Director Zhang Yimou claims he conceived Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles as a vehicle for his "childhood idol," Japanese actor Ken Takakura. Sadly, I haven't seen any of Takakura's previous films, but I'm happy to report that Riding Alone has given me more than a good glimpse of this Eastern screen veteran's appeal.

Takakura plays a taciturn father, Mr. Takata, who learns that his estranged son (Kiichi Nakai) has been hospitalized with a grave illness. Long regretful of their past falling out, he tries to pay a visit but his son rejects a face-to-face meeting. However, his daughter-in-law (Shinobu Terajima) gives him one of his son's videocassettes, which reveals to him a love of Chinese folk operas and routine visits to China to document the art. It appears there was a song (the title of this movie is named after it) his son would like to have heard sung by a particular actor, but he never got the chance, so Takata figures he can do something special for his son by traveling to China to tape a bit of unfinished business.

The movie is as simple as it sounds -- a rather typical father-son relationship drama, really, except that it's presented entirely from the father's side. Traditionally, such a reconciliation story would depict some kind of tug-of-war, but here the entire task of communicating the burden of the broken bond rests on Takakura, and he's able to pull this off effortlessly and without the help of much dialogue. Perhaps even more fascinating is how he's forced to be a foreign stranger throughout most of the picture -- he doesn't speak Chinese and is dependent on a couple of translators, whose reliabilities are variable. How apropos, then, that Takakura is able to act mostly with expressions in a movie that's about communicating when words simply aren't enough.

Riding Alone is a lovely piece of progression in its blending of two cultures traditionally at odds with one another. This is a Chinese production, but it's possible that more Japanese is actually spoken in the movie (through dialogue and voiceover narration). The hardened, sad-faced Japanese protagonist is greeted with civil politeness, but the basic humanity of his mission soon wins over previously reluctant participants to his cause. The entire work is an opus of cross-cultural cooperation and understanding -- the son's love of Chinese theater, the warm references to Takata as "our Japanese friend," the lighthearted humor of one translator's (Qiu Lin) struggles to speak Japanese (in the English subtitles, he's rather ironically named "Lingo"), and the connection Takata makes late in the movie with a Chinese child.

In revering one of his favorite Japanese actors, Zhang has created an unassuming bridge-building feature that casts both the Japanese and Chinese as humble and earthly, instead of culturally overbearing like they're both usually portrayed. Zhang even manages to take a dig at Chinese nationalism when an official agrees to let Takata film in a restricted facility because the work might do its little part to spread the glory of Chinese culture (between Zhang's indirect promotion of government philosophy in Hero to his current job directing the ceremonies of the upcoming summer Olympics in Beijing, you've got to believe this is a jab of relief for him). But it's Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles that's promoting the culture in a truly positive way by showing the humanism of the people of the countryside and their ability to empathize with the odyssey of a foreigner -- a concern which the Japanese stranger is able to return in kind.

(Released by Sony Pictures Classics and rated "PG" for mild thematic elements.)

Review also posted on www.windowtothemovies.com.