Ken Takakura can probably be a one-man hall of fame in Japan. Western audience will remember him most as the introvert detective of impeccable integrity who teams up with Michael Douglas in Black Rain (1989). Asian audience will remember him in his more recent work Poppoya (1999), where his portray of a dedicated railroader and a remorseful father does not leave a single pair of dry eyes in each and every screening. At the age of 75, he came out of retirement and went to China to make a picture (which he's never done before) that does not have one single professional actor besides himself. What enticed him to this folly? Zhang Yimou must be an important reason, if not the only reason.
Many hail "Riding alone for a thousand miles" as Zhang's return to his true self after making "Heroes" which is technically flashy but somewhat lacking in content, followed by "House of flying daggers" which is technically flashy and completely devoid of any meaningful content whatsoever. I welcome the Zhang in "Riding" but do not think it's really the same director that we used to know. The clock simply cannot be turned back and the times are changing. In "Riding" Zhang has brought us something new. It remains to be debated if this new film, which has been very successful in both China and Japan, is as honest as his earlier ones before the two disasters.
The story is simple. In a beautiful but lonely coastal village lives Takada (Ken Takakura), a fisherman who had deserted the city and not been in communication with his son for ten years. A call from his considerate daughter-in-law brings him to the hospital, only to find his son in sick bed refusing to see him. She gives him a video tape containing his son's TV program shot in Yunnan, to ease his disappointment. When the diagnosis of terminal cancer comes, Takada decides to go to Yunnan to finish shooting the performance of a Chinese opera singer, something that his son did not have time to do on the last expedition. The story is mainly on what he encounters in Yunnan on this quest. Zhang touches on several things in this contemporary story.
First of all, the main theme is clearly father-and-son, explored in not just one, but two stories. True to his old form, Zhang take a minimalized approach, which suits Takakura well. The other story is about the Chinese opera singer and his eight-year-old son. The interesting thing is that in the movie, we never see either pair of father and son together, but instead interaction between Takada and the little boy culminating in a touching parting scene.
There is good depth in the relationship between Takada and his son although the only communication we see in the movie is through his daughter-in-law. We are not told details of what led to the alienation between father and son but get a general understanding that the problem is rooted in both being stubbornly unwilling to reveal their feelings. When Takada finally goes to Yunnan, he finds out from people that his son was very much a loner there, being isolated by cultural and language barriers. It's by going through the same experience of loneliness that he finally feels being close to his son. On the other hand, when the son hears that his father is in Yunnan, it's not only just the appreciation of what is being done, but also (maybe even more importantly) the realization that his father is experiencing the same loneliness he once experienced before. He finally wants to see his father.
There are other things that Zhang has touched on. He is trying to show a modernized China, not so much on the material plane, but more on the mind set of the common people in the remote province. The obstacles Takada encounters initially are, although bureaucratic, not that unreasonable, and due a lot to just language barrier. People are genuinely kind and helpful, particularly after they have heard his tragic story. It's interesting that all the other actors use their real names in the movie, and probably play their real-life roles: tour company translator, local tour guide, government officials, village elders, probably even the prisoners! The cultural and language barrier here are portrayed as nothing more than a natural situation which can be easily overcome - e.g. finding a rooftop (probably the only one) in the remote village which gets cell phone signals so that Takada can call the tourist company translator for help in instant translation. To the ordinary people in the remote village in Yunnan, the arrival of a Japanese visitor is a great honour and the entire village is out to welcome him in a big feast.
Zhang has brought us something very different from anything we've seen from him before. Other than the tragic nature of the main story and the sad father-son alienation in the two story lines, this is an unabashed feel good movie. Let others be skeptical and cynical about it. Personally, I see nothing wrong with it.
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