Coming Home
Special Presentations
Coming Home chronicles a difficult political time where one unfortunate accident changes the courses of events for one unsuspecting family.
The cultural revolution was stressful time for countless in mainland China, but when long imprisoned Lu Yanshi (Chen Daoming), a teacher who clashes with the establishment, comes home after years away to find his wife Feng Wanyu (Gong Li) suffering from a selective amnesia as a result of a head injury and refusing to accept Lu Yanshi as her husband.
A reminder of some of the earlier work of filmmaker Zhang Yimou, Coming Home is heartfelt look at going the extra mile for family. Much like some of his first films, Coming Home focuses more on raw emotion and people struggling to get on with/re-enter the lives they had been absent from.
The amnesia narrative is resolute and easy to buy into, and when it shifts from political a political drama to a personal one, Daoming goes above and beyond, trying every trick in the book to try and win his wife’s affections again. He brings unexpected layers to the role, and Li is heartbreaking. (Dave Voigt)
Screens
Friday, September 5th, 8:00pm, Winter Garden Theatre
Saturday, Sept 6th, 8:45pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2
Thanks to SPiN TORONTO for sponsoring our TIFF 2014 coverage.
