To Live (), also known as Lifetimes, is a 1994 Chinese drama film directed by Zhang Yimou and adapted from Yu Hua's 1993 novel of the same name. The film spans the 1940s–1970s, tracing the Xu family's survival through the Chinese Civil War, Great Leap Forward, and Cultural Revolution. It won numerous prestigious international awards, and despite domestic censorship, is widely respected for its portrayal of ordinary resilience under political duress.
The film looks back on four generations of the Xu family: Xu Fugui, played by Ge You; his father, a wealthy landowner; his wife, Jiazhen, played by Gong Li; their daughter, Fengxia, and son, Youqing; and finally their grandson, Little Bun. The action goes from the Chinese Civil War in the late 1940s to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The film, like many examples of fiction and film in the 1970s and 1980s, demonstrates the difficulties of the common Chinese, but ends when conditions are seemingly improving in the 1980s.
To Live was screened at the 1994 New York Film Festival before eventually receiving a limited release in the United States on November 18, 1994. The film has been used in the United States as a support to teach Chinese history in colleges.Amy Mungur, “Chinese Movies and History Education: The Case of Zhang Yimou's 'To Live',” History Compass 9,7 (2011): 518–524. Films like To Live present opportunities for diverse audiences to effectively visualize prominent historical events, and the impact that they had on different demographics of people. To Live offers a straightforward, almost plain, approach to portraying personal perspective within a complicated period of Chinese history. It is this simplicity that makes it an invaluable educational asset in teaching the impacts of this period and the issues of the Great Leap Forward in particular.
Having achieved international success with his previous films (Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern), director Zhang Yimou's To Live came with high expectations, and lived up to it, receiving critical acclaim. It is the first Chinese film that had its foreign distribution rights pre-sold. Furthermore, To Live brought home the Grand Prix, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, and Best Actor Award (Ge You) from the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, the highest major international awards Zhang Yimou has ever won. The Film also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language at the 48th British Academy Film Awards in 1995.
The film was denied a theatrical release in mainland China by the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film, and TelevisionZhang Yimou. Frances K. Gateward, Yimou Zhang, University Press of Mississippi, 2001, pp. 63–64. due to its critical portrayal of policies and political campaigns. Despite the ban, the film was aired in Chinese theaters since as soon as 1995. It is claimed both Zhang Yimou and Gong Li were each banned from filmmaking for two years as a consequence of the film's submission to Cannes without prior official approval, and the ban on the film itself would have not be lifted until late 2008.
Plot In the 1940s, Xu Fugui, a rich man's son and compulsive gambler, loses his ancestral home to a man named Long'er. His wife Jiazhen leaves him, taking their daughter Fengxia and unborn son Youqing. His father dies after signing over the family house to Long'er. Destitute, Fugui vows to never gamble again as Jiazhen returns. When Fugui asks for a loan, Long'er gives Fugui a set of shadow puppets. To make a living, Fugui starts a shadow puppet troupe with a partner named Chunsheng. The Chinese Civil War is occurring at the time, and Fugui and Chunsheng are conscripted into the Kuomintang's Republic of China armed forces during a performance. Midway through the war, the two are captured by the communist People's Liberation Army and earn a certificate of commendation for performing their shadow puppet operas for the revolutionaries. After the Communist victory, Fugui returns home and learns that Fengxia has become mute and partially deaf due to illness.
Fugui learns that Long'er burned all his property just to deny the new regime from seizing it. He is eventually put on trial for counter-revolutionary sabotage and sentenced to execution. Realizing that Long'er's fate would have been his if not for his "misfortune" earlier, Fugui is filled with fear. He runs home to tell Jiazhen what has happened, and they quickly retrieve the certificate stating that Fugui served in the communist People's Liberation Army. Jiazhen assures him they are no longer gentries and will not be killed.
A decade later, Mao initiates the Great Leap Forward. The local village chief enlists everyone to donate all scrap iron to the national drive to produce steel and make weaponry for invading Taiwan. As an entertainer, Fugui performs for the entire town nightly. Fengxia delivers water to the workers, and the children aid in the steel-making process.
The children are exhausted from the hard labor they are doing in the town and try to sleep whenever they can. They eventually get a break during the festivities for meeting the scrap metal quota while the entire village eats dumplings in celebration. However, Youqing is called to the school to prepare for the District Chief's inspection. Though Jiazhen wants to let him sleep, Fugui insists that he go and carries his son to school. Later that night, the car carrying the District Chief gets into a freak accident and kills Youqing. The District Chief visits the family at the grave, only to be revealed as Chunsheng. His attempts to apologize and compensate the family are rejected, particularly by Jiazhen, who tells him he owes her family a life.
Another decade later, the Cultural Revolution is starting. The village chief advises Fugui to burn his shadow puppets, which have been deemed as counter-revolutionary. Fengxia is now grown up and her family arranges for her to meet Wan Erxi, a local leader of the Red Guards. Erxi, a man crippled by a workplace accident, fixes her parents' roof and paints depictions of Mao Zedong on their walls with his workmates. He proves to be a kind, gentle man; he and Fengxia fall in love and marry, and she soon becomes pregnant. Chunsheng, still in the government, visits immediately after the wedding to ask for Jiazhen's forgiveness, but she refuses to acknowledge him.
Later, Chunsheng is branded a reactionary and a capitalist. He comes to tell them his wife has committed suicide and that he intends to as well. To atone for Youqing's death, he has come to give them all his money. Fugui refuses to take it. As Chunsheng leaves, Jiazhen commands him to live, reminding him that he still owes them a life.
Months later, during Fengxia's childbirth, her parents and husband accompany her to the county hospital. All doctors have been sent to do hard labor for being over-educated, and the students are left as the only ones in charge after they have "overthrown" the doctors. Wan Erxi manages to find a doctor to oversee the birth, removing him from confinement, but he is very weak from starvation. Fugui purchases seven steamed buns (mantou) for him, and the family decides to name the son Mantou, after the buns. Fengxia begins to hemorrhage during the birth, and the nurses panic, admitting that they do not know what to do. The family and nurses seek the advice of the doctor, but find that he has overeaten (the buns expanded in his stomach) and is semiconscious. The family is helpless, and Fengxia dies.
The film 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 leaves dumplings for her son and family photos for her daughter. Erxi buys a box full of young chicks for his son, which they decide to keep in the chest formerly used for the shadow puppets. When Mantou inquires how long it will take for the chicks to grow up, Fugui's response is a more tempered version of something he said earlier in the film. He expresses optimism for his grandson's future, and the film ends with his statement, "life will get better and better" as the family sits down to eat.
Cast Ge You as Xu Fugui (): Fugui came from a rich family, but he is addicted to gambling, so his pregnant wife walks away from him with their daughter. After he gambles away all his possessions, his father passes away due to anger. After a year, his wife comes back and they start their life over again. Fugui and Chunsheng together maintain a shadow puppet business for their livelihood, but they are forcibly conscripted by the Kuomintang army, and later the Communist Party. When at last, Fugui gets home after the war, everything has changed. Gong Li as Jiazhen (), Fugui's wife: Jiazhen is a hard-working, kind, and virtuous woman. She is a strong spiritual pillar for Fugui. When her husband gambles his possessions away, Jiazhen angrily leaves him and takes their daughter away. But when Fugui had lost everything, and she knows that Fugui had completely quit gambling, she returns to his side to share in weal and woe. She is not after a great fortune, just a peaceful life with her family. Liu Tianchi as adult Xu Fengxia (), daughter of Fugui and Jiazhen Xiao Cong as teenage Xu Fengxia; Zhang Lu as child Xu Fengxia; When Fengxia was a child, she suffered from a serious fever that could not be treated in time, leaving her mute and slightly deaf. Years later, she married Wan Erxi and became pregnant. However, complications arose during her labour, and she died due to a lack of professional medical care. Fei Deng as Xu Youqing (), Fugui and Jiazhen's son: Youqing is accidentally hit and killed by Chunsheng due to drowsy driving during the Great Leap Forward. Jiang Wu as Wan Erxi (), Fengxia's husband: Wan Erxi is introduced midway through the film. He is portrayed as a kind and hardworking local factory worker who suffers a disabling leg injury caused by a workplace accident. He later marries Fengxia and becomes part of her family. Despite his disability, he continues to support Fengxia and her relatives. He also uses his position as a former Red Guard official to help bring a doctor into the hospital in an attempt to assist Fengxia during her childbirth complications. Niu Ben as the Town Chief, a paternalistic local Communist official who shepherds the village through successive political campaigns and remains a friend of the Xu family across decades. Ni Dahong as Long'er (): Long'er at first is the head of a shadow puppet troupe and won all of Fu Gui's property by gambling. After liberation, he is classified as a landlord and his property is ordered to be confiscated. But he refuses the confiscation, and sets the property on fire. As a result, he is convicted of the crime of "counterrevolutionary sabotage" and sentenced to death by shooting. Guo Tao as Chunsheng (): Fugui's good friend, they serve together as forced conscripts. Chunsheng then joins the People's Liberation Army, and becomes the district governor. Due to this position, he is criticized as a capitalist roader and endures struggle sessions during the Cultural Revolution.
Production
Development Zhang Yimou originally intended to adapt Mistake at River's Edge, a thriller written by Yu Hua. Yu gave Zhang a set of all of the works that had been published at that point so Zhang could understand his works. Zhang said when he began reading To Live, one of the works, he was unable to stop reading it. Zhang met with Yu to discuss the script for Mistake at River's Edge, but they kept bringing up To Live. Thus, the two decided to adapt To Live instead.Yu, Hua. Editor: Michael Berry. To Live. Random House Digital, Inc., 2003. 242. .
Casting