While we’re fully expecting to have our emotional strings pulled by Zhang Yimou‘s next film, “Coming Home,” it seems that the romantic drama is going to be a visual spectacle as well. At least overseas, where in China, the film will be getting the 4K, full IMAX treatment on a number of screens. While we’ll have wait to see if Sony Pictures Classics has similar ambitions for their eventual stateside release, even if it’s just at our local arthouse, this looks like one to watch.
Reuniting the director with his “Red Sorghum” and “Raise the Red Lantern” star Gong Li, the film follows Lu Yanshi (Chen Daoming) and Feng Wanyu (Li), 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. A stranger alone in the heart of his broken family, Lu Yanshi determines to resurrect their past together and reawaken his wife’s memory. Tough stuff, indeed.
And the first teaser trailer is pretty effective, projecting a mood of longing and heartbreak quite palpably. You might want to bring some Kleenex.
No firm release date yet, but the film is in post-production and we’re fully expecting it to play at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Watch below. [THR]
