Review of Coming Home (2014) by Facebook U — 17 Sep 2015

2015 is shaping up to be the year of the unrecognizable movie spouse. In "Phoenix," we were asked to believe that a husband was unable to recognize his own wife after she's had facial plastic surgery.

Fortunately, the premise in "Coming Home" is entirely credible. Feng Wanyu (Gong Li) suffers from amnesia brought on by the trauma of witnessing her husband Lu Yanshi (Chen Daoming) being dragged off to a labor camp.

Lu eventually returns home to find his wife confusing him with the man who sexually abused her in Lu's absence. Although beautifully acted by China's most celebrated actors and directed by Yimou Zhang ("House of Flying Daggers"), I longed for respite from unrelenting grimness.

The Cultural Revolution was society gone mad. Those it affected are still suffering. Does that mean, in the name of art, moviegoers must, too? I don't remember a single smile in the entire film.