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Coming Home Trailer

Lu Yanshi is arrested as a political prisoner during the Cultural Revolution in China, and is forced into a labour camp for the forseeable future. Only once has he managed to escape his captors clutches to meet his wife Feng, Wanyu at a train station, but they are ultimately betrayed and separated once again. He never gave up hope though, and when the Revolution ends, he walks free; free to live his life and free to hold his wife and daughter in his arms again. What he hopes is an emotional reunion, however, turns to confusion when Feng fails to recognise him. She has been left with memory loss after an accident, and although she has waited for years for the return of her husband, his appearance doesn't register in her at all. Lu has no choice but to accept Feng's condition, and do what he can to build a relationship again.

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Zhang Yimou's Coming Home Trailer

Lu Yanshi is ripped away from his family and arrested as a political prisoner during China's Cultural Revolution, forced to work in a merciless labour camp. He makes a futile escape attempt in a plan with his daughter Wanyu, but he is soon re-captured and put back to work. Some years later, he is finally freed when the Revolution comes to an end, but he is less than welcomed when he returns home. His wife has suffered an accident which has left her with permanent amnesia and she is unable to recognise her husband upon his return. She shuns Yanshi, and continues to wait for her husband's return, and so he does what he can to jog her memory and convince her that it's him. When that fails, he must find another way to remain close to her - but that may mean abandoning their marriage.

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Coming Home - Clip

During the Cultural Revolution in China, Lu Yanshi was viciously torn away from his beloved wife Feng Wanyu and forced to work in a labour camp. In an enormously risky operation, he manages to escape his imprisonment in order to meet Wanyu at a rail station - unfortunately, their secret meeting plans are betrayed to the prison officials and he is immediately re-arrested. Many years later, the Revolution has ended and he is finally freed. However, when he returns home to his wife, he discovers that she is suffering permanent amnesia following an accident and doesn't believe Yanshi to be her husband. Instead, she waits patiently each day for Yanshi's return while he desperately tries to jog her memory. When his efforts seem fruitless, he does what he can to remain close to her - even if it means leaving their romance behind.

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Gong Li - 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards Arrivals celebrating independent films and their filmmakers - Santa Monica, California, United States - Saturday 1st March 2014

Gong Li - 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards - Arrivals - London, United Kingdom - Sunday 2nd March 2014

Hannibal Rising Trailer

In Red Dragon we learned who he was. In Silence Of The Lambs we learned how he did it. Now comes the most chilling chapter in the life of Hannibal Lecter - the one that answers the most elusive question of all - why?

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Miami Vice Review

By Sean O'Connell

Bad

You can learn a lot about Michael Mann's updated Miami Vice by listening to Glenn Frey. It's true. Many questions surrounding this remake are answered using the lyrics to Frey's prophetic "Smuggler's Blues," a song made famous by the seminal 1980s buddy-cop drama that sold sex and sidearms on South Beach.For instance, why would Mann - a respected filmmaker riding a decade-long creative hot streak - blow the dust off a hopelessly dated property he last executive-produced almost 20 years ago? As Frey sings, "It's the lure of easy money. It's got a very strong appeal." And why would a studio support Mann's impulsive let's-get-the-band-back-together decision after projects from Bewitched to The Dukes of Hazzard demonstrate that audiences don't care to relive the past? Frey confesses, "It's a losing proposition. But one you can't refuse."In its prime, the television-sized Vice influenced the fashion industry, peddled synthesizer-laden soundtracks, and made Don Johnson a household name. This realistically superficial recycling, however, will cure insomnia, set the advancement of digital cinematography back a few years, and unsuccessfully argue in favor of the mullet as an acceptable coif style.The story lost me almost immediately, but looked cool doing it. Undercover detectives James "Sonny" Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) are deep into one case when a former informant contacts them claiming that a deal he was working went bad. To clean up the mess, Crockett and Tubbs must infiltrate a sprawling drug cartel lorded over by menacing Jose Yero (John Ortiz, mimicking Al Pacino's Tony Montana character) and sultry Isabella (Gong Li, her broken English disrupting half of her lines).Vice marks a return for Mann in multiple ways. He's back on the beach with Crockett and Tubbs, characters he last manipulated in 1989. More importantly, it's the director's first mature cops-and-robbers thriller since 1995's Heat, a modern classic which also presented an in-depth analysis of individuals operating on opposite sides of the law. Part of Heat's allure, though, was the intimate knowledge we collected about Pacino's bulldog detective and Robert De Niro's elusive thief. Watching the former sacrifice his marriage and family life for the sake of the job added juicy drama to his otherwise routine investigation.Vice lacks that human touch, those insights into the men away from their beats. Mann ladles on ample attitude, while his chiseled leading men provide plenty of posturing. Mannequin Vice might have made for a better title. Foxx and Farrell buy into the shout-and-scowl method, with an emphasis on the latter. But the script neglects to fill in details about Sonny and Ricardo beyond quick peeks into their active bedrooms. It's a fault built into the premise. These men exist deep undercover, so the lives they lead are smokescreens - which makes it difficult to care whether they continue to blow smoke or not.As a whole, the stiff and procedural Vice moves too slowly to hold our interests. It's a thinking-man's summer picture, code for "no action, plenty of conversation." Normally that's fine, but Mann pens lines that would have been too cheesy even for the '80s program. Crockett repeatedly claims, "No one has ever treaded where we are now." We just don't believe him. One villain barks, "He wants to promise them silver, but pay them in lead!" James Bond's foes made more effective threats.Oscar-winning cinematographer Dion Beebe continues to experiment with digital technology at Mann's request. It works when the action shifts to the open seas, but his night shoots produce muddy visuals that - while realistic - are ugly and drab. I guess when compared to the original Vice's pastel color scheme, it's an improvement.Frey once again gets the last words. I'm paraphrasing a few of his somber lyrics so that they properly sum up how I felt leaving my screening. I'm sorry it went down like this, and the audience had to lose. It's the nature of this business. It's the critic's blues.Watch that wake!

2046 Review

By Chris Barsanti

Extraordinary

Picking up where In the Mood for Love dropped off, but also mixing in elements of (or at least nods to) just about all of his other films, Wong Kar Wai's 2046 has most of the same positives, as well as the negatives, common to his work, meaning it's frustrating, elliptical, occasionally quite shallow, and utterly smashing to behold in all its nervy glory.

This time, Tony Leung's Chow Mo-Wan is far from the repressed creature that he played in Love, eternally suffering for the married beauty living in his apartment building. Mo-Wan is now going through all the highs and lows of numerous affairs in 1960s Hong Kong, playing out almost an entire history of love within the space of one film. The title comes from the number of the apartment next to his, wherein reside a number of women with whom we will see him become entangled over the course of the film. 2046 is also the name of a science fiction serial he scribbles down (part of the dues he pays as a struggling hack writer), scenes of which we see acted out, watching its hero endure an eternal train ride away from the mysterious place called 2046, where everybody goes to reclaim lost memories and never returns from; except him.

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