He ni zai yi qi 2002

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: A modern-day fable about what it means to be young, gifted and batted around like a pingpong ball. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Denuded of the finery of history, politics, and sex, Chen seems innocently naked. That sort of openness is the point of Together. Yet the film doesn't amount to an emotionally palpable experience. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: It's disappointing to watch a filmmaker as gifted as Chen put his talents into the service of a story as blatantly sentimental, stereotypical and unoriginal as Together. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Beautiful, touching and shamelessly manipulative weeper. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Together features a marvelous array of both Western violin masterpieces and traditional Chinese music. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: [T]here's really everything to recommend in here; beautifully directed, wonderfully acted and it's just a great looking film. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: A sometimes sugary melodrama that seems at first to push every sentimental button but becomes a genuinely heartfelt picture, infused with life and warmth in every scene. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: Together may not be overtly political, but its vision of contemporary Beijing, where brazen, fashion-crazed gold diggers like Lili bait their hooks to snare arrogant, slippery wheeler-dealers who end up playing her for a sucker, has bite. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Underneath the exotic gloss, it's still the same old song MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer sold us in the 1940s. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: A sure-fire crowd-pleaser that will strike Chen's admirers as a heartfelt but decidedly minor effort. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: [Liu's] dreams may not be as vast or grandiose (or bloody) as other Chen characters, but they are immense, and immensely endearing, just the same. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: 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. Read more

Ray Conlogue, Globe and Mail: If you're in the mood for tears and triumph, with a dash of exoticism, Together may well be the film for you. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: The direction, performances, music and cinematography give Together a unity and wholeness that's increasingly rare in filmmaking of any origin. Read more

John Powers, L.A. Weekly: 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. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: A crowd-pleaser? Try crowd abductor. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: When it's hitting all its notes, Together makes beautiful music -- the complex two-part harmony of the new China and a newer one, of a peasant father rooted in the old ways and a citified son uncertain of what comes next. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: The kind of earnest melodrama Hollywood has forgotten how to do. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Together is nothing short of a melodious masterpiece. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It's undeniably a melodrama, but there's enough real emotion lurking beneath the manipulative tear jerking to make the movie a worthwhile and occasionally genuinely moving experience. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Together is powerful in an old-fashioned, big-studio kind of way. Read more

Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle: Chen's tale of a violin prodigy and his devoted dad pulls the heartstrings on cue, but the movie's vivid, affecting performances save it from being maudlin. Read more

Susan Walker, Toronto Star: It's a touching film in which the actors, including director Chen Kaige in the role of Prof. Yu, deliver heart-touching performances. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Read more

Dennis Lim, Village Voice: Mawkishly cliched. Read more