Diagonaldi Very well executed

Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

pehn If you like the feeling of being mystified and of watching others being mystified themselves, then this is the movie for you. You have only to peruse the previous comments and notice the contradictions in them about plot elements and even dramatis personae to see how confusing this movie is. Most interesting of all, what someone understands to have happened in the movie seems not to matter. Almost all the comments are positive. ("Abject adulation" might be a better phrase.) How much to blame Zhou Sun (writer, director) and how much to blame Cun Bei (novelist) must be left to readers of Chinese with time on their hands. All in all a travesty fit to be enjoyed by those who deserve nothing better!

lastliberal Li Gong is just about the best thing ever to come out of China. No matter how many films I have seen featuring her, I am always impressed.This is a difficult film to watch. You are never quite sure who you are watching. Li Gong is in a relationship with a poet (Tony Leung Ka Fai) and the practical vet (Honglei Sun). She travels by train between them.But, are we watching events in real time or narrated? It seems that what we are seeing is in the past. That the poet, Chen Qing, has a current relationship, and only has Zhou Yu in his heart.If this were an American film, then I believe it would probably be relegated to Lifetime, but with Li Gong, we have more than romance; we have poetry.

tedg Regular readers of my comments know that nearly all my viewing is by recommendation. So, often I will pick a film that I know nothing at all about; this is one of those.My goal is to stumble upon a hidden gem that has escaped all the geniuses I know, that has such power that it takes me by surprise. Friends, if you are reading this and haven't yet seen the film, I have stolen the joy of discovery without knowing; but please do see this. It is precious.It is something between the best of Tarkovsky and what you might like of Kar-Wai Wong.The story is purely in service to the cinematic images, and those are in service to some very pure notions: Poetry as love, love as travel, travel as painting, painting as copying one's self and sending it out, going out as diving into water, diving as love, love as poetry.Unbelievably, each of these concepts is displayed in images of a train. You have to see it to believe it. Trains have been with film since the very beginning, and have been handled by masters. But I have never seen it so thoroughly explored, extended and exhausted as here.The narrative is folded and shifting. It could be a poem, a porcelain painting, a story from each of the four main characters that invents the others. It is quite confusing the first time around.The main thread is in the real world: a porcelain artist falls for a poet in another city. He writes poems for and about her, including her journeys on the train to see him. He gets sent to Tibet. She follows and on the way back is killed in an accident. Later, another woman (played by the same actress) meets the now famous poet and they fall in love. Or do they? This second woman travels on the same train.All of this is chopped and shifted around in presentation, and you have no idea who is telling or seeing what, including several episodes where the first girl also falls for a veterinarian she meets on the train. He may be an imaginary figure. Both the girl and the poet love two people but their bond, at least according to the poems, is much stronger.That's all the story you need to know to not be unsettled and to just go with the flow.What reminds me of Tarkovsky is the way the camera invokes parallel realities as if it glances into the mind as easily as outside a window. The camera is restless and goes to odd places, but once there temporarily becomes meditative. The simplest scenes become blossoms.If you ever loved someone distant, you'll recognize the magic of yearning driving a mythologizing of reality.You have probably seen the actress who plays the two women, Li Gong. She is as good as Liv Uhlmann in the way that Liv is capable of small, flitting expressions that each contain whole lives. She has some American films in production, I see.Please see this.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

ncc1205 ZHOU YU'S TRAIN is the type of film that may require repeat viewing in order for the casual viewer to take in all the thia story has to offer: if you blink -- much like the effect of the quickly passing scenery out the window of any train -- you might miss a plot line, a character moment, or a perspective that would better be explored, as the climax to this evenly and perhaps-too-leisurely-paced romance shows. Zhou Yu (the lovely Gong Li) plays a young painter who falls in love with a shy poet, Chen Ching (played by Tony Leung Ka-Fai). Twice a week, Zhou Yu rides the train to be with him. On the train, however, a humorous veterinarian (played Sun Honglei) sees, approaches, and flirts with her. While she initially resists his desire, she eventually gives in to an indescribable curiosity which forces all of them to examine their various roles in one another's lives. While one could hardly argue with the notion that there are parts of TRAIN that appear uneven and, at least, forced, the film still manages to deliver a perspective worth a single view: who does Zhou Yu love and why? Torn between these two men for wildly conflicting reasons, she can't make sense of her dilemma. Instead of running from one of them, she inevitably chooses aspects of both for her affection, but this choice only forces her further and further into confusion.As a result, TRAIN explores more than one budding relationship, making the film as uneven as it is unpredictable. In fact, one could make the argument that what truly is transpiring here cannot be fully understood and appreciated until the film's final few moments .. but even then the viewer is left with many unanswered questions. Is that the message of the film, that life brings more questions than answers? Or is it merely a comment on how Zhou Yu chose to live her life? Or is it something even more?Regardless, what is clear is Zhou's desire to seek the answers to questions of the various loves in her life (two men, friendship, art, etc.), and the narrative clearly appears to be a device through which an exploration of the female mind and heart is undertaken. Whether you reach a destination is left entirely up to the viewer. Of course, the best scenery is Gong Li. She plays even utter confusion with beautiful conviction. If you're a fan of her work, then TRAIN is definitely for you.