Critic Reviews

• Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer

  Li fails to stoke much heat in Sun Zhou's pretentious and symbolic love triangle.

• Marta Barber, Miami Herald

  Beautiful to look at but aimless as a broken compass.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

Read all 19 critic reviews