Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: THE ROAD HOME is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time! It is about a village girl who falls in love with a school teacher in the days of arranged marriages. Then he gets taken away by the government. My brief synopsis doesn't do the movie justice though. Don't let it deter you from buying this film!THE ROAD HOME is such a beautiful love story, but a tear-jerker, so some guys may not like it. However, it is clean enough for the whole family. Definitely a "Girls' Night Out" film, though. My friends love it and we're planning to watch it again during our next get together. I highly reccommend it!!
Rating: 
Summary: Depressing
Review: Well directed, well acted - if over dramatic .. and utterly depressing. The cultural differences is quite remarkable, as such obsessive, undying love is almost unheard of over here.
Rating:
Summary: Simply moving and touching
Review: The Road Home is a simply wonderful and touching movie. I cried when I first watched it. It moved me. It is not to be missed. I would highly recommend it to anybody. The scenery and the acting is excellent. It is a love story for the ages. Unfortunately the movie did not get enough publicity when it came out. I read a review of the movie when it came out and noticed that it was highly recommended. So when the DVD came out I had to get it for my collection. I was not disappointed. See it and you will not regret. The beginning of the movie is shot in black and white to set up the plot but then it goes into splendid color when the story line goes back when the characters first met and fell in love. This has the original Love Story beaten.
Rating:
Summary: gorgeous
Review: First I must admit that I am a sucker for love stories, two that I have a wicked crush on Zhang Ziyi, and third that I love the films of Zhang Yimou. With that out of the way this is a truly beautiful film with gorgeous landscapes of northern China the only film that I have seen that comes close to the landscape depictions is _Postmen of the Moutains_ I'm not going to go into too much detail into the plot because it is pretty simple and many of the reviewers have already gone into detail about it. what i wanted to state is something that might have caused some of this film's viewers some confusion. The reason why the teacher was taken away was because in 1957 Mao gave a speech entitled Let 100 flowers bloom in which one got to talk out against the Communist party telling what one found wrong with it. in 1958 a new policy was established: crush those agains the party, and educators were number one targets. This was the beginnings of the Cultural Revolution. A great film folks the love Zhang Ziyi's character holds for the teacher is amazing and she is so darn pretty!
Rating:
Summary: Simple yet moving tale of timeless love
Review: I saw this movie under the translated name of "My father and mother", as the original Mandarin name "Wo de fu qin mu qin" would suggest. Which is an apt title, because theme wise, it veers around a young man harking back to the romance between a simple village girl (his mother) and the school teacher (his father). Lots of reminiscing, nostalgia, love, sacrifice. The End. But it is this very simplicity that is stirring. Cinematographically on par with almost anything from Kurosawa, even "Yume", this is an unembellished but heart-warming story of remembering a timeless love. No quixotic melodrama of Hollywood (a la Titanic) here, no elaborate somatic expressions of hugging/kissing/and all else. Indeed, Zhang Ziyi only needs a twitch of an eye or a shy gesture of the hands to convey an entire page of the script. Doesn't matter whether the story is simple or complex, beautiful or ordinary, Chinese or otherwise -- I'd wager you will definitely come away feeling that you saw a charming, moving vignette of human essence. Fabulous!
Rating:
Summary: terrific
Review: I have never sobbed like this in the movies. This movie is simple and touching.
Rating:
Summary: Zhang's Best So Far
Review: Chen Kaige's "The King of Masks"? I hate to say this, but compare to "The Road Home," "The King of Masks" is more like a collaboration of film students. And it's not by Chen Kaige neither.
I would like to say that I have been very disappointed by Mr. Zhang's works in the past 10 years or so, and that includes his latest work,"Hero." "The Road Home," however, is absolutely one of the best examples of today's Chinese Cinema. Even though the film is an adaptation of the short story "My Father, My Mother," it is totally cinematic. Check out the composition and camera movements in EVERY single shot, and you'll see what Zhang's art is really about. Compare to Chen Kaige ("Life on A String," "Farewell My Concubine"), Zhang's view towards Chinese society is limited, his political position immature. But when dealing with little people in their daily lives, Zhang is indeed the best. Five stars for making me weep five times while watching this film.
Rating: 
Summary: Does this movie really deserve all these raves???
Review: I find it unsettling if not downright scary that almost all the reviews I have seen thus far in Amazon for this movie scream "excellent", for I find this as one of Zhang Yi Mou's less inspired and less riveting movies. As I watched the first ten to fifteen minutes of the movie, I wanted to give myself the benefit of the doubt I was having, for there was nothing, other than the scene of a man going home to a remote village (which could be somewhere in Xinjiang), that I found as an indication that this WAS GOING to be another one of Zhang Yi Mou's cinematic jewels. Perhaps it was the plot, or perhaps it was an overblown focus on his young and very attractive actress, who clearly was a replacement for the unfortunately aging but always-the-arresting-persona that was Gong Li. The camera did the younger actress plenty of justice, and I could sense that she and the director would have many more movies to come. Hopefully, Zhang Yi Mou can recreate the same kind of arresting and captivating movies that he had made with Gong Li. But for this movie, it did not have many of the elements that wowed me when I saw "Raise the Red Lantern", "To Live", and "Shanghai Triad". I consider "To Live" as a masterpiece, and whenever I watch it, even in my overworn VHS tape, I can always sense the vision and inspiration it took to create such a dramatic saga of many generations through sweeping socioeconomic and political changes in China (I am hoping for the day when the DVD of "To Live" comes out!). I guess it would not be fair to use "To Live" as a golden standard against which "The Road Home", a movie with a simple plot and minimal characters, can be compared. I should check out "Not One Less", also by Zhang Yi Mou, since this movie is just as recent as "The Road Home", and the theme of teacher (albeit female) in a remote village is similar to "The Road Home". I give it, however, three stars, because of the outstanding photography. The music was decent, although again, not as memorable, as the musical score in "To Live". For melodramatic Chinese movies, Chen Kaige's "The King of Masks" also sits on that much higher plane in my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting intercultural enigma, a rising artist
Review: Indeed, as the other reviewers indicate, this is a beautiful film - at times recalling scenes from films like Doctor Zhivago and a musical theme that is somehow reminiscent of Titanic. I bought it for my mother-in-law whose own life story it brought to mind. She left China at 80, after having lost her own "village school teacher" after 62 years of marriage. Yet, when I watched it with her, we both knew that it did not "ring true". The problem is simply this: the story is not Chinese. The characters, the scenery, the themes, the acting and the photography are all exquisite - anyone would have to admit. But for some reason, the producer/director has chosen to project a very Western story on a Chinese screen. No Chinese girl (at least not a mainlander) would have ever behaved so brashly in the face of new love. Western values are showy, direct, forceful. Chinese values, being the product of a culture whose two traditional faces are Taoism and Confucianism, are subtle, refined and all the more precious for being so. The scene where the girl ran to meet the new teacher on the road could have happened. The scene where she cooks for him most certainly would have. But the scene where she runs after the horse cart that is taking him away - having just spoken with him for the first time - most certainly would not. And the scene where her mother tells the assemblage lurking over her sick daughter - "I don't know what to do for her unless he comes back" could not be more absurd. I am sure Chinese audiences around the world laughed, blushed and winced at this scene - as they must have at the scene where the Mayor discovers the girl in the deserted school. In the old days, a young girl making such overtures to a man would have been remanded to the custody of her parents - or, if less fortunate, shunned by a village outraged at her loss of self-respect. I suspect that Zhang Yimou, in his increasing overtures for recognition from the Hollywood, thought it best to cast the story in terms that Westerners could understand. I only hope that he will have enough faith in himself to return to his true voice - and, as Hemingway said, "write truly" - for his earlier films are treasures - something that I hope he realizes, whether Hollywood with all its cheap techno-glitter - ever acknowledges him or not. After all, the voice of Chinese culture is subtlety, depth and aesthetic - not rock-em-knock-em sex and violence that the audience forgets 10 minutes after the ending titles. And an Oscar, after all, doesn't count for very much compared to A Dream of Red Mansions or a moon that shines equally for its viewers on boths sides of an ocean. (if you don't understand the reference ask a Chinese person about poetry). There is one respect, however, in which the movie excels beyond all expectations - and in this, one has to wonder if Hollywood had some small part in the notion suggested by Titanic: the projection of the forlorn old woman onto her former, beautiful self and of that young, passionate girl onto the old, careworn woman who still goes to the school to listen for her husband's voice. They are one and the same - time has done its damage, as it always does - and yet, what is human remains victorious through the simple and unassuming endurance of love. Oh yes - my mother-in-law - her marriage was arranged. Yet it survived a world war, two revolutions and the Great Leap Foward. When the soul of her life left this world, she came to America to teach this round-eye how to be a human being. And thus, here we are.
Rating:
Summary: no words are necessary.
Review: "the road home" is a beautifully-told story of a young woman (played by zhang ziyi of "crouching tiger hidden dragon" fame) and her first (and only) love, a school teacher who comes to her village to educate the children of the community. the most striking aspect of this film is that there is hardly any dialogue (or interaction, for that matter) between the two lovers. their face-to-face encounters seem minimal, yet convey a depth and sense of sincerity that i feel is often lacking in many other "love at first sight" type of films. watching the sacrifice that the young woman is willing to make for a man she loves but hardly knows is extraordinary.
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