The Road Home

As spare and simple as a folk tale, The Road Home is Zhang Yimou's touching tribute to the power of love. In a remote village nestled in the mountains of northern China, a young woman (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's Zhang Ziyi) sets her sights on the schoolteacher who's just arrived from the big city, and 40 years later she's still demonstrating her affection, insisting on a proper burial for the only man she's ever thought about. That burial includes carrying the coffin from the hospital to the cemetery, a miles-long journey through a snowstorm that, according to tradition, shows the deceased the way home. Set in both contemporary China and the period of the Cultural Revolution, The Road Home has little to do with politics. And yet, like the country itself, it seems precariously perched between the old and the new. Some may find the movie too simple ' a valentine to common folk. Others will be enchanted by the woman's undying love for her husband, and the camera's love for her.