Getting Home - Amazon Exclusive DVD | Family Drama Movie for Home Entertainment & Movie Nights

I very much enjoyed this film of contemporary China as seen through the trials and tribulations of a 50-year old migrant worker called Lao Zhao ("Old Zhao"). He works in construction in the megalopolis of Shenzhen in southern coastal China. When his co-worker dies, Lao Zhao attempts to fulfill a promise to bring him back home to his family in Sichuan province in the interior. The plot of "Getting Home" was apparently based on a true story. The Chinese title derives from the saying, "A falling leaf returns to its roots."The film is both comic (with black humor involving the transport and preservation of a corpse) and sad. When the film opens, Lao Zhao thinks his friend has passed out at a cafe, but in fact he has died. The main character is never daunted. No matter what hardship he encounters en route to getting his friend to his native place, he perseveres. He feels joy in small victories, such as beating a water buffalo in a foot race or finding a tire that he can use. Lao Zhao reminds one of a modern-day Ah-Q, a fictional character by Lu Xun, one of the most important Chinese writers of the 20th century.Lao Zhao changes the lives of those he meets. One of the characters is played by the eminent Wu Ma (the rapping drunken Daoist in "A Chinese Ghost Story"). His love interest is played by Song Dandan, a well-known stage comedienne (leader of the female rebels in "House of Flying Daggers"). All the cops who figure in the film seem to be kind and sincere, which perhaps is wishful thinking. One would like to think that the message of the film is that the good are rewarded and that Lao Zhao will carry on, but the ending is not conclusive and the future uncertain, which may in itself leave room for debate.Zhao Benshan portrayed a similarly decent but unlucky fellow in Zhang Yimou's tragi-comedy "Happy Times" (2000). In "Getting Home"'s informative special features, including interviews with the director and cast, Zhao Benshan explains that he had no difficulty acting the part in Getting Home because much of his life paralleled that of Lao Zhao. He was born in 1958 in Liaoning province in northeast China into a peasant family and evidently orphaned in childhood, when he began to learn traditional performing arts.It is revealed in the film that Lao Zhao is from the northeast, based upon his accent and feeling of connection to those speaking the same dialect. Shenzhen was the first Special Economic Zone established in China as part of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms launched in the late 1970s after the death of Mao. China has major internal migration, especially from the less developed west and center to the industrialized coast.The director, Zhang Yang (b. 1967) is considered one of the Sixth Generation of major filmmakers. The son of a film director, he graduated from the prestigious Central Academy of Drama. He uses a realistic style and focuses on ordinary people and their lives. He was acclaimed for the comedy-drama "Shower" (1999) about a family-run bathhouse in Beijing with a mentally-challenged son and another who has gone to make his fortune in Shenzhen. This film was followed by "Quitting" (2001) about an actor's struggle with drugs, played by the actor himself, his family, and inmates at a mental institution all playing themselves."Getting Home" is entertaining and good for understanding issues of contemporary Chinese economy, society, government, and culture, as well as for gorgeous landscapes of rural China. I plan to show the film to my college class; it would also be appropriate for younger kids.