Review: The Road Home. - Review - movie review

Interview, June, 2001 by Mark Olsen

Directed by Zhang Yimou

This film, winner of the World Cinema Award at this year's Sundance Festival, is now most notable as the debut of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's young star, Zhang Ziyi. (It was shot a few months before the Oscar-lauded Tiger.) No kung-pao action here, though, as respected director Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern, 1991) creates a typically picturesque drama of traditions both overturned and upheld. Interspersing both black and white and color footage, as well as contemporary perspectives and flashbacks, he again impresses as a master of visual sensuality. But it's Ziyi's delicately radiant presence that makes this road worth traveling.