Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19067 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-07-01
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Colour, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Chinese
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 133 minutes

Customer Reviews

An Absolute Classic of Cinema!
To Live, Huozhe - The Chinese Gone With The Wind

I saw this film at the Curzon Cinema in London's West End in 1994. A soon as the first frame appeared I knew I was watching a Classic.

This Film has to be one of the all time greats. One reviewer called it "The Chinese Gone With The Wind" and I agree to a point.

The central performances in this film are masterful. Li Gong and You Ge are incredible. They age before your eyes with hardly any make-up. It is all relayed in performance. Watch the amazing body movement of Li Gong in the last reel as she convinces us she is an aged woman. Remarkable!!!

The emotions in this film are strong and it is hard now to be moved by them. I particularly love the scene when they both unravel the soaking wet letter. This scene is played with such truthfulness that at points you feel you are watching a slice of real life and not a big budget Chinese movie.

Yimou Zhang is one of the best Directors alive today if not the best. He consistently produces brilliant films his latest being the exception.

Please read my Review of Curse of the Golden Flower

To Experience
The tragedy of the Communist experience as seen thru the eyes of one family. Comic-faced Ge You gives a remarkable performance as the head of the household who is forced to mature under the onslaught of social change. Gong Li offers another great performance as his down-to-earth wife. Here are glimpses of everyday life in another culture over the course of four tumultuous decades. I didn't want it to end.

A movie that feels just so true...
This movie is a life study. It pays a lot of attention to minute detail, renders the transformation of a nation not in general, political terms, like a history book, but in scenes from normal people's lives. It does not label things, it just shows a lifetime of a family. It conveys a great load of emotion, yet does not use it to encourage some way of thinking. It's not a holywood love story with some historical background. It's like a trip to the other side of the mirror: not watching the forces that drove that world, but seeing the people coping with their everyday lives, not understanding where the world is going and often not really caring about it.
I loved the movie and I very much regret, that can't put my hand on any good (DVD) copy of it. I'd recommend watching it.