This powerful love story was released in 1999, before Yimou Zhang's more recent and more popular films, Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004).  It is based on the novel Remembrance by Shi Bao. 

            Normally, flashbacks are manipulative and provide the writer an easy way to begin the story with a dramatic climax that captures the audience attention and creates a mystery about its cause.  Road Home begins with a flashback, but is transformed by Yimou Zhang into an intense examination of two life transitions in such a way that we are not manipulated but in fact, are completely engaged by the comparison and impact of these two significant transitions in the life of Zhao Di, the woman protagonist in the story.  He uses both B&W vs. color and seasons to dramatize emotional events.  But it's the relationships, their strength and how they are implemented in the story that delivers the most effective feelings to the audience. 

            The venue is a small, poor village in China.  However, the primitive life and poverty of the people by our standards becomes inconsequential as we are caught in the depth of feelings that these two people have for each other.  Furthermore, it is an unusual relationship that involves romantic love in a time and place where arranged marriages were the rule. 

            Ziyi Zhang plays Zhao Di, the young woman who falls in love with the teacher.  She also plays the love interest, Mei in House of Flying Daggers and Moon, the contending love interest for one of the samurai in Hero. As other Chinese actors, her face is impassive, but her eyes tell us of youth, intensity and fire.

            Reviewed June 18, 2005                            Copyright 2005 Charles T. Markee

            Not Rated, but probably PG to help children understand events.