Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (Qian li zou dan qi), directed by Zhan Yimou, is a Chinese film about an elderly Japanese man who wants to do something to show his love for his son, who has terminal liver cancer. The stonefaced father, Goichi Takata (played by Ken Takakura) has been estranged from his son, Kenichi (voiced by Kiichi Nakai) for many years. When Kenichi’s wife Rie (played by Shinobu Terajima) informs Goichi about Kenichi’s medical condition, he goes to the hospital to see his son. But his son refuses to see him. She then gives him a videotape, which Kenichi produced the previous year in China, hoping that Goichi will learn something about his son's life. What he discovers is that his son loves Chinese folk operas. The previous year Kenichi was unsuccessful in filming Li Jiamin (who plays himself), who was to play the starring role in an opera entitled “Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles,” a thousand-year-old opera about someone who journeys a great distance on behalf of a friend. Kenichi promised to return to China to film the opera, but now Kenichi is bedridden, so his father vows to go to China to do the filming instead; his son, who is overwhelmingly happy when he finds out, dies while his father is on the road in China. Upon arriving in China, Goichi discovers many barriers for the completion of his mission. Li is in prison, so he secures permission to film the opera in prison, but Li breaks down in tears and does not proceed with the performance because he misses his eight-year-old son Yang Yang (played by Yang Zhenbo). Accordingly, Goichi travels to Yunnan Province to bring Li’s son to his father. The son, however, balks. Next, Goichi returns to the prison without his camera, but Li performs anyway. The point of the trip is that Goichi discovers the goodness in others and in himself. Any antipathy of Chinese toward Japanese is absent. What emerges is a picture of the ordinary, unspoiled Chinese peasantry, who show Goichi (who is forbidden in Japanese culture to show emotion) kindness after kindness. The film also shows that Chinese who have been left out of the current economic boom live exemplarily, helping one another to enjoy happy lives. MH
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