'ROAD HOME' PAVED WITH VISUAL SPLENDOR.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Sheer visual poetry, coupled with the incomparable delight of watching ``Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's'' Zhang Ziyi in her adorably dewy movie debut, makes the simple, straightforward tale of love and family ``The Road Home'' a very special movie.

Sentimental and willfully naive it may be, but this Chinese film's formal beauty - its compositional sophistication, its lighting on par with the Dutch Masters', its oneness with natural landscapes and its luxuriant appreciation of the leading lady - makes ``Road Home'' a must-see.

Directed by Zhang Yimou, the new film bears little resemblance, narrative-wise, to his grinding, psycho-sexually charged social tragedies (``Red Sorghum,'' ``Ju Dou,'' ``Raise the Red Lantern,'' ``To Live,'' ``Shanghai Triad''). But like all of those movies - and his last, ``Not One Less,'' which like ``Road Home'' was shot by the gifted cinematographer Hou Yong - this one brilliantly couples the deepest human longings with aptly chosen, expressive images.

Beginning and closing in rich black-and-white, ``Road Home'' is set in some northern foothills, on the edge of a rural village. It's modern times, although in this place, just recently introduced to indoor plumbing, the arrival of any vehicle (particularly a loaded SUV from the prosperous, faraway city) is an event.

The visitor, Luo Yusheng (Sun Honglei), is a successful businessman returned home due to the death of his father. Luo Changyu, the village schoolteacher, passed away in the nearest hospital, many miles down the lightly traveled road, and there's a problem with the funeral arrangements. The elderly Mrs. Luo, Zhao Di (Zhao Yuelin), insists that her husband's coffin be carried on foot by local men back to his final resting place, as tradition demands. Trouble is, that tradition hasn't been observed for decades, and with all of the young people having long left town for more prosperous parts, the village elders don't have the muscle to carry the casket through the harsh winter weather.

They implore Luo Yusheng to change his mother's mind. But she is adamant, and that night he recalls the stories he's heard about his parents' courtship.

The film blooms into rapturous color as we go back to the time of the Cultural Revolution, when Zhao Di was a teen-ager (played by Zhang) as excited as all of her neighbors - OK, more than all of them - at the prospect of a new teacher from the city's arrival. Luo Changyu (Zheng Hao) comes down the road on a donkey cart, and Zhao is eminently pleased to discover that he's cute as well as smart. Though not interested in learning herself, she loves listening to the sound of his voice emanating from the just-built schoolhouse.

But what to do next? No one in her village understands the concept of love outside of arranged unions, and she has no idea how to casually chat up the teacher, let alone express her true feelings. So, essentially, she stalks him from afar, watching from the well, behind birch trees and within tall summer grass as he escorts children home from classes. Days blend into days before it's Zhao's turn to feed the teacher at the mud-brick home she shares with her blind, widowed mother.

From there, the relationship takes off - only to be cruelly interrupted when some political misdemeanor or another forces Luo back to the city. For two agonizing years.

Zhang Ziyi goes a little overboard on the anticipatory lip quiver here, but her devotion and determination radiate through the girlish exterior as surely as they did from her later and much more worldly ``Tiger'' character. And as he did with earlier protege Gong Li, Zhang Yimou displays an instinctive ability to both celebrate the actress' striking beauty and see past it to the strength and desperation that roils within her.

``The Road Home'' is also a movie whose abundant fine craftsmanship is, at its most glorious, put to the service of good work itself. The plot stops dead - not that there's a whole lot going on anyway - to spend five minutes watching a ceramic repairman's wizened hands fix a significant broken bowl, and the effect is transporting. Even better is young Zhao's loving efforts to brighten up the dilapidated school in anticipation of Luo's uncertain return. It's what any true heart would do, but it's the kind of profoundly homely thing that only the most sensitive and confident of contemporary filmmakers would even think of showing, let alone with all the respect such an act of simple, passionate hope deserves.

``THE ROAD HOME''

(Rated G)

The stars: Zhang Ziyi, Sun Honglei, Zheng Hao, Zhao Yuelin.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Zhang Yimou. Written by Bao Shi. Produced by Zhao Yu. Released by Sony Pictures Classics.

Running time: One hour, 40 minutes.

Playing: Town Center 5, Encino; Rialto, South Pasadena; Royal, West L.A.

Our rating: Three and one half stars.

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Photo: Zhang Ziyi, left, keeps her feet on the ground in ``The Road Home,'' but she can't keep her heart from soaring for a schoolteacher played by Zheng Hao.