An okay father-son love story that avoids the worst 'child prodigy' clichés. Sadly it does so at a cost where side characters appear and disappear throughout the movie, what makes the film seem like it's jumping from one effective scene to another, the way a kid will randomly jump on stones to cross a river. But the biggest problem is the protagonist kid, who's Buster Keatonesque face is completely impossible to read.

Because of Chen Kaige's empathetic treatment of an assortment of characters to whom music matters, the music produced in Together becomes a character in and of itself -- not just a unifying mode of expression. Unoriginal yet compassionate, the film's efforts to depart from father-child (prodigy) storytelling for something of such wider scope and scale proves Kaige's wiliest move. It makes a two-hour film fly by while still having an impact.