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| Review Summary and Plot Commentary about To Live |
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From the pre-communist 1940s, through the revolution, the Great Leap Forward of the 1950s, the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, and beyond, director Zhang Yimou traces the fortunes of one lowly family in China as larger political and economic forces bear down upon them. Fugui (Ge You) is a wealthy ne'er-do-well who gambles away his family fortune and home, and nearly loses his wife Jiazhen (the ever-incredible Gong Li) and children shortly before Mao's revolution. Swept up first by Chiang's Nationalist troops and then by the Communist forces, Fugui and his friend Chunsheng (Tau Guo) survive by entertaining the soldiers with puppet shows. Reunited, the family (which includes a mute daughter and a feisty little son) try to make do while the topsy-turvy world around them reverses values -- convicting old friends and colleagues of subversion on the flimsiest of evidence, jailing doctors and forcing med students to perform surgery, encouraging neighbors to correct and inform on one another -- and slowly but surely grinds them down and consumes some of them. It's a slow, stately, and perhaps overlong film for many Western viewers, but it provides object lessons in the potential deadliness of relentless "political correctness." (Plot turns may remind one of Orwell's 1984.) As always, Yimou's camera work and eye for color are impressive, and Gong Li does spectacular acting, though the weak will and moral education of the husband are the true center of the tale.
--David Loftus, Resident Scholar
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| Analysis of To Live |
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Time/era of movie:
- 1930's-1950's
Polit/Social/Race/Gender activism
Yes
Plotlet:
- liberal/lefty activism
Inner struggle or disability
Yes
War impact on civilians/veterans
Yes
Ethnic/Regional/Gender story?
Yes
Main Char. ethnic: (if not US Caucasian)
- Chinese
Culture of surrounding area:
- Chinese
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- blue collar
Age:
- long lived adults
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Hair color?
- bald
Hair type
- (man) bald
Body type
- (man) very skinny
Unclothed?
- Chest
Events of movie makes character more...
- sensitive
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Chinese
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor?
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Female
Hair color
- brunette (Black)
Hair style
- (woman) medium/shoulderlgn straight
How much in movie?
- 80%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Chinese
Main Adversary
Identity:
- general circumstances
Setting
Asia/Pacific/Middle East
Yes
Asian country:
- China
City?
Yes
City:
- dirty, grimy (like New York)
Misc setting
- bar
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- explicit references to deaths
Movie makes you feel...
- depressed/sad
Non-American film?
Yes
What language?
- Chinese
Subtitles?
- Yes
Any profanity?
- None
Is this movie based on a
- book
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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