One of the world's premier storytellers, Fifth Generation Chinese director Zhang Yimou has endured a long history of butting heads with government censors, who have objected to the tough political sentiments expressed in such modern classics as Ju Dou, Raise The Red Lantern, and To Live. Zhang's last film, 1999's Not One Less, was reportedly the first to pass through the board without a hitch, despite its implicit criticism of the inadequate attention and funding given to provincial schools. But all signs of dissent are absent from his disappointing follow-up, The Road Home, a companion piece that emphasizes the earlier film's endorsement of pastoral life at the expense of political vitality, as if Zhang were actively trying to please the censors. Drenched in nostalgia for old-fashioned values and traditions, the story unfolds with fable-like simplicity, framing the modern world in a dreary gray pallor before flashing back to the lush, vibrant colors of the past. As the film opens, a young city engineer (Sun Honglei) returns to the village in which he was raised after learning of his father's death. Arrangements for the funeral are complicated when his elderly mother (Zhao Yuelin) insists on reviving traditional custom by having the body carried on foot from the hospital back to the village, a task that would require the services of about three dozen men. Her determination to stage the antiquated ceremony for her husband is rooted in the tale of their courtship, which constitutes the bulk of the film. Played as a young woman by the luminous Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), she falls instantly in love with Zheng Hao, a 20-year-old teacher from the city who arrives to open a schoolhouse in the village. Like the doggedly resolute women of Not One Less and The Story Of Qiu Ju, Zhang's devotion to him remains steadfast through extraordinary adversity. Much of The Road Home is dedicated to her single-minded passion, but her cause is merely the pursuit of domestication rather than justice. Beyond her readiness to sprint through the hills with mushroom dumplings or wait in the bitter cold for Zheng to return from the city, their relationship lacks dimension, founded on little more than a few chaste smiles. At times, Zhang's fluid, sweeping lyricism complements the simplicity of the story, carrying the melodrama to emotional crescendos that defy its prodding sentimentality. But, considered in light of his previous work, The Road Home seems shallow and ideologically bankrupt, the lone blight on an otherwise consistently stellar career.