Luminaries debate melodrama in film

Actor Chen Daoming stars in Zhang Yimou's new film Coming Home. Photos provided to China Daily

"I was moved to tears when watching the movie ... but I am actually very tolerant of lame movies. Many of them make me weep," Mo Yan, China's Nobel literature laureate, says of Coming Home, the new film by Zhang Yimou.

A discussion between the two opened a retrospective of Zhang's 30-year film career recently in Beijing. The audience had to read between the lines during the subtle and witty exchange.

The discussion started with Zhang's new film, which was released on May 16 and grossed 200 million yuan ($31.7 million) in a week. Starring Gong Li and Chen Daoming, it traces a professor who returns home after years spent at a labor camp during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), only to find his wife had no recollection of him due to mental trauma in that chaotic decade. The professor's suffering during the political upheaval is hardly mentioned.

Some critics say Zhang turned an epic tale into a melodrama about a middle-aged couple, but others believe reflecting a national disaster via a family tale is a challenging approach that deserves appreciation.

"The story is a cliche," Mo tells the stunned audience, and then says, "but Zhang makes it emotionally powerful."

Zhang was not irritated. "People like melodramas," he says. "Theatrical releases need to be melodramatic, or they will soon be withdrawn from today's Chinese theaters. I try to convey something unique from a melodrama, a story many people have told before, which is very challenging."

Mo compares the film with Red Sorghum, the product of their first collaboration in 1987 and China's first winner of the Berlin Film Festival, which made both of them superstars.

"Red Sorghum is a film with flaws, but its intensity, energy and wildness are not seen in Coming Home," he says. "You can watch Red Sorghum with your legs on the coffee table, but Coming Home shows that still waters run deep."

Red Sorghum was adapted from Mo's novel, set in rural China during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45).

It was a romantic saga about Chinese farmers. Many filmmakers wanted to adapt the novel. But Zhang, then an ambitious cinematographer preparing his directorial debut, was the one who stood out.

'Coming Home' earns 80 mln on opening weekend

Zhang Yimou's latest film, "Coming Home," raked in 82.40 million yuan (about 13.22 million US dollars) in its opening weekend, said its producer, Le Vision Pictures, on Tuesday.