Huo zhe

English title: To Live

Also known as: Vivre

Genre: personal epic

With: You Ge (Xu Fugui), Li Gong (his wife Jiazhen), Zhang Lu, Xiao Cong and Tianchi Liu (their daughter Fengxia as a child, teenager and adult respectively), Deng Fei (their son Youqing), Tao Guo (Chunsheng, Fugui’s partner), Ben Niu (the town chief), Wu Jiang (Wan Erxi), Zongluo Huang (Fugui’s father), Yanjin Liu (Fugui’s mother), Dahong Ni (Long'er, Fugui’s gambling opponent)

Director: Yimou Zhang

Screenplay: Wei Lu and Hua Yu (based on Hua Yu’s novel)

Release: 1994

Studio: ERA International, Shanghai Film Studios

Rating: -

MBiS score: 8.8/10





The Politics of Daily Life





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Story-line: China in the 1940s. After Xu Fugui’s passion for gambling sends himself, his pregnant wife, his young daughter and his parents spiralling toward bankruptcy, he has no other choice but to struggle for their survival.

Pluses: excellent acting from You Ge, Li Gong and a talented cast, a reasoned, well-written screenplay featuring endearing characters and several intriguing twists, outstanding direction and production values, breathtakingly beautiful visuals and a moving musical theme.

Minuses: none really.

Comments: personal chronicles can be tedious to watch but rarely have I seen one so skilful and gripping as TO LIVE. From one day to the next, Fugui’s family learns humility and resilience through personal misfortunes, war, political upheaval and bureaucratic insensitivity. Yimou Zhang’s ironic, sometimes severe and always impeccable film plays like a metaphor of man’s powerlessness in the face of events both private and collective.   





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