To Live - Questions

Questions - Provide a thoughtful, thorough explanation of your repsonse to each question.

1. Why do you think the the name of the movie is To Live? I think that the movie is called To Live because it is a story where everyone is struggling to live and ironically, so many characters die in the story and only Fugui, Jiazhen, and their grandson, Little Bun, survive to live.
2. How does the main character, Fugui, represent life in China during this time period? Throughout Fugui's life, Fugui is obsessed with appearing to be an enthusiastic communist supporter because anyone else that is not, is deemed a threat to the communist party, publicly humiliated or sentence to death. An example of this is Long'er, who was humiliated and executed for being a privileged landowner in the pre-communist times of China.
3. How specifically does Fugui's wife, Jiazhen, adapt to the changing times? Fugui and Jiazhen continue their fateful service to the communists in their town, delivering water and surrending all of their cooking pots when iron donations are requested.
4. In what ways did the loss of his house and fortune, ironically, become the best thing that ever happened to Fugui and his family? Fugui finds out that if he had not gambled all of his fortune and his house, he could have ended up like Long'er, being taken away by the soldiers and was executed for Fugui's possessions he won.
5. What do you think of Mr. Niu and what do you suppose happened to him near the end? Mr. Niu was known as a capitalist by the party he has faithfull served since the revolution and he was probably humiliated and executed.
6. How do the two children become victims of the political climate? Give specific example. Youqing was a victim of Mao's great idea of social progress because he died in an accident caused by a political leader, but the family couldn't complain. Fengxia was a victim also because all the doctors were counter-revolutionaries and the nurses at the hospital were inexperienced, and no one knew how to take care of the situation so Fengxia died.
7. The Communist Revolution is widely seen to have been successful in raising living conditions for millions of Chinese peasants. Give some positive examples from the movie of improvements in living conditions and good results from the change in political system. Land reform provided equal opportunities to form a living. Everyone was united and the poor people weren't poor anymore.
8. What is the final positive outcome for this one family? Explain. Fugui losing his house was great for him, because it could have cost Fugui being killed by the communists. Having his son pass on was important because Youqing wouldn't hae to go through the trauma of watching his sister die while giving birth to his newborn nephew.
9. To Live was banned in China, and the director, Zhang Yimou, and the leading actress, Gong Li, were bared from film making for two years. What specifically do you think that the Chinese government objected to? Give at least two or three examples. The government did not want people to see the "bad side" of the cultural revolution. They did not want people to see the failures of the Communist society and agriculture. They also did not want to show the failure of their steel industry.
10. Write your own movie review for this film. (Your rating, how many stars, on a scale of 1 to 5? Who would enjoy it? A 5 to 10 sentence response would suffice. Be sure to refer to a remarkable scene to capture your reader's interest in the movie. I would rate this move a 4/5 because the movie was very well-developed and smooth of a family during the Cutural Revolution. At the film's opening, Jiazhen was so angry at Fugui for gambling all of his property and so she took along Fengxia to another place. Ironically, after all Fugui losing his property was a good thing so he wouldn't end up being executed. I thought that this was really strange how you lose your property and end up being very happy in the family. I would recommend this film to other people who are willing to understand how peoples' lives are like during the Cultural Revolution.