Coming Home (2014 film)

Coming Home (Chinese: 归来; pinyin: guīlái; lit. 'The Return') is a 2014 Chinese historical drama film directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Chen Daoming and Gong Li.[1][2] 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.[3] The story is adapted from the novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi written by novelist Geling Yan.

Coming Home
Theatrical poster
Traditional Chinese歸來
Simplified Chinese归来
Directed byZhang Yimou
Screenplay byZou Jingzhi
Based onThe Criminal Lu Yanshi
by Geling Yan
Produced byWilliam Kong
Zhao Zhang
StarringChen Daoming
Gong Li
Zhang Huiwen
CinematographyXiaoding Zhao
Music byQigang Chen
Production
company
Le Vision Pictures
Distributed byEdko Films (Hong Kong)
GAGA (Japan)
Golden Village Pictures (Singapore)
Sony Pictures Classics (USA)
Release date
  • May 16, 2014 (2014-05-16)
Running time
111 minutes
CountryChina
LanguageMandarin
Box officeUS$49.7 million (international)

Plot

Lu Yanshi was a professor before being sent to the labor camp during the Cultural Revolution. He escapes from the labor camp in Xining 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.[4]

Cast

Production

The film was shot in Tianjin and Beijing.[5]

Releases

Coming Home had its international premiere at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival in the out of competition section.[6] It was scheduled to be screened in the Special Presentations section of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.[7]

Reception

Critical reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, 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."[8] According to Metacritic, which sampled 21 critics and calculated a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, the film received "universal acclaim".[9]

Box office

The film grossed ¥23.7 million (US$3.80 million) on the first day in China[10] and reached US$46,000,000.[11] It earned a total of US$49.7 million internationally.[12]

References
  1. Pamela McClintock (12 February 2014). "Berlin: Sony Classics Nears U.S. Deal for Zhang Yimou's 'Coming Home' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  2. Stephen Cremin (6 February 2014). "Wild Bunch launches high profile Asian slate". Film Business Asia. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  3. Kallon, Catherine (20 May 2014). "Huiwen Zhang In Lanvin - 'Coming Home' Cannes Film Festival Premiere". Redcarpet-fashionawards.com. Retrieved 1 September 2017.
  4. "the plot of 'coming home'". 18 May 2014. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  5. Patrick Frater (18 September 2014). "Zhang Yimou and Gong Li Reunited in 'Return'". Variety. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  6. Elsa Keslassy and Justin Chang (2014-04-17). "Cannes Unveils 2014 Official Selection Lineup". Variety.
  7. "Toronto Film Festival Lineup". Variety. 22 July 2014. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  8. "Coming Home (2015)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
  9. "Coming Home Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
  10. Kevin Ma (18 May 2014). "Coming Home has huge China opening". Film Business Asia. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  11. "Weekly box office 09/06/2014 - 15/06/2014". english.entgroup.cn. Archived from the original on 2014-06-17. Retrieved 2014-06-16.
  12. Nancy Tartaglione and David Bloom (January 10, 2015). "'Transformers 4′ Tops 2014's 100 Highest-Grossing International Films – Chart". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved January 10, 2015.
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