Coming Home - B

Rated PG-13, 111 minutes
In Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles

The 2014 Chinese love story "Coming Home" is a bittersweet, well-acted and handsome tale of losing and rediscovering love. From noted Chinese director Zhang Yimou ("Raise the Red Lantern") and starring his lovely muse, Gong Li, who have collaborated on 8 films total, if you enjoy foreign-made love stories, then this is for you. Lu Yanshi (Chen Daoming) and Feng Wanyu (Li) are a devoted couple forced to separate when Lu is arrested and sent to a labor camp as a political prisoner, just as his wife is injured in an accident. Released during the last days of the Cultural Revolution, he finally returns home only to find that his beloved wife has amnesia and remembers little of her past. Unable to recognize Lu, she patiently waits for her husband's return. Directed by Yimou, whose directed numerous films have included "House of Flying Daggers," "Hero" and "Curse of the Golden Flower," and written by Zou Jingzhi ("The Grandmaster"), "Coming Home," not to be confused with the 1978 Oscar-winning war drama of the same name, is a poignant soap opera filled with some sad yet touching moments. The story is more of a personal one for Yimou, who tends to make bigger films about war on a more epic scale, and it's a nice change of pace. The film, which has been a big hit overseas, also features some of Yimou's trademark stellar production values, with costumes, sets and music all adding some nice details which help the story. "Coming Home" is much braver, though much more downbeat, than anything Nicholas Sparks, who should take cues from Yimou when dealing with issues such as amnesia. The lovely and Li and stoic Daoming are great as the couple trying to rekindle what they once had, and they have some great, bittersweet moments together. "Coming Home" is nothing new, but it's still a satisfying look at lost love, and have those tissues handy, you'll need them for a few scenes, especially the touching ending.