Synopsis
To Live (活着, 1994) is a Chinese epic drama directed by Zhang Yimou — watch it online on iFILM. Gong Li and Ge You play a couple swept through three decades of upheaval: civil war, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution. They didn't choose any of it.
Fugui starts out as a gambling heir who loses the family estate in a card game and ends up conscripted into a war he barely understands. His wife Jiazhen holds things together back home while China reinvents itself over and over, each time grinding ordinary families down. Zhang Yimou keeps the camera close to the two of them rather than the history books — which is exactly why it hits harder than any panoramic epic.
The film competed at Cannes in 1994 and was banned from Chinese cinemas for decades, which tells you something about how clearly it saw the era. Watch To Live online on iFILM.
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