To Live (1994 film)

To Live (活着, Huózhe) is a 1994 Chinese drama 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 the Cannes Grand Prix, Ecumenical Jury Prize, and Best Actor (Ge You), and despite domestic censorship, is widely respected for its portrayal of ordinary resilience under political duress.^[2]

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.^[3]

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.^[4] The film has been used in the United States as a support to teach Chinese history in colleges.^[5] 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.^[6] 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.^[7] Furthermore, To Live brought home the Grand Prix, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, and Best Actor Award (Ge You)^[8] from the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, the highest major international awards Zhang Yimou has ever won.^[9]

The film was denied a theatrical release in mainland China by the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television^[10] due to its critical portrayal of policies and campaigns.

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 with 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, 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 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.^[11][12]

• Ge You as Xu Fugui (traditional Chinese: 徐福貴; simplified Chinese: 徐福贵; pinyin: Xú Fúguì; lit. 'Lucky & Rich'):
  • 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.^[3][13]
• Gong Li as Jiazhen (Chinese: 家珍; pinyin: Jiāzhēn; lit. 'Precious Family'), 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.^[13]
• Liu Tianchi as adult Xu Fengxia (traditional Chinese: 徐鳳霞; simplified Chinese: 徐凤霞; pinyin: Xú Fèngxiá; lit. 'Phoenix & Rosy Clouds'), daughter of Fugui and Jiazhen
  • Xiao Cong as teenage Xu Fengxia;
  • Zhang Lu as child Xu Fengxia;
  • When Fengxia is a child, she has a serious fever and could not be cured in time, so she becomes mute and slightly deaf. She marries Erxi after she grew up, but when she gives birth, she dies for lack of professional doctors.^[3]
• Fei Deng as Xu Youqing (traditional Chinese: 徐有慶; simplified Chinese: 徐有庆; pinyin: Xú Yǒuqìng; lit. 'Full of Celebration'), Fugui and Jiazhen's son:
  • Youqing is accidentally hit and killed by Chunsheng due to drowsy driving during the Great Leap Forward.^[13]
• Jiang Wu as Wan Erxi (traditional Chinese: 萬二喜; simplified Chinese: 万二喜; pinyin: Wàn Èrxǐ; lit. 'Double Happiness'), Fengxia's husband:
  • Erxi is honest, kind, and loyal. He takes care of Fengxia's parents after Fengxia's death.
• Ni Dahong as Long'er (traditional Chinese: 龍二; simplified Chinese: 龙二; pinyin: Lóng'èr; lit. 'Dragon the Second'):
  • 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.^[3]
• Guo Tao as Chunsheng (Chinese: 春生; pinyin: Chūnshēng; lit. 'Spring-born'):
  • 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.^[13]

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,^[14] 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.^[15]

Ge You, known for his comedic roles, was chosen by Zhang Yimou to play the title character, Fugui. Known for poker-faced comedy, he was not accustomed to expressing emotional states this character requires. Thus, he was not very confident in himself, even protesting going to the Cannes Film Festival where he would eventually garner a best actor award.^[16]

Growing up, Zhang spent his youth years through the Cultural revolution. Having personally experienced what it was like in such a time and setting, he had a very strong understanding and emotional connection with Chinese culture and society.^[17]

As a student who studied screen studies in university in the country's capital city, he and his peers were heavily exposed to various movies from across the world and across time. His classmate, who is now the President of the Beijing Film Academy, stated that during their four years in university, they went through over 500 films, spanning from Hollywood films from the 1930s to Italian Neo-Realism. Zhang stated in a previous interview that, even after many years, he still remembered the culture shock he experienced when first exposed to the wide variety of films.^[17]

The combination of the two very crucial parts of his life provided him with a very strong vision for his films. He was able to have a very strong understanding of both the Chinese national outlook as well as the international outlook of films and applied them extensively throughout his career.^[17]

Zhang described To Live as the film he felt the strongest connection to because of the Cultural Revolution background in the film. The political background of Zhang's family was the label “double-counterrevolutionary”, which was the worst kind of counterrevolutionary. Different from other fifth-generation filmmakers such as Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang, Zhang was in a desperate state and cannot trace back things that were lost during the Cultural Revolution.  Zhang said “For me, that was an era without hope – I lived in a world of desperation”.^[16]

Zhang, in an interview, described how he used different elements that diverged from the original novel. The use of the shadow play and puppet theatre was to emphasize a different visual look. The ending of the film To Live is different from the novel's because Zhang wanted to pass the censorship in China and gain approval from the audience in mainland China, even though the film has not been publicly screened in China yet. On the other hand, Zhang's family had suffered enormously during the Cultural Revolution, but, as Zhang stated, they still survived. Thus, he felt that the book's ending where everyone in Fu Gui's family had died was not as reasonable. Furthermore, Zhang Yimou chose Ge You, who is famous for his comedic roles to play the protagonist, Fu Gui. Ge You actually inspired Zhang to add more humorous elements in the film, therefore it is more reasonable not to kill every character at the end.^[16]

• Moved the setting from rural southern China to a small city in northern China.^[3]
• Added elements of shadow puppetry.^[3]
  • A symbol of wealth. Shows that it is at the mercy of others and can do nothing about its own future.^[18]
• Second narrator and the ox not present in the film.^[3]
• Fugui has a sense of political idealism that he loses by the end of the film.^[15]
• The novel is a retrospective, but Zhang adapts the film without the remembrance tone.^[3]
• Zhang introduced the elimination of Yu Hua's first person narration ^[3]
• Only Fugui survives in the novel, but Fugui, Jiazhen, Erxi, and Mantou all survive in the film.^[3]

In the film of To Live, Zhang Yimou did not choose to directly express the theme of the novel, but to reduce the number of deaths, change the way of death, and cut into the doomed sense of fate to eliminate the audience's immediate depression brought by the story itself. In the film, these deliberately set dramatic turns highlight the theme that those infinitely small people, as living “others”, can only rely on living instinct to bear suffering in history, times and social torrents. The theme of the novel – the ability to bear suffering and the optimistic attitude to the world – is hidden in these little people who are helpless to their own fate, but still live strongly.^[19]

An extremely faithful adaptation of the novel would have been far too dark and depressing for an audience to endure. The original novel's characters continually experience misery and loss, and suffer without a break. It implies a bleaker philosophy on the trials the characters face: that life's suffering is pointless and humans continue living because they feel obligated to continue existing.^[20] The film is optimistic and presents an uplifting interpretation by comparison, portraying an appreciation for the simpler moments of life and that the suffering of life is eventually rewarded. Though Yu Hua continues to prefer his novel, the collaboration between Yu Hua and the film adaptation's screenwriters ensured the core focus of the story–the undying tenacity of the human spirit in the face of suffering–remains clear.^[20] Therefore, Zhang decided to alter certain aspects of the story, removing some of the more tragic elements, in order to make it more accessible. Nevertheless, To Live is still regarded as a good adaptation of the book by many, because it still retains the essence of the story despite these changes.

"Zhang Yimou significantly altered key elements of Yu Hua's novel—shifting the setting from rural southern China to northern small-town, adding shadow-puppetry, and preserving character survival to align with more hopeful cinematic storytelling."^[21]

The film opened on September 16, 1994 in Canada and November 18, 1994 in the United States, expanding to 4 theaters, including Angelika Film Center and Lincoln Plaza in New York City. The film grossed $32,900 during its opening weekend of November 19 to November 20. It went on to gross $2.3 million in the United States and Canada.^[22]

This film was banned in China due to a combination of factors. First, it has a critical portrayal of various policies and campaigns of the Communist Government, such as how the protagonists’ tragedies were caused as a result of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.^[9] Second, Zhang and his sponsors entered the film at the Cannes Film Festival without the usual government's permission, ruffling the feathers of the party.^[9] Lastly, this film suffered from the bad timing of its release, following Farewell My Concubine and The Blue Kite, films which cover almost the same subject matter and historical period. Both of these films had alerted the Chinese government, due to their similar critical portrayals of Chinese policies, and made them very cautious and aware of the need to ban any future films that tried to touch on the same topics.^[9]

Despite being officially banned, the film was widely available on video in China upon its release and was even shown in some theaters.^[23]

To Live received critical acclaim and various critics selected the film in their year end lists.^[24] To Live has an approval rating of 87% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 23 reviews, and an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's critical consensus states: "To Live (Huo zhe) offers a gut-wrenching overview of Chinese political upheaval through the lens of one family's unforgettable experiences".^[25]

There is, among film critics, almost a consensus that To Live is not merely a lament of difficult times, nor a critique of the evils of the totalitarian system, but more “an homage to the characters’ resilience and heroism in their odyssey of survival.” Some scholars further argue that the era's hostile and chaotic environment is not the story itself, but simply serves as a stage for the story.^[9]

• 4th – Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times.^[24]
• 5th – Janet Maslin, The New York Times.^[26]
• 5th – James Berardinelli, ReelViews ^[27]
• 9th – Michael MacCambridge, Austin American-Statesman.^[28]
• Honourable mention – Mike Clark, USA Today.^[29]
• Honourable mention – Betsy Pickle, Knoxville News-Sentinel.^[30]

• Time Out 100 Best Chinese Mainland Films – #8 ^[35]
• Included in The New York Times list of The Best 1000 Movies Ever Made in 2004 ^[36]
• included in CNN's list of 18 Best Asian Movie of All Time in 2008 ^[37]
• The film ranked 41st in BBC's 2018 list of The 100 greatest foreign language films voted by 109 film critics from 43 countries around the world.^[38]

• Dumplings: Youqing's lunch box with dumplings inside is never opened. These dumplings reappear as an offering on Youqing's tomb repeatedly. Rather than being eaten and absorbed, the dumplings are now lumps of dough and meat standing as reminders of a life that has been irreparably wasted.^[3]
• Mantou (steamed wheat bun): When Fengxia is giving birth, Doctor Wang, the only qualified doctor, passes out due to eating too many buns after a long time of hunger. Thus, he is unable to save Fengxia's life. The mantou, meant to ease his hunger, re-hydrates and expands within his stomach, shrunken with starvation. “Filling stomach” ironically leads to the death of Fengxia. The buns do not save a life – they are an indirect killer of Fengxia.^[3]
• Noodles: Youqing uses his meal as revenge for his sister. Although wasted in a literal sense, they are not wasted in Youqing's mind. Food is not merely for “filling a stomach” or “to live.” Similarly, “to live” does not depend solely on food.^[3]

Zhang Yimou deliberately added elements of shadow puppetry to the film, as they were not present in the original novel by Yu Hua.^[39] He intended to strengthen the film's narrative and metaphors, allowing the shadow puppet performances to help drive the narrative throughout the story.^[39] This choice also aligns with Zhang Yimou's broader directorial style. He frequently incorporates traditional Chinese operatic cultural elements, including shadow play, to further the Chinese voice behind his films, aiming to amplify a distinctly Chinese aesthetic.^[40] The shadow play depicted in To Live is characteristic of the melancholic northwestern style of the Shaanxi and Gansu areas, contributing to the tragic mood forged by Yimou.^[41][42]

The shadow puppetry functions as a profound symbol in the film, initially representing a "symbol of wealth" for Fugui, and later metaphorically representing his life as a young man of prestige and power.^[39] Its use suggests that individuals are "at the mercy of others and can do nothing about their own future," directly paralleling the characters' helplessness against larger historical and societal forces.^[39] The film uses shadow play to present the theme that "life is like a play, and a play mirrors life".^[39]

Shadow puppet theatre (piying xi) is one of China's four major types of puppetry, alongside hand, rod, and string puppet traditions[.^[42] Historically, these puppet theatres entertained commoners and nobility, and also served as a means of historical narrative and moral teaching for the uneducated classes.^[42] The film highlights the rarity of seeing Chinese shadow puppetry outside of China, or even in feature films.^[42]

In two places of the film, there is a similar line. The version that appears earlier in the film is: “The little chickens will grow to be ducks, the ducks will become geese, and the geese will become sheep, and the sheep will become oxen, and tomorrow will be better because of communism.” The version that appears later in the film is: “The little chickens will grow to be ducks, the ducks will become geese, and the geese will become sheep, and the sheep will become oxen, and tomorrow will be better.” Both of these interpretations derive from Yu Hua's original quote: “When these chickens grow up they'll become geese, and when the geese grow up they'll become lambs. When the lambs grow up they'll turn into oxen. And us, we'll get richer and richer!”.^[43] Despite the slight variations, this line consistently acts as a picture of the Chinese people's perseverance in the face of historical hardships, giving the feeling of hope for the audience.^[3]

• Censorship in the People's Republic of China
• List of Chinese films
• List of films banned in China
• List of films featuring the deaf and hard of hearing

• Giskin, Howard and Bettye S. Walsh. An Introduction to Chinese Culture Through the Family. SUNY Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-7914-5048-2.
• Xiao, Zhiwei. "Reviewed work(s): The Wooden Man's Bride by Ying-Hsiang Wang; Yu Shi; Li Xudong; Huang Jianxin; Yang Zhengguang Farewell My Concubine by Feng Hsu; Chen Kaige; Lillian Lee; Wei Lu The Blue Kite by Tian Zhuangzhuang To Live by Zhang Yimou; Yu Hua; Wei Lu; Fusheng Chin; Funhong Kow; Christophe Tseng." The American Historical Review. Vol. 100, No. 4 (Oct. 1995), pp. 1212–1215
• Chow, Rey. "We Endure, Therefore We Are: Survival, Governance, and Zhang Yimou's To Live." South Atlantic Quarterly 95 (1996): 1039–1064.
• Shi, Liang. "The Daoist Cosmic Discourse in Zhang Yimou's "to Live"."] Film Criticism, vol. 24, no. 2, 1999, pp. 2–16.
• Berry, Michael (2005). Speaking in images : interviews with contemporary Chinese filmmakers. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-13330-8. OCLC 56614243.

• To Live at IMDb
• To Live at Rotten Tomatoes
• To Live at Box Office Mojo