Coming Home

Coming Home is a drama set against the later years of China's Cultural Revolution. Lu Yanshi and Feng Wanyu are a married couple who are separated when he is taken away and sent to a labour camp as a political prisoner. By the time he is released and returns to the family home, the years of hardship have taken their toll: Feng has suffered injuries and lost her memory, and she no longer recognises the man standing in front of her. She continues to wait for a husband she believes is still absent, and Lu must decide how to live alongside a wife for whom he has become a stranger, rather than simply accept the situation.

Zhang Yimou directed the film, the sixteenth of the twenty-five features listed in his filmography, following The Flowers of War and preceding The Great Wall. Zou Jingzhi wrote the screenplay, with Bill Kong Chi-Keung and Zhang Zhao producing. Gong Li and Chen Daoming lead the cast as Feng and Lu, supported by Zhang Huiwen as Dandan, Guo Tao, Liu Peiqi and Zu Feng. Made by a group of Chinese and American companies, the film took about 48 million dollars worldwide.

Audience responses are consistent and positive: on IMDb it holds 7.3 out of 10 from roughly 7,100 votes, and on TMDB 7.3 out of 10 from around 211 votes. A critics' rating of 7.7 out of 10 from 79 reviews places professional assessments slightly above the audience scores, though all three measures sit close together, suggesting broad agreement on the film's merits.