Overview
Chinese Name：活着
English Name：To Live
Other Names: Lifetimes, Lifetimes Living, Woot jeuk, 人生
Director: Zhang Yimou 张艺谋
Screenwriter: Yu Hua 余华, Lu Wei 芦苇
Starring: Gong Li 巩俐, Ge You 葛优
Release Year：1994
Running time : 132 Minutes
Brief Introduction of To Live
To Live 活着 （Huo Zhe） is a feature film produced by Times International Limited in 1994. The film is adapted from Yu Hua’s novel of the same name, directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Ge You and Gong Li.
Set in the Chinese civil war and various political movements after the founding of People’s Republic of China, the film reflects the fate of a generation of Chinese people through the rough life of the hero Fu Gui.
In 1994, the film won the Grand Jury Prize and the best actor award at the 47th Cannes International Film Festivall and is regarded as one of Zhang Yimou’s best works by some audiences and film critics.
Plot of To Live
This movie is set in the 1940s, and Fugui is the son of a landlord. After squandering his family’s fortune in gambling dens and brothels and the sudden death of his father, Fugui settles down to do the honest work of a farmer.
After Fugui has lost the house, he takes over a traveling shadow-puppet show. While he and his friend Chungsheng are on the road with their theater, they are captured by the losing Nationalist army.
When Fugui returns to his much-changed town, he finds that Jiazhen earns a living by delivering water door to door. An illness has left their daughter, Fengxia, deaf. And their son, Youqing, is a spirited boy who becomes the victim of his father’s desperate need to disguise his past as a wealthy man.
His only son, Youqing dies due to medical negligence while donating blood to save the magistrate’s wife. Years later, Fengxia finds a suitable husband Erxi, who too has a disability—a crooked head. Their happy life ends when Fengxia dies from giving birth to their son Mantou.
The movie ends six years later, with the family now consisting of Fugui, Jiazhen, their son-in-law Erxi, and grandson Mantou. The family visits the graves of Youqing and Fengxia, where Jiazhen, as per tradition, leaves dumplings for her son.
Accolades of To Live
| Year | Award | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Cannes Film Festival | Grand Prix | Won |
| 1994 | Cannes Film Festival | Prize of the Ecumenical Jury | Won |
| 1994 | Cannes Film Festival | Best Actor (Ge You ) | Won |
| 1994 | Cannes Film Festival | Palme d’Or | Nominated |
| 1994 | Golden Globe Award | Best Foreign Language Film | Nominated |
| 1995 | National Board of Review | Best Foreign Language Film | Top 5 |
| 1995 | National Society of Film Critics Award | Best Foreign Language Film | Runner-up |
| 1995 | BAFTA Award | Best Film not in the English Language | Won |
| 1995 | Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award | Best Foreign Film | Runner-up |
Film Review of To Live
“To Live” is a simple title, but it conceals a universe.
Roger Ebert
Irreverent though Mr. Zhang’s take on Chinese history is, “To Live” is primarily a story of living with sadness. Fugui’s old friend Chungsheng becomes a district leader and accidentally causes a death. “You owe us a life,” Jiazhen screams at him, and the line becomes a refrain that resonates through the film.
The New York Times
Overall I find it very hard to fault this film as it has so much going for it on so many levels. Just as a human story it is excellent, and the historical context only serves to make it better. Comic and touching right to it’s perfectly pitched close, this should be searched out by anyone who wants a genuinely moving human tale with political comment sown into each frame without intrusion.
from IMDb