Today is my fifth day of quarantine, i have 9 more days to go.
This film is based on the novel of Yuhua ‘To Live’. The film is based on the Chinese Civil War and the political movements since the founding of New China. It reflects the fate of a generation of Chinese through the ups and downs of the male protagonist Fu Gui ’s life.
People are a grain of sand surging with the waves of the great era. The family of Fugui’s who lived in the turbulent times have experienced too many hardships and separation of life and death. Their only belief is to live well.When Fugui lost his wealth since he is a compulsive gambler, this cause his wife to leave him along with his daughter and his unborn son. For the first time, he realized that he had nothing and wandered on the streets. He was forced to make a living by doing shadow play. Like his puppet, he feels like he is manipulated by strings and can not decide his own destiny.
After this his wife is back along with his son, In addition to her daughter Fengxia. Although the family is poor, they are happy. It didn’t take long for a bayonet to cut through the shadow puppetry, and Fugui were captured and forced to join the army. On the battlefield, his belief was to go back alive to see his wife and children. Long Er a gentry, also the person who won Fugui’s wealth was criticized as counter-revolution and was shot to death, since Long Er refuse to donate any of his property to the communist people government. This terrified Fugui since he was a gentry as well, he’s afraid that he is going to be executed. However in the end, Youqin died in a car crash, her daughter bleeds to death during delivery.
“To live” is a film that spans a long period of time. History condenses into the fate of the individual. At the same time, the fate of the individual also reflects the fate of the society, allowing us to see the face of history more clearly. The protagonist Fu Gui’s experience is extremely miserable. He has experienced almost all the storms of that era, and more or less can see the life of our ancestors on his experience. Through the life experience of a person, the film covers the pain of life in which the destiny of man cannot be controlled in history, and derives the bitter smile between life and death, and the ruthless destiny. In the life of Fu Gui, he was a compulsive gambler. He gave up his wife and gave up his son to bet on money. The fear of five bullets knocked down the landlord Hao Kun and the grief when his son died. So much misfortune came to him like drama, destiny, helpless, he have no choice but to bear it. To live painfully today is to open your eyes tomorrow and continue to live painfully? What is the meaning of living? Perhaps the belief in living is that you must believe that you will live better and better, but this movie tells us: people live for the sake of living itself, not for anything other than living.
This movie involves a lot of political activities at the time that i can not explain perfectly, so i suggests people who are interested to watch themselves.
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