User:Darianoy/Coming Home (2014 film)

Lead
The existed Wikipedia article of Coming Home has a lot of imperfections, only has basic information of plot, cast, production, release and reception. After discussing with team members, the existed article has been added on: the historical background of the film, with the description of the historical background and author with the original novel, the audience can better understand the behavioral motivation and causal relationship between the characters in the film, in the mean time, the audience can also have a concept of the Chinese society environment at that time. The existed article also missed Chinese media critiques and detailed production information part, need to be collected and posted, to help audience understand the comprehensive reception.

Historical Background (Zihan Wang)
The historical background of the film is China's cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, when intellectuals were criticized throughout the country. Lu Yanshi was persecuted for being an intellectual in old Shanghai: he was branded a rightist and exiled to northwest China on charges of political error. Although the film does not explicitly introduce Lu 's background, there are many moments in the film to tell that Lu Yanshi is an intellectual. For example, when he goes to consult a doctor about Feng's illness, the doctor says "Déjà vu" in broken French, and Lu immediately speaks standard French and understands what it means. Lu Yanshi can play the piano and write good Chinese characters. Also from Feng Wanyu's words, we can know that Lu Yanshi is a professor and a well-educated person.

Mao Zedong proposed that "the phenomenon of bourgeois intellectuals ruling our schools can no longer be continued." At the beginning, this impact on intellectuals was mainly carried out through academic discussion and criticism. After the People's Daily published its editorial "Sweeping away All Ghosts and Demons" on June 1, 1966, and the broadcast of "The Big-character newspaper of Seven scholars including Nie Yuanzi from Peking University" to the whole country on the same day, In many universities and middle schools, there was an upsurge of struggle against "bourgeois reactionary academic authority" and some teachers with historical problems of one kind or another. In the struggle, there were signs hanging, wearing tall hats, and parading through the streets to insult human dignity. Later, this situation quickly spread, and more and more expanded, especially under the leadership of some "cadres' children", "reform cadres' children", further appeared illegal opening, shaving Yin and Yang head, and even torture the situation.

Later, Lu Yanshi was exonerated, which was the end of the Cultural Revolution. In the letter from Director Li to Feng Wanyu, we can see the words "Notice to remove the label of rightists".

 Author and original novel (Shaomiao Yang) 

Yan Geling was born in Shanghai, 1958. Her father is the famous writer Xiao Ma, he and his family have been persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. Under the environment, Yan Geling had to live alone with her brother. Her experience during the Cultural Revolution gave her an inspiration on her subsequent creations. Yan Geling went to the United States to study in 1989 and became an American citizen. During her days in America, she wrote many novels mostly about the mid-twentieth century in China. She focused on China's difficult developmental times, and these books have a great resonance in China because of the same cultural background and traumatize memories, but had not received a lot of attention in the United States. With her talent, Yan Geling has repeatedly acted as a screenwriter in film industry, but she made a serious political mistake in life recently, and was banned in China, in February, 2022.

The Criminal Lu Yanshi is the original novel of Coming Home. This novel is mainly about the life-change experience of the writer Lu Yanshi during the Cultural Revolution, and his emotional experience with his wife. The core idea of ​​the novel is a lament about the impermanence of the world and a criticism on the Cultural Revolution. The film adaptation is differed from the novel, the novel focuses on describing the experience of a writer and his attitude towards life and love in the context of the Cultural Revolution, while this film is more focused on his emotional experience more than his life experience.

Production (Dushan Ouyang)
Yan Geling, the author of the novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi frankly said she "never thought about" adaptation. Zhang Yimou surprised her by the idea of adapting the novel, which she had thought of as a novel hard to be adapted because focused on Cultural Revolution, which is a sensitive theme in Chinese film industry and censorship. Yan praised Zhang's approach, saying it encapsulates the essence of her novel, including the double meaning of the title (the title can be recognized as 'how to get to know the mistake of mainland' in Chinese language context).

Zhang Yimou's hope for the film was to at least make a profit. And hopefully a lot of young people will come and see it. He defined the film as an art film, differ from commercial film about love and hope. Zhang wanted to convey this feeling to his audience, especially the younger ones. Zhang believes that high investment and production, amusement park theme movies, is indeed the main direction of future film development, but he chose to keep it simple enough, this kind of narrative method of de-skillfulness is deliberate in Coming Home. Gong Li agreed in the interview that Coming Home is a love story.

Before the producing, writer of the script, Zou Jingzhi had a brief meeting with the crew to discuss the outline, and they settled on a trio of characters, all plain and simple in style. Zou said it was a crucial decision for Coming Home, there were about 46 drafts of the script.

Critiques (Dushan Ouyang)
Yan Mo, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, admitted that he shed a lot of tears while watching the film, praising Zhang for using a cliché to portray the most sincere feelings in the world, which is a rare, serious and heart touching film, and the film cannot only touch the hearts and memories of the audience, but also helping review the history of personal development and national history. At the same time, he points out that color red is suggestive and has symbolic significance in this film.

One of the famous director in Hollywood, Steven Allan Spielberg's first comment on this film was: "Powerful!" and said he cried for nearly an hour, "Oh my god, it's like a different you! Still intimate!" Spielberg describes the film used words deep and emotional, and affirms that it is perhaps the most profound work of its age.

Japanese actor Ken Takakura affirms the film as Zhang's best and practiced film.

On the contrary, The Hollywood Reporter gave a negative review because although the film is a typical Zhang's style, its all about aimless and plodding romance but not enough focused on history and politics.