The first half of this movie is mesmerizing. I started to loose interest in the story during the second half. I agree with most of the other reviewers although I think it wrong to say that the male lead is too old. He himself said at the beginning of the movie that he worked at the plant during thirty years. What did you expect in the role, a teenager?
Very interesting the idea of the Chinese dialogs without translation (at least in my copy --well, my copy didn't have any kind of subtitles), since that gives you an idea of the male lead frustration not understanding the simplest of phrases (anybody that went through that experience can recognize the horrible feeling of being alone in a foreign country without the knowledge of the language --tell me!!), but then, if we depend only on the images to understand what is going on, we are deprived of what seems to be vital information to understand the Chinese scenes.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
The encounter of the two main characters again after their final (?) separation was totally improbable; they did what it was very usual during the eighteen century in the theater, they just placed the characters there because it was the only way to solve the script at that particular point (Deus ex Machina), you either take it or leave it. But in real life, that kind of coincidence will be similar to winning the lottery (and in a country the size of China!!!).
Besides, following the development of their relation, one thinks that they really care for each other, so, at this extremely casual meeting: "¿Oh, what are you doing here?" I was actually shrieking with laughter, can you imagine? By then they have been traveling on separate ways thousands of miles thinking they would never see each other again!!!: "¿Oh, what are you doing here?" Almost Marx Brothers stuff. Maybe at this point both actors were so tired of the movie that they refuse to say anything else.
