A heartwarming tail, but I docked 1 star surrounding the controversy

DVDs:

	• Together Yun Tang, Peiqi Liu MGM (Video & DVD), 2003 average customer review:based on 51 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Touching Journey Made by Father and Son

Together is a touching movie about a father, Liu Cheng, and his adopted thirteen-year-old son, Xiaochun, a violin protégé, who go to the big city, Beijing, to seek fame and fortune from rural China. The father hopes that his son would find a teacher who would nurture Xiaochun's talent. While in Bejing Xiaochun becomes infatuated by his beautiful neighbor, Lili, a gold digger. At the same time, Liu Cheng learns that even though Xiaochun is promising, it is not enough. Xiaochun must have a teacher with the right connections. However, what the father wants is not what the son wants.

In Together, Chen Kaige, director also Farewell My Concubine, has again captured the spirit of the times, eloquently depicted his story, raised pertinent social issues, and has given hope to the Chinese people that they will overcome yet another challenge.

The story takes place against China's current economic boom that has caused much social upheaval in the country. Today, China with a population of 1.3 billion must deal with 140 million migrants from the countryside arriving in cities seeking jobs and opportunities to support themselves and the families they left behind. The issues that the new migrants must deal with are their own basic survival: a roof over their head and the next meal. The migrants must also confront the alienation they endure for chasing after their dreams. Chen Kaige has carefully pointed out that in the pursuit of the mighty Yuan and fame, the hearts of some city dwellers have turned into stone; they have forgotten a sense of community and humanity.

Chen Kaige portrays Xiaochun having to deal with his own passionate nature and the mysteries of his hormones. In doing this, Xiaochun learns what gives his life meaning and what makes him a virtuoso on the violin. It is his love for Liu Cheng and later his infatuation with Lili that moves him to play beautiful music. And it is the same passion that makes him willingly stop playing the violin. Xiaochun pawns his violin to buy a coat for Lili. And Xiaochun even refuses to play for his new mentor.

Although the theme of the movie is contemporary, Chen Kaige is indebted to the symbolic convention of the past. Instead of the zither, the violin becomes the voice by which the protagonist, Xiaochun, reveals his love for his mother who had abandoned him as a baby, Liu Cheng, and Lili, his first love. Through the imagination of Western masters and his own talent, Xiaochun's heart and soul touch the heartstrings of all those who hear him play.

Chen Kaige has successfully told the story of Twenty-first century China in transition and shared it with his audience in a most lyrical way.

By Catherine Li, author of "The Flight of the Wild Cranes"

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Sacrifice, meaning, and mystery

This is a very moving melodrama about the unlikely journey of a small town child prodigy traveling to Beijing with his father to seek success in classical violin competition.
Among all human emotions, perhaps none is more moving than the act of sacrifice - the word brings to mind Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac to obey God. In this movie we witness the sacrifices people make for art, the sacrifices parents make for children, and the sacrifices teachers make for their students.
Why are we willing to make self-sacrifices? The reasons vary, but ultimately it is a search for meaning. Set in modern China, a world where money and material self-gratification increasingly rule the day, people are still looking for the meaning of their lives. For the father, the meaning of his whole life is the musical achievement of his son. For the eccentric teacher, the meaning is taking care of all those abandoned street cats. For the beautiful young lady, there is no meaning in life other than money, until she finds one in the boy's pursuit of musical success. As the professor tells his students, techniques are difficult to master, but winning the competition requires more than mastering the techniques. One must inject emotion into the piece to make it alive and enjoyable. It is the "feeling" (professor's word) that is truly rare and precious.
Luckily for the boy, he has plenty of it with his father, his lady friend, and his teacher. It all comes together at the movie's climax.
But this movie is more than just feverish emotionalism. In the end, there is a mystery that motivates the whole plot: who are the child's real parents? And why did they abandon the baby at the Beijing train station with a violin?
We will never know. Just like we will never know why this universe was created. Neither does the man who found the baby and the violin by chance. But after moments of anxiety, the ordinary man became the father who devotes his entire life to follow what he believes is the intention of the baby's parents. He believes they are good people who for some reason cannot do what they want to do, which is to raise this boy to be an accomplished violinist. To his delight the child turns out to have a natural gift for violin and also loves music. Even though the son does not follow the father's every wish, after overcoming various shocks and crises (to name a couple, the money hidden in the father's red hat was stolen, the violin was impulsively sold to buy a white fur coat for the lady) he is able to get to exactly where the father wanted him to be: on the verge of international fame and success. At that point the father is ready to exit the teenage boy's life. His lifetime goal has been achieved. The country bumpkin is no longer "useful," if not a baggage, and his son is better guided by the professor in the future.
One may say the father is a fool - it is quite possible that he is totally mistaken about the meaning of his life. You may think that the baby's parent(s) left the violin with the baby because that's the only valuable she/he/them had and thus it was simply a payment for whoever found the baby to raise the boy. There was no other intention.

Read Cobe's interpretation of the movie's hidden light at:
http://2cobe.com/2009/05/25/sacrifice-meaning-and-mystery-review-of-the-chen-kaige%e2%80%99s-film-together-%e5%92%8c%e4%bd%a0%e5%9c%a8%e4%b8%80%e8%b5%b7/

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A heartwarming tail, but I docked 1 star surrounding the controversy

I screened this movie many long years ago and met the young violinist who is the actual artist in the movie. The violinist who plays all the music is a truly ridiculously talented virtuoso. For anyone who love this movie, I would recommend looking him up on youtube as he is really quite unique, young, fresh, and humorous in his playing.

The movie is a brilliantly written tale that is so very thematic of the best that China is putting out. The struggle and sacrifice are really amazing. The characters can be even more appreciated if one has read a bit about the effects of the cultural revolution on the arts and artistic expression and the impact of the event family life.

My understanding is that some controversy exists surrounding the music used and royalty payments. If it had not been for the controversy, I would have given it 5 stars. However, given the nature of the controversy, I could not give it the final star.

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Nice People, Nice Music

Here is fairly pleasant story of a 13-year-old violin prodigy and his financially-strapped father try to get the boy professional help to aid in the kid's musical career.

The father is a bit on the pushy side but he has a good heart and he's pretty comical, too. The young teen is a likable kid and the other main characters - two of his teachers and the "big sister" - are all interesting people.

The dialog, as with many "foreign" films, is different from what we are used to hearing in North America and I, for one, find it appealing.

At almost two hours, this might be a bit long for most people to put up with subtitles, but I didn't find that a hindrance in keeping focused on this story. Along the way, you get to enjoy some excellent violin playing, too.

People who like amiable-character stories and good music should enjoy this very much.

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An Inspirtional Story of Perserverance, Hard Work and Sacrifice

Together is a mind blowingly powerful story of a young poor Chinese boy prodigy who has talent and a passion for playing the violin. His father realizes that the boy has gone as far as he can in their rural Chinese setting so sends him off to the big city to study under a kind but also poor master. The bonds between father, son, and violin tutor are strong. This story has many twists and turns along the way and shows clearly the daily life of the less privileged class of Chinese people. It was an eye opening glimpse into that non-tourist part of the culture. I was spell bound after the first five minutes. I loed the movie so much I was sad to see it end. I wanted it to be a six hour mini-series it was written, directed, acted, and filmed that well. The action, drama, and subtle humor pull you through this movie like a bullet train ride. It was intensely entertaining, moving, and thought provoking. I would recommend it to all my friends, and have shared my copy with others who appreciated it immensely, even those who normally don't like subtitled movies.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Chen Kaige, director of the OscarÂ(r)-nominated* Farewell My Concubine, composes a richly imagined and 'tender symphony (Screen International) about love, ambition and destiny in China's high-pressure world of classical music. Surging with warmth, humanity and a sense of humor (The Hollywood Reporter), this lyrical, enchanting heartwarmer (Variety) is a 'sure-fire crowd-pleaser (Los Angeles Times)! When violin prodigy Xiaochun and his father headto Beijing seeking fame and fortune, they soon discover a fierce world of cutthroat ambition. But when Xiaochun is adopted by a famous music tutor, success finally seems within reachuntil a shocking discovery begins to unravel his entire world and the boy must make the most difficult choice ofhis life. Can he achieve the fame his father had always hoped for without losing the extraordinary passion that sets him apart? *1993: Foreign Language Film

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