the road home

As i nearing my final sem, studying this Broadcasting course, it really change the way I view and think about movies...not just enjoy it but also analyize them..

Thru-out the semester, the lecturer gave us a few movies to watch for analyize..a few i love to mention and share with you readers..so prepare for few review entries for the next few days..lol..

yea..sometime ago, i reviewed about Citizen Kane. So another one we were show is..

Directed by Zhang Yimao. It is also Zhang Ziyi's first movie apperance, apparently.

The story starts off with a widow asks her village to follow tradition and carry her husband home on foot from the nearby city where he has died. Their son reflects on his parents' courtship, illuminating the reason behind his mother's request. From there, there are series of flashback that potraits the courtship of the widow when she was young(played by Ziyi) and her husband, Luo Changyu, who came to the village as the new teacher and soon fell in love with her, considered the prettiest of local girls. But their developing romance was curtailed when Changyu was ordered back to the city and the would-be lovers were kept apart for more than two years. When finally reunited, they married and never separated again. Yusheng realizes that his mother's wishes for the funeral must be respected. On the day of the funeral more than 100 of Changyu's former pupils turn up to carry the coffin. Before returning to the city, Yusheng symbolically honors his father's dearest wish: he spends one day teaching in the village school. (Synopsis adjusted from Yahoo! movies page)

Another element i like to mention is the style the director choose to shot the film. He shot it as it is..making it look like some reality show. It is evidence through the shaking camera shots. The editing is very raw as well. Overall, the techniques used are creative to tell the story, both flashback and current timeline.

I was told by the lecturer that some dialogs in certain scenes are not really scripted. It's evidence if you see certain conversation sounded like something out from your house or coffee-shop. I heard they were just told the basis of their conversation is about and then, all they have to do is..well..just talk and talk on..

And the actors used in the film are not professional or well-known. Like the village head, it seems he is REALLY a village head in real life in that village itself.

If you want to see Ziyi's best acting, out of many films she has done, this is one of them. She did great here.

Overall it is a very touching film. Of all the films my lecturer showed this semester, i will remember this one.