Luo ye gui gen

This is one of my very favorite Chinese films. The main actor is fantastic, which is important because he is 90% of the film. This film is about a tragedy that happens to a funny man. So the film is full of real life, and you just can't help but laugh with some of the ways the main character deals with the hand life dealt him. But it for sure is not a comedy, even though you'll laugh several times throughout. (Think Life is Beautiful type film). I would say if you are an intelligent person and enjoy well written films that revolve around a story and characters you will enjoy this film.

The Chinese title of this film means "Fallen leaf returns to the root", i.e. the circle of life. A simple story of carrying a dead friend to his hometown, I wasn't expecting anything more than a light comedy, but it turned out to be so much more.

The protagonist, while carrying his friend, meets all kinds of people in his journey. At times he gets into trouble, sometimes his honesty and tenacity changed people he met, other times he gets encouragement and support. This film successfully portrays the best and the worst of human nature, as well as ups and downs one will encounter in life.

I loved the humor in this movie. I burst out in laughter quite a couple of times, and there were couple of VERY touching and inspirational scenes that just brings tears to your eyes. It was really well-directed, and the main actor Zhao Benshan's acting was fantastic.

It's a great film that I will recommend to anyone I know.

As with many "Road Movies" this is also a "Buddy Film". Only, the buddy is a very "silent partner". "Weekend at Bernie's" and "The Trouble with Harry" spring to mind, but our friend does not nearly play such an active role as Bernie or Harry - though he does provide the reason for being on the road.

Travelling with our buddies through China on the way to the Three Gorges really has the feel of being on Route #66, China. I felt like I was looking over Charles Kuralt's shoulder whenever there was yet another vignette of rural China. Wheather true or not, I come away with the belief I know/understand these people of the earth. The touching and moving parts of the film are meant to tug at our heart-strings but do not feel contrived. That so many of the commenter's express how beautifully the film shows "their" China, I am convinced that such hardships are typical there.

Yet, with all the sadness, this is a "feel good" movie. Life goes on, tomorrow is another day, and our journey's end is just down the road a bit.

"A falling leaf returns to its roots" is a Chinese proverb. This endearing film is based on this proverb. It is a modern day story of mainland China--an emerging economic power. Rural migrants are attracted to the cities in search of prosperity. One such 50 year-old-migrant construction worker Zhao (a commendable performance by actor Zhao Benshan), is surprised to find during a drinking bout in a pub that his buddy is not dead drunk but dead as a doornail. As a good peasant would, Zhao vows to keep his promise made during the drinking session that if either buddy died, the other would carry/transport the dead body to the dead man's village and bury his body there. As a promise is promise, Zhao uses all his wits and physical strength to transport the dead body to the village. The fallen leaf has to return to its roots.

What a yarn, you will say! But hold on. The Chinese director Yang Zhang and his scriptwriter Yao Wang built the film script around a real incident in 2006 when a Chinese peasant did carry a dead buddy to his village oblivious of all Chinese laws that prohibit such an action to ensure that the dead man did not transform into a "hungry ghost." Now director Zhang, scriptwriter Wang and a fascinating comic actor Zhao Benshan weave a "Pilgrim's Progress" type road-movie story that constantly shifts from escapist top-gear to formidable realism overdrive as it unspools an array of human behavior--some loathsome, some endearing, some moralizing, some quirky but all very real.

There are vignettes of Asian values. You encounter robbers who appreciate the value of friendship and return their loot to those who honor commitments of friendship. You are shown mothers living as anonymous rag-pickers and professional blood donors, so that their offspring can pursue a comfortable career in the city. Wealthy rural folk do not know who really loves and respects them, and therefore arrange mock funerals following their own faked death to glimpse the truth. There is the philosophical young man who would like to ride to "Tibet" or the roof of the world. There is a family that lives far away from society because the wife/mother has been disfigured by an accident, and yet is a wonderful person. There is a truck driver who having lost his love is crestfallen, but needs someone else to set the compass of his life to regain his lost love.

There are other vignettes that show the unhealthy characteristics of economic progress. Construction companies employ migrants but cheat them by paying salaries in counterfeit notes. Highway restaurants overcharge their clients and use thugs to extort money if they don't pay up. Seedy blood banks pay money for any type of blood donor because there is money in the business. Rich families in cars do not stop to give lifts to the poor and stranded on the roads. Once-robbed travelers do not show compassion to the individual who was responsible for the return of stolen goods—they are concerned with their possessions. Women accuse men staring at them without bothering to check if the accusation is real or imagined. The list goes on.

The movie underlines that there are two sorts of people. One lot cares for others, empathizes with their problems and helps them get out of their predicaments. The other lot lives for themselves and concentrates on their own material interests. The rural folk seem to fall into the first category, while the neo-rich fall into the other.

The ultimate destination of the "road movie" is the controversial Three Gorges mega-dam. On route to the dam, the viewer can glimpse breathtaking landscapes of China. Is the director feeling sorry for the village of the dead man (and the associated values that go with rural, simple life) that has been covered with the waters of the dam? Only the director can answer, we can only ask the question.

The funny thing about the movie is that while the character and milieu is Chinese, the essential elements are universal in any economy "progressing" from rich traditional values to a more consumerist, urban rat race. It is no wonder that the film won the 2007 Berlin Film Festival Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Best Asian film NETPAC award at the recent International Film Festival of Kerala. The movie makes you laugh, but tugs at your conscience. The "falling leaf" in your soul, would like to return to "the root" or traditional life styles when people bonded well and were not out to make a quick buck.

Very close in subject and treatment to the 2004 Iranian black comedy "Khab e-talkh (Bitter Dreams)," director Zhang and scriptwriter Yang need to be complimented for painting a "celluloid" canvas that entertains those who crave for escapism (amidst all the black humor). The viewer has to discount the fact that the body does not decay and the Zhao never tires carrying a dead man around. While the escapist element is in the foreground, the real strength of the film comes from the realistic vignettes that are not Chinese but universal in values and temperament. Here is yet another Chinese film that entertains and offers ample food for thought.

the film is philosophical, yet simple.......... it says that human life itself is a journey.we all have some promises to keep and these promises keep our life meaningful(!).here the hero has to get his friend's body to his home.on the way to home of the dead he meets people with different nature.some of the experiences were sour.but it does not make any change on him,his innate qualities are left intact.it makes us remember of the the fact that journey is the nature and essence of human life.this journey passes through the variety of the land scape and similarity of the human nature across the geographical and political frontiers.we can identify it with our own experience of moving with a body that is not at all of ours!