Who's in It: Ken Takakura, Kiichi Nakai, Shinobu Terajima, Jiang Wen
The Basics: A Japanese father tries to reconcile with his estranged son by completing a task the son failed to do before falling ill. Dad goes to rural China to find an opera singer, hoping to get the singer on videotape singing a song called "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles." But, see, that's also what the father's doing, too. Get it?
What's the Deal? When I see big Hollywood movies by millionaire filmmakers extolling the virtues of family and the simple life, I want to claw out my own eyes. Why, then, do I kind of give a pass to Zhang Yimou? It's not as though he hasn't made big-bank movies, like, say, Hero and House of Flying Daggers. And he keeps going back to rural China to remind everyone — or maybe he's trying to remind himself — that family and collective farming are what's really important. In any case, his condescension feels less condescending than the stuff we grow here in the USA.
Weepiness Scale, From 1-10: 9.5. It also scores that high on the Wacky Villagers Index and the Adorable Moppet Meter.
Better, and Less Confused Movies by the Same Director About Similar People in Similar Situations: The Road Home and Not One Less. And The Road Home is off-the-charts sentimental. Have some Kleenex on hand for that one. It's also got Ziyi Zhang in it, pre-ESL classes.
The Japanese Clint Eastwood: That's Ken Takakura, say my press notes. I'm always scouring those for a quote from an actor talking about what a "blessing" working with so-and-so was.