Zhou Yu's Train (2003)

41% of critics liked it
(56 reviews)
57% of users liked it
(2,484 ratings)

Sun Zhou's stylized Zhou Yu de Huoche (Zhou Yu's Train) is the story of a woman in love. Zhou Yu (Gong Li) and teacher Chen Ching (Tony Leung Kar-Fai) fall in love. After Ching gives Zhou a poem he wrote for her, she begins taking a train ride twice a week to his home in order to have sex with him.… More Sun Zhou's stylized Zhou Yu de Huoche (Zhou Yu's Train) is the story of a woman in love. Zhou Yu (Gong Li) and teacher Chen Ching (Tony Leung Kar-Fai) fall in love. After Ching gives Zhou a poem he wrote for her, she begins taking a train ride twice a week to his home in order to have sex with him. During her time on the train, she strikes up a relationship with a veterinarian (Sun Honglei), but she ends their time together when she learns that he spied on her during one of her visits with Ching. Gong Li has a second role as a another woman obsessed with Chen who is trying to ascertain the nature of his relationship with Zhou. This film was shown out of competition at the Berlin Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: PG-13, 1 hr. 32 min.
Directed By: Zhou Sun
Written By: Sun Zhou, Cun Bei, Zhang Mei
Genres: Art House & International, Drama

In Theaters: Jul 2, 2004 Wide
On DVD: Nov 23, 2004
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

Critic Reviews

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
Li fails to stoke much heat in Sun Zhou's pretentious and symbolic love triangle.
Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel
Zhou Yu's Train has its strengths, but it's clearly no bullet train.
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
This is one of those languid numbers where slow motion -- and there's lots of it -- is meant to signify poetry, and a line like 'I know my lake is artificial, but it's full of water' is supposed to seem lyrical.
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post
A terrific film.
Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post
The effort required at the end of Zhou Yu's Train to sort out exactly what just went down isn't worth the payoff.
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We're too busy trying to figure out who's who and what's what, when we should be ruminating on the multiple implications of an intimate story of love's labors lost.
Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
...lovely and slight
Don Willmott, Filmcritic.com
See Zhou Yu's Train for the interesting Chinese scenery, or see it to feast your eyes on the always beautiful Gong Li, but don't see it for the drama
Anthony Del Valle, Las Vegas Mercury
A film that has considerably less on its mind than it thinks.
Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
It just may be a movie that has difficulty transcending national borders.
Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune
[Zhou Yu]'s contradictory impulses, as well as a convoluted narrative structure, make Zhou Yu's Train a rough ride.
Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City
The whole thing would be pretty painful if not for the presence of Gong, who makes some of it watchable.
Rob Thomas, Capital Times (Madison, WI)
Most, I suspect, will walk out of the theater wondering why they had to work so hard for so little reward.
Marta Barber, Miami Herald
Beautiful to look at but aimless as a broken compass.
Laura Kelly, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
When the sum of this film's parts are measured, it is nothing more than a celebration of the exquisitely beautiful Gong Li.
Cynthia Fuchs, PopMatters
A knotty, dreamy paean to romantic longing, Zhou Yu's Train is at once ravishing and precise.
Richard C. Walls, Orlando Weekly
Zhou Yu's Train looks good, but there's no denying that there's very little lurking underneath its pretty surface.
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press
Has a tiny little point -- living solely by one's emotions can be a painful time-waster -- but it makes that point within a needlessly tricky structure and with too much time spent on images that amount to pretty, poetic filler.
Jean Lowerison, San Diego Metropolitan
Dramatically, this train never leaves the station.
M.E. Russell, Oregonian
[An] over-conceived, over-edited, under-written perfume ad.