Saturday 15 June 2013

Day 166: To Live


Fugui (You Ge) is addicted to gambling and it all comes to a head when he loses his house and family because of it. His wife eventually comes back to him with their two children but he’s taken off to join the Nationalist army, and then the Communist army. Life is tremendously difficult for Fugui and his family and it seems they rarely have anything go well for them but they continue to bear it, somehow.

What a depressing film, my god. Jiazhen (Li Gong) leaves Fugui and takes their daughter because he cannot stop gambling. That same night he loses the family home, and shortly afterwards his father dies because of it. Jiazhen comes back after having their second child and helps to look after his sick mother. But then Fugui is carted off to the army and his mother dies while he’s gone. When he comes back he finds his daughter is now a mute and has difficulty hearing due to a fever she had. Not long later, his son is accidentally killed by his friend who was in the army with him. Once his daughter is grown, she marries a nice boy and is pregnant. But when she gives birth to her son there are complications and she dies. Just nothing goes right at all. And yet Fugui is convinced his grandson will have a better time and that things will always get better. The will to live is so strong, I just can’t imagine it at all. Despite all the heartache and difficult times they’ve had, he still has hope for the future.

The acting was brilliant. The devastation that Jiazhen and Fugui show when their children die just seemed so real. Neither of them seemed particularly interested in the Communism side of things, they just did whatever it took to carry on.


8/10

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