Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

The Road Home Blu-ray Movie Review

How I met your father.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III March 14, 2023

Perhaps most notable as the feature film debut of Zhang Ziyi -- who was barely 20 during production and would star in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon just one year later -- Zhang Yimou's The Road Home is a decent romantic drama with strong artistic values. Based on Bao Shi's novel Remembrance, it's narrated by a young man (Sun Honglei) who returns home to bury his father and care for his grieving mother (Zhao Yulian), who demands that the coffin be carried by hand on the long road to his gravesite. Such a request seems absurd to her son... so to help all of us fellow pragmatic types understand, The Road Home flashes back to 1958 and shows us the first flowers of a budding relationship between his parents: young maiden Zhao Di (Zhang) and a new teacher in her village, Luo Changyu (Zheng Hao).

The film's black-and-white present-day sequences, which bookend its short runtime for about 15 minutes at both ends, offer an interesting hook that makes The Road Home feel like a product of the 1990s, though by all other accounts it plays like a timeless love story. We're tricked in the opening moments, where most viewers will side with the adult son who balks at his mother's seemingly unfair demand yet, as the extended one-hour color flashback unfolds, we gradually begin see this situation in a new light. This gives The Road Home a gently effective hook that justifies its mostly glacial pace, as we're all but forced to be patient while its star-crossed lovers slowly but surely find each other.

If I'm being perfectly honest, though, several portions of The Road Home feel frustratingly padded, none more so than the first 20 or so minutes of its extended color flashback when we're dropped in the middle of Zhao Di's remote village where the new schoolteacher has just arrived. She tries all manner of ways to get him to notice her -- mostly by way of food, since that usually works -- because women are all but forbidden to much of anything else besides for cook, clean, and gossip. What follows is a series of cute puppy-love encounters that quickly wear out their welcome, however, due to the repetitive scenarios and reaction shots where Zhao Di spies on her crush from a distance (see below) while he innocuously goes on nature walks with his students, tends to the recently built one-room schoolhouse, and even eats lunch with her blind mother (Li Bin). I mean, Zhao Di's ultimately harmless and he certainly seems interested in her, but let's face it: if the genders were swapped, this could easily pass for a creepy stalker scenario.

Luckily The Road Home gets more eventful and intriguing as it goes on, with a requisite separation period (mostly the result of rigid sociopolitical rules) that ultimately leads to a reunion... and, before we know it, we're back to the black-and-white present, where the film's narrative comes full circle in a number of emotionally satisfying ways. The light but recognizable links between past and present scenarios feel like they might gain traction on repeat viewings, meaning that even those who are underwhelmed the first time through might warm up to it later. But while The Road Home's strengths outnumber its weaknesses, it's more a lightly pleasant surprise than a hidden masterpiece.

And still it remains somewhat hidden, unfortunately. The Road Home has been woefully under-represented on domestic home video, where its only Region 1 release was an anamorphic Sony DVD issued more than two decades ago. Imprint Films, a boutique label under the Australian distributor Via Vision, has stepped up to deliver a long-awaited region-free Blu-ray edition that aims to re-introduce the film to international audiences. Sadly though, it's a pretty underwhelming effort in almost every category; those hoping for a truly definitive release will have to keep waiting.

The Road Home Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I've seen worse looking Blu-rays than Imprint's edition of The Road Home -- and its only other competition is Sony's anamorphic DVD from the early 2000s -- but it's pretty obvious that this 1080p transfer stems from a DVD-era master. Things get off to an immediately rough start, with visible telecine wobble during the opening credits and a generally flat and harsh appearance during the bookending black-and-white scenes. Once we melt away to the past, things improve a little... but The Road Home's gorgeous color cinematography is further undercut by a continued lack of detail, artificial sharpening and edge enhancement, light macro blocking, and no real sense of texture; this looks a lot more like video than film. (There's even a flash frame skip around 32:10, but blink and you'll miss it.) It's unknown if Imprint had any hand in this post-processing or simply worked with what they were given -- I'm guessing the latter -- but in any case this is far from a perfect-looking disc. Perhaps its only saving grace is that The Road Home's often idyllic visuals might trick you into thinking it looks better than it actually does... but for a dual-layered Blu-ray authored more than two decades after its last home video release, this looks shockingly close to upscaled standard definition.

The Road Home Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Luckily, The Road Home fares much better in the audio department: fans get to choose between its original Cantonese soundtrack in either DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio or LPCM 2.0 Stereo. Both are quality efforts but I found the former to be a more satisfying sonic experience, with nicely centered dialogue and effective use of surrounds, mostly in the form of general village ambiance (barking dogs, light breezes), as well as more dramatic weather effects (heavy rain, white-out blizzards) and, of course, San Bao's atmospheric original score*. Overall clarity and dynamic range are pleasing, which gives The Road Home an effective aural backdrop that clearly outpaces its lackluster visuals.

English subtitles are offered during the film, although on-screen words (signs, handwriting) are not translated.

* - One interesting observation about The Road Home's score: its creative team, including composer San Bao, was clearly a fan of Titanic. Not only does the main theme sound like a variant on James Horner's work, but two posters for that film's soundtrack album can be seen on elderly Zhao Di's house wall during the present-day scenes.

The Road Home Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in Imprint's typically attractive packaging, with poster-themed cover artwork, a nice inner print for the clear keepcase, and of course a glossy slipbox with yet another poster-themed design. No booklet is included, nor are there any bonus features -- yet another possibly deal-breaking disappointment.

The Road Home Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Road Home is a decent romantic drama; I might give it a light 4/5 for artistic value on the right day, but it still falls short of greatness due to the padded narrative and occasionally frustrating pace. These nitpicks may lessen on repeat viewings, though, and the film's strengths (performances, cinematography, music) clearly outpace its weaknesses. Sadly, Imprint's Blu-ray doesn't offer near enough support to make this a strongly recommended purchase: the visuals stem from a very dated master and bonus features are non-existent. It's possibly worth an import for desperate fans looking to retire their 20-year old DVDs (!), but there's obviously a great deal of room for improvement here. Arrow, Criterion, Kino, or another boutique label would do well bringing this one across the pond.