The subject of this movie is noble. It's about a woman whose husband is incarcerated for many years in China's version of the Gulag. She suffers brain damage at the hand of Chinese police thugs and is unable to recognize her husband when he does return. This should have been a good movie on an interesting subject. It wasn't. It faded after the first hour – and that's being generous. Here's what went wrong –
- It becomes repetitive – we are taken to the train station over and over as the woman awaits her husband. He is with her when this is done. He tries various mechanisms to achieve recognition. This is done over and over again – we got the message after the first couple of tries. It becomes a very boring version of the old Bill Murray "Ground Hog Day".
- Speaking of the word "boring" the film becomes this. It has no energy whatsoever.
- There is absolutely no humour at all – two solid excruciating hours of grimness and glumness.
- The story becomes claustrophobic. In the same room, with the same people having the same conversations, trying so desperately to make this woman remember the past. Too much of the same old thing.