th annual Toronto International Film Festival, the 39th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held in Canada from 4–14 September 2014. David Dobkin (director), David Dobkin's film ''The Judge (2014 film), The Judg ...

Reception

Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film has a rating of 89% based on 80 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "The rare tearjerking melodrama with sociopolitical subtext, ''Coming Home'' plucks the heartstrings with thought-provoking power." According to

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which sampled 21 critics and calculated a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, the film received "universal acclaim".

Box office

The film grossed ¥23.7 million (US$3.80 million) on the first day in China and reached US$46,000,000. It earned a total of internationally.

References

External links

* * * * * {{Navboxes , title = Awards for ''Coming Home'' , list = {{Golden Lotus Award for Best Picture {{Hong Kong Film Award for Best Film from Mainland and Taiwan 2014 drama films 2014 films Chinese drama films Films directed by Zhang Yimou Films based on Chinese novels Films about the Cultural Revolution Films shot in Beijing Films shot in Tianjin Chinese independent films IMAX films Le Vision Pictures films Sony Pictures Classics films Films with screenplays by Zou Jingzhi 2014 independent films 2010s Mandarin-language films