Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles

Quian Li Zou Dan Qi
Director: Zhang Yimou
(in Japanese and Mandarin with English subtitles)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437447/

I tend to not go in for films 'based on the true story' because real life is boring, isn't it? And because of that, so many 'botts' films try to dress their stories up in oversized suits of movie-realism. This beautiful film knows better.
We follow Takada-san, an aging Japanese man who travels to China to film folk-opera singer Li Jianmin. It is his attempt to reconnect with his estranged filmmaker son whose project it was - the son is now ill and cannot complete it. (It's not as complicated as that sounds.) But Li also has his own disconnected son on his mind..

Visually, Takada emotions are highly suppressed - the occasional voice overs from the future Takada telling us what he is thinking or feeling are very welcome. Li is the opposite - easily showing his feelings. Whether this is supposed to reflect a generalisation that Japanese people are more repressed than Chinese or is just a contrast between the two fathers it is hard for me to know. There are many moments during the film where I found myself questioning how I was supposed to interpret a scene - was what was happening as strange to the foreign Takada as it was to me or were my own cultural differences preventing me from understanding? Bits of both I think. Being unable to easily read Takada-san's emotions leaves room for ambiguity at moments, when you don't know what he is going to decide to do.
Scenes showing the rural Chinese country-side are often breathtaking, and do well in illustrating how alone Takada is in this country where he doesn't understand the language. Yet the people are generous and of good humour. There are plenty of opportunities to laugh when the humour transcends not only the Japanese-Chinese cultures but also Australian/English.

There is quite a bit of the phenomenon of mobile phone acting called for in this film, especially with Takada-san's daughter. I found her unconvincing, but can't be sure if I shouldn't allow for cultural differences again or awkwardness of translation to english or just that mobile phones are making us more stilted in expressing emotions! There are also a couple (only a couple) of moments where the picture quality isn't up to scratch - I'd be interested to know if some of it was shot in a studio, or altered post-production. But these are minor points.

Altogether there is a touching naivity to this film that lends it charm. I might even watch some of Zhang Yimou's more commercial films now..