Together

After making a disastrous foray into the erotic thriller with the London-based flop KILLING ME SOFTLY (2001), Chen Kaige (FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE) returned to China for this far less torrid tale of a young violin virtuoso and his devoted father. It's shamelessly sentimental and hardly on a par with Chen's best work, but it does offer an interesting critique of China's evolving economy and newly minted consumer class, which appears to be as shallow and image obsessed as its Western counterpart. The economy isn't the only aspect of Chinese life looking westward: With many of the Cultural Revolution's prohibitions now ancient history, Western classical music is once again...