Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
Pays off in surprising ways, when love of music, and fame, plays second fiddle to love of family.
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
China, Korea · 2002
Rated PG · 1h 56m
Director Chen Kaige
Starring Yun Tang, Hong Chen, Liu Peiqi, Cheng Qian
Genre Drama
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When a violin prodigy Xiaochun and his father head to Beijing seeking fame and fortune, they soon discover a fierce world of cutthroat ambition. But when Xiaochun is "adopted" by a famous music tutor, success finally seems within reach - until a shocking discovery begins to unravel his entire world, and the boy must make the most difficult choice of his life. Can he achieve the fame his father had always hoped for without losing the extraordinary passion that sets him apart?
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Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
Pays off in surprising ways, when love of music, and fame, plays second fiddle to love of family.
Its schmaltzy manipulations are pure 1940s Hollywood. Still, if you can get past the corn, the story exerts a not-unsatisfying emotional pull thanks to Yun's soulful gravity and a tenderness that Chen hasn't shown quite so openly since his 1984 debut, "Yellow Earth."
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
The result is a sure-fire crowd-pleaser that will strike Chen's admirers as a heartfelt but decidedly minor effort.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
To contextualize the story's lack of subtlety, it helps to see these casting choices as ongoing penance for the time when, as a boy, Chen denounced his own father to the Red Guard.
Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten
The performances are all terrific, but Together never jells as a compelling narrative.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Ray Conlogue
If you're in the mood for tears and triumph, with a dash of exoticism, Together may well be the film for you.
Miami Herald by Rene Rodriguez
A high tolerance for syrupy melodrama is required in order to enjoy Together.
Chen tries to generate some suspense, but there's never any doubt which side has to win.
The film doesn't amount to an emotionally palpable experience. Most of the stops it attempts to pull out are rusty. The movie ends with a gigantic lump in its throat, one that would take a tall glass of Barbara Stanwyck to wash down.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold
Together is a likely candidate to become that one foreign-language film that jumps out of the art houses each year to become a mainstream phenomenon.
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