Together

Director Chen Kaige moves from the epic sweep of Farewell My Concubine to a small, intimate story about a boy and his father--but creates just as rich an emotional impact. Liu Cheng (Liu Peiqi) takes his 13-year-old son Xiaochung (Tang Yun) to Beijing in the hope of finding a teacher who will foster the boy's talent on the violin. The adolescent boy soon becomes infatuated with one of their neighbors, a golddigger named Lili (the lovely Chen Hong), and becomes a pupil of Professor Jiang (Wang Zhiwen). But Liu discovers that a good teacher is not enough; if Xiaochung is to succeed in the world, he must have a teacher with connections--even if this ambition threatens to pull father and son apart. Together would be sappy if it weren't for the emotional honesty of the actors; under Kaige's clean direction, the movie is graceful and deeply moving. --Bret Fetzer