Good critique of the Maoist era in China

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	• To Live You Ge, Li Gong MGM (Video & DVD), 2003 average customer review:based on 113 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Good critique of the Maoist era in China

I got this DVD for my husband. Here's his review:
As a Boston public high school teacher, I purchased this film on the recommendation of my colleagues. The setting starts from the post-Japanese invasion of China, through the Chinese civil war, Communist victory, Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. Through the experience of one family, the film provides a critique of the Maoist policies and personality cult. No wonder the film (and book) has been banned in China. The (beautiful) actress Gong Li provides a compelling portrayal of the riches-to-rags bride and mother in the story. Do prepare lots of Kleenex before watching the film.

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To Live and to Teach

I watched this film when it first came out and again recently. It is a sweeping, yet personal representation of the suffering of the chinese people during the second half of the 20c. Though the film maker needed to disguise the horror of many episodes in the lives of his characters behind humor or overly gentle portrayal, it does not take much to see past this to the real messages of the film. I watched the film with my 7th grade class. They were deeply moved and were given images to attach to abstract historical periods. They loved it. I highly recommend this film to all viewers over the age of 10.

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Spellbinding...a Masterpiece

If To Live's title, as Roger Ebertt says, "conceals a universe," then watching this engrossing, exhilirating and extravagant film surely reveals one. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival, this epic film from China's most renowned director, Zhand Yimou (Oscar nominee for Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern), unveils a world worthy of "a Chinese Gone With the Wind" (The New York Observer)! Set against four decades of Chinese political turmoil, To Live follows the lives of one couple, Fugui and Jiazhen (Ge You and Gong Li), as they struggle to survive their own changing station within the upheaval. As the years go by, bringing bizarre twists, tragic losses...and profound hope, Fugui and his family persevere, striving to reach a calm within the storm so they can do the one thingthe one thing they've always wanted: To Live.

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A Window into Communist China

"To Live" is an outstanding film directed by the talented Chinese director Zhang Yimou. The film chronicles the lives of a married couple, Fugui and Jiazhen, from the 1940s, prior to the Communist takeover, to the 1970s in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. Despite many heartbreaking hardships, they remain committed to each other and to their family. The film gave me as a Westerner an instructive introduction to modern Chinese history through the life experience of this family. It also offers a compelling example of marital and familial loyalty.

That this film was made in Communist China is remarkable. In a low-key but pointed manner, the movie is very critical of the Communist Chinese system. A Chinese student friend informed me that the film was banned from movie theaters in China, although one could find it on video/dvd. The film shows the negative consequences of Communism's ceaseless public pressure to accomplish various goals and insure social conformity. Fugui's precious puppets are almost destroyed in the 1950's as part of a community drive to produce steel and are finally destroyed completely in the 1960's to shield the family from scrutiny during the Cultural Revolution. Fugui is fearfully eager to prove that he and his family are loyal supporters of the Revolution given their wrong social origins as members of the upper classes. He frantically retrieves his letter of commendation from the Communist army when his wife nearly ruins it in the laundry. The letter is carefully framed and provides them with important political protection. His fears of not fitting in with Communist society and possibly being targeted as a troublemaker or enemy of the state lead to the death of their precious son. After days without adequate rest because of the mass effort to meet their area's steel quota, Fugui overrides his wife's wish to let their son sleep and miss school because an important Communist political functionary will be visiting the school. In a heavily symbolic moment, the overtired functionary, who has fallen asleep at the wheel, crashes into a wall killing the overtired and also sleeping son. The Communist leader turns out to be Fugui's old friend who had worked with him in the traveling puppet theater and served with him when both were forced into the Communist army. While optimism and benevolent social goals mark Communist society at the time, the system also created an atmosphere of fear and conformity. Fugui and his family, as well as his former friend the Communist bureaucrat are all suffering.

A generation later during the Cultural Revolution, the pathology of Communism has worsened. The fanatical cadres of younger Communists turn on the older generations, including the old Communist leaders, doctors, scientists, intellectuals, artists, and professionals. The requirements for social conformity have only intensified. In the tragic climax of the film, Fugui and Jiazhen's only surviving child dies in childbirth because all the doctors have been expelled from the hospitals by the zealous Marxist students. What was once a mix of hopeful altruism and oppressive force has degenerated into outright insanity.

But Fugui and Jiazhen survive this senseless and entirely avoidable tragedy as they have survived so much already. This is the film's final word--that the strength of the Chinese people, rooted in fidelity to marriage and family--will withstand personal failings as well as large political and social forces, even the anti-human and anti-Chinese Marxist system.

It is well-known how much China has distanced itself from the Cultural Revolution and even the central economic philosophy of traditional Marxism. The Chinese enjoy much greater economic and personal freedom than in that sad era. Yet political and religious freedoms are still greatly circumscribed, as the anniversary of Tianamen Square and the present experience of many Chinese Christians remind us. But the Chinese people, strong and resilient, will continue to seek for that better life that all mankind hopes for.

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An outstanding Chinese movie

Of all the Chinese movies I have seen, 'To Live' has impressed me most. It is the story of a Chinese family, during revolutionary social changes. The chaos and cruelties during the so-called 'Cultural Revolution', can only be imagined by people who haven't lived then and there, including former residents of Communist Eastern European countries like myself.
Recently,I've been thinking of a scene in the movie. The main character is a gambling addict and he's been losing more and more money with each visit to the gambling house.
One night, after they close down the business, the owners look at the book and one of them says: "Just a few more times, and we'll own his house", which in the end they do.
Does this remind anyone of our own failings and of the present economic relationship between the US and China? Will they end up owning us? The way we run our own economy, we might very well deserve it, just like the character in the movie did.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

The story of Fugui and Jiazhen, and their family's struggle for survival from the 1940's through the 1980's.
Genre: Foreign Film - Chinese
Rating: UN
Release Date: 24-JUL-2007
Media Type: DVD

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