After the big budget bombast of Hero, The House Of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower it would appear that Zhang Yimou is well and truly back to being himself. And when being yourself means being the director of some of the most sensitive and compelling relationship dramas of your generation, well, that's a pretty good thing to be.
Yes, Yimou had one more typical film - the excellent Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles - tucked in the midst of his big budget trio but he's lived a rather odd life since, first coordinating the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics and then making a sort of Chinese opera inspired remake of the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple.
In that context it's hard not to see The Love Of The Hawthorn Tree as a deliberate return to roots, both in style and in roots, with the film being a young romance set against the backdrop of the Maoist revolution.
The first trailer - which is very oddly partly subtitled in English and partly not - has just arrived. Check it below.
Yes, Yimou had one more typical film - the excellent Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles - tucked in the midst of his big budget trio but he's lived a rather odd life since, first coordinating the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics and then making a sort of Chinese opera inspired remake of the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple.
In that context it's hard not to see The Love Of The Hawthorn Tree as a deliberate return to roots, both in style and in roots, with the film being a young romance set against the backdrop of the Maoist revolution.
The first trailer - which is very oddly partly subtitled in English and partly not - has just arrived. Check it below.