Most ballets tell tragic stories, but the Maoist-era “Red Detachment of Women” caused them. It certainly contributed to the woes of Lu Yanshi’s family during the Cultural Revolution. Their wounds will never fully heal, even when he is finally “rehabilitated” and released from his prison camp in Zhang Yimou’s straight-up masterpiece “Coming Home,” which opened Sept. 9 in New York.
Lu Yanshi was a college professor—and therefore a class enemy during the Gang of Four’s reign of terror. Further compounding his guilt, Lu escaped from his labor camp, finding the half-starved life of a fugitive more bearable.
Naturally, the Communist Party responded by pressuring his family. Lu’s wife Feng Wanyu will bear any risk to protect him, but their daughter Dan Dan has absorbed too much of the omnipresent propaganda. She is a gifted ballet dancer, but she could very well lose the lead role in “Red Detachment of Women” she has worked so hard to win. Convinced to inform on her father, she learns the hard way what sort of opportunities are available to the children of traitors.
