Film review: A simple Life

< A simple life > is a tear-jerker film in the year 2012 in Hong Kong by one of the most famous female director in Hong Kong Ann Hui. Adapted by a real story, Roger Lee is a film producer who lives with his servant Tao Jie, who served his family for over 60 years since teenager. One day Tao gets a stroke and asks to live in a care home. The highlight of the whole film is the life after Tao moves to the care house, there isn’t any conflict in this film, and instead it persists the rhythm of reality as much as it could. As the English name of this film, it is a simple but real life, almost the circumstances everyone may meet in our life in China.

In order to integrate with the world market, the film industry in Hong Kong nowadays lays great emphasize on commercial films. Among 81 films which were produced and shown in 2012, < A simple life >is the only one which explores the relationship between people and the social phenomenon. The aged tendency of population, high property price, the attitudes to new immigrants and so on. With the documentary-view shots throughout the film, I see what life is like in a care home, lonely and helpless. The emotions between Tao and Roger is subtle and implicit, in the beginning of the film, Roger, as a master in the house, is accustomed to have Tao cooking and cleaning for him, he even looks a little unconcerned about her. After Tao gets the stroke, Roger starts to realize how she takes good care of him in the past, the distance between them melts. We all have a ‘Tao’ around us, she may be our grandma, nice lady in the neighborhood or the teacher at high school, they are selfless to us, but we hardly pay back with our time and attention. As the director Ann commented the film herself: “The younger generation ought to know what they have lost.”

Ann Hui, as one of the greatest female directors in China, has her own style of directing. She casts her story, emotion, affection or even anxiety into films. As a 65 years old single lady who lives with her mother, it’s oblivious to see the purpose she chose this script at the first place. It’s no doubt a melancholy story, but we see hope, we see the desire of finding the intimacy back among us, we are still working on it.