One of the best films of 1994, To Live is a bold, energetic masterpiece from Zhang Yimou, the foremost director from China's influential "fifth generation" of filmmakers. Continuing his brilliant collaboration with China's best-known actress Gong Li (their previous films include Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern), Zhang weaves an ambitious tapestry of personal and political events, following the struggles of an impoverished husband and wife (Ge You, Gong Li) from their heyday in the 1940s to the hardships that accompanied the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. They raise two children amidst a Communist regime, surviving numerous setbacks and yet managing, somehow, to live. Both intimate and epic, Zhang's film encompasses the simplest and most profound realities of Chinese life during this controversial period, and for their honesty, Zhang and Gong Li faced a two-year ban on future collaborations. To Live is a testament to their art, transcending politics to celebrate the tenacity of ordinary people in the wake of turbulent history. --Jeff Shannon

There is a subtle emphasis on food in the two movies of Yimou Zhang that I have seen, but no plain indication of the Great Chinese Famine of 1958-1961, brought on by the so-called Great Leap Forward to an extent that has been debated. But the historical fact of it is not debated, whatever the whole truth about its causes and whatever the toll, whether 15 million or 36 million. Perhaps Chinese audiences do not need to be reminded of it, but some occidental audiences might need to understand this much about the meaning of a plate of food in such movies.

The movie hardly brings out the worst of the prolonged cataclysms protrayed incidentally: the civil war, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The war scenes are handled in a stylized rather than realistic manner, but this is typical of movies all over the world. Blood and guts, pain and misery, death and destruction, realistically portrayed, in such quantity as war makes for, all for somebody's stubborn greed, would have all the banality of evil and hardly be entertaining or even interesting. The terribly costly political mistakes are not portrayed in their fullness either. When the Red Guards, who in reality caused so much destruction, appear, the movie's squad of them turns out to be exceptional, being led by a shrewd, good-hearted guy. So in this sense of not showing how bad these chapters of history really were, the movie could be considered propaganda. But anybody inclined to dismiss the movie as propaganda should see it and consider how even propaganda has to appeal to already existing values of the target population. This movie appeals to, or counts on, primary values of simple, suffering humanity, values that I hope Americans share. It is remarkable that the movie was allowed to be made in China at all; I hope that it can be shown in China.

After hearing the downright weird voices in the puppet shows and reflecting on them, I realized that our own animated cartoons use strange voices, too.

Personally I think that anybody interested in China should read of Gladys Aylward and other Christians before the Communist take-over. See, for example, _Gladys Aylward: the Little Woman_ (ISBN 0802429866), not the movie made about her, _The Inn of the Sixth Happiness_, which distorts reality quite unnecessarily.

The more profound the art, the more to be sought is He who gave many convincing proofs of His having risen from the dead -- for His, not Chairman Mao's, are the words that will not pass away although heaven and earth will -- and the more memorable is the question, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into the sky?" (Luke 21:33, Acts 1:1,1:11)

This is a fabulous movie and a testimony to the ability of Chinese film makers to tell the story. Hollywood could never put something like this together. It takes the main characters from the time they're newly married and wealthy to the poverty in sunset of their lives. They live quite the lives as they experience the horrors communism wreaks all about them. They go from disaster to disaster, losing everything they have but slowly realizing that they have only each other and that their family is the most precious thing they have. It's a bit disheartening to see that when they lose family members there is no hope or light at the end of the tunnel that they could look forward to. The heartbreak that communist ideology caused by taking away this hope is perhaps its greatest crime. Another required movie.

If any of these virtues exist, it is in this movie. Great actors, I acclaim them, from the child to the old man.

"To Live" was recommended to me by a friend who heard I was reading the biography of Mao Tse Tung. The story follows the life of an average family starting in the 1940s in China and through the 1970s. It is great historical fiction, as you can see traumatic episodes in Chinese history like the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" take place through the eyes of those who have no idea what is going on.

The message of this movie to me was that life is precious, no matter how hard the adversity, trials and afflications you might have to go through. It was definitely an inspiring movie, though it is also heartbreaking at times.

I would recommend to anyone interested in Chinese history or a good foreign film.

An amazing movie. It is one of Gong Li and Zhang Yimou's greatest collaboration. You must see it.