To Live (1994 film)

To Live
US Theatrical release poster
Traditional Chinese活著
Simplified Chinese活着
Literal meaningalive / to be alive
Hanyu PinyinHuózhe
Directed byZhang Yimou
Screenplay byLu Wei
Based onTo Live
by Yu Hua
Produced byChiu Fu-sheng
Funhong Kow
Christophe Tseng
Starring
CinematographyLü Yue
Edited byDu Yuan
Music byZhao Jiping
Distributed byThe Samuel Goldwyn Company
Release date
  • May 18, 1994 (1994-05-18) (Cannes)
Running time
132 minutes
CountriesChina, Taiwan
LanguageMandarin
Box office$2.3 million (US/Canada)[1]

To Live, also titled Lifetimes in some English versions,[2] is a 1994 Chinese drama film directed by Zhang Yimou and written by Lu Wei, based on the novel of the same name by Yu Hua. It was produced by the Shanghai Film Studio and ERA International, starring Ge You and Gong Li, in her seventh collaboration with director Zhang Yimou.

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 high schools and colleges.[5]

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.[6] Furthermore, To Live brought home the Grand Prix, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, and Best Actor Award (Ge You)[7] from the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, the highest major international awards Zhang Yimou has ever won.[8]

The film was denied a theatrical release in mainland China by the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television[9] due to its critical portrayal of policies and campaigns.

  1. ^ To Live at Box Office Mojo
  2. ^ Yu, Hua. Editor: Michael Berry. To Live. Random House Digital, Inc., 2003. 242. ISBN 978-1-4000-3186-3.
  3. ^ Chow, Rey (1996). "We Endure, Therefore We Are: Survival, Governance, and Zhang Yimou's To Live". South Atlantic Quarterly. 95 (4): 1039–1064. doi:10.1215/00382876-95-4-1039.
  4. ^ James, Caryn (1994-11-18). "Film Review; Zhang Yimou's 'To Live'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
  5. ^ Amy Mungur, “Chinese Movies and History Education: The Case of Zhang Yimou's 'To Live',” History Compass 9,7 (2011): 518–524.
  6. ^ Klapwald, Thea (1994-04-27). "On the Set with Zhang Yimou". The International Herald Tribune. Archived from the original on 2012-09-18. Retrieved 2007-05-10.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference festival-cannes.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Shi, Liang (1999). "The Daoist Cosmic Discourse in Zhang Yimou's To Live". Film Criticism. 24 (2): 2–16. JSTOR 44018936 – via JSTOR.
  9. ^ Zhang Yimou. Frances K. Gateward, Yimou Zhang, University Press of Mississippi, 2001, pp. 63-4.