Zhang Yimou’s movie Coming Home (original title “Gui lai”) is adapted from the novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi by American-based novelist Yan Geling. The film chronicles the journey of a Chinese dissident from the 1920?s to the 1990?s, and world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 2014. Filmmaking doesn’t get more timeless than this heartbreaking historical romance, a family drama of guilt, love and reconciliation set during the aftermath of China’s Cultural Revolution.

The original soundtrack has been composed by Qigang Chen, who worked as Music Director of the Opening Ceremony at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. In 2013 he was voted, along with Mo Yan (Nobel Laureate, Literature) and Lang Lang, “Most Influential Chinese in the World of Culture and the Arts” by a consortium of major Chinese media.

Chen Qigang’s score, drawn from vintage Chinese revolutionary symphonies performed by legendary pianist Lang Lang, is a sentimental one. Piano is the main “voice” of this score, with cello, violin and female voices in supporting roles. In order to make it work with the story, the music of Coming Home features simple tunes and forms. Anything excessively rousing is avoided, with the soundtrack largely providing an understated aural backdrop, coming up to the foreground only when the occasion calls for it.

180 gram audiophile vinyl Insert
Original soundtrack of the motion picture by Zhang Yimou
Music by Qigang Chen, featuring Lang Lang on piano & The China Philharmonic Orchestra
First pressing of 1000 numbered copies on transparent vinyl