Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2006)

Before he made splashy myth-history epics about fabric (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), Zhang Yimou made intimate yet emotionally vast films about people (The Road Home, Not One Less). Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, which slips only occasionally into the narrative ellipses of epic, is Zhang's path back to emotional realism. As Mr. Takata — a Japanese fisherman scouring China to videotape a folk opera for his dying son — Ken Takakura, a great rain-creased oak of an actor, delivers a quietly massive performance.

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