A Simple Life (2011)

How sad is this?

Great Film overall

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

A simple life tells us a story of a housemaid' last year of her life. The heroine of the film, named Tao, had been a housemaid in Andy' family for the last 60 years. She came to Andy's house when she was 16 years old , she grew up with Andy's mother and the growing up of Andy was before her very eyes. She served Andy with great care including cooking dinner, washing clothes, cleaning the room as well as feeding a cat. At the first shot of the movie, Tao was going across a crowed and noisy outdoor market to buy fishes for dinner, she picked up the goods so carefully that the shopkeeper seemed impatient. When she came home, she prepared a big meal for Andy. Ai night, Tao was always standing in the balcony waiting for Andy, therefore every time Andy came home, she would see the warm yellow light on the second floor, then Tao would serve the food for Andy .That is almost everything Tao will do in her daily life. However, one time Andy saw the yellow light when he came back but he could not open the door. He yelled loudly, hoping Tao would hear him, but finally he realized something was wrong with Tao. Tao suffered a stroke and could hardly walk without the walking stick. Andy was wondering to find a new housemaid to take care of her while Tao insisted to live in the nursery using her own money. Tao came into the nursery, and Andy couldn't get used to the life without Tao, he realized how important Tao was. Tao was already the number of his family from the bottom of her heart, Tao was even more intimate than his mother. He began to company Tao with unprecedented love and patient until her death. The whole story is really flat and slow, you can hardly find any ups and downs. Even when it comes the death, it seems so natural. But it still has a big power to move audiences, because so many little details in the film are likely happening in everyone's daily life. At the end, we all have to face the fear of death ,and at that time, all we need is love and company. In this film, wo can see so clearly the grand love in small person, it's pure and selfless.

How to write about simple movie? And how tell about simple life? How to live such life? Perhaps the answer to these questions lie exactly here. But first, it takes strength and courage to overcome yourself, your self-esteem, dreams and ambitions. It takes curiosity and thirst for life.The film comes into our minds easily and quickly shows us the power of being, of being born with the fate of being a human being in its overall appearance. Shows how quickly are changing the roles of young and old, it shows what should be the relationship between people, always. It shows where is the spring of goodness and that it is there because "You have to be at rest first with yourself before helping others"... with unabated good that enjoys anyone to whom it touches. That everyone accepts as a given, but feels the pain of its loss.How nice it is when our deepest desires are so simple. When we are truly, picky, but because we are looking for soul mates. How nice it is to experience the happiness of loving relatives, to know your place and perhaps, most importantly, not cheating in first place - not cheating yourself.http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.com/

This is a simple film - two main characters with no blood relation and yet deeply connected to each other - and presumably made with a modest budget. It is slow, and arguably a tad long (but I am OK with it), but as the story evolves I begin to care about them.As a film it is a great antidote to the sex, violence, intriguing plots, and CGI (I must admit I like some of those too) that we are so used to on the big screen these days. Director Ann Hui indicated the story was inspired by true events and I believe her. What makes this story unique is we are looking at love, respect and a feeling of duty and obligation between two human beings as if they were mother and son - but they are not. Instead, what started out as a servant-master relationship transcended itself to become something more sublime when the care-giver became incapacitated and the table was turned. When this happened the roles were reversed and yet it happened in such an unforced, natural and leisurely fashion.There are tear-jerking moments, of course, but they came in such an unpretentious manner. The ending is as you would expect when age and illness took their toll on Tao Jie, played by Deannie Yip. And yet, I finished watching the film feeling uplifted, and with a strong sense of hope on humanity.

I saw this film during the film festival in Norway; it's been a long, long time since I watched a movie which captivated me even after the credit started to roll.It's a movie which primarily focus on every little moment of an elderly woman, but it is never a dull moment as the first impression might seem. It's a movie which really drives you to care for the characters in a natural way as opposed to many films where they "force" you with "natural" gimmicks. No, this movie broke most typical western styles, but at the same time made it entertaining and thrilling. It's a movie where there're no explosions, no foresight drama or no extreme twists... it's truly, a simple life, which showed me how simple it can be to be humble, and care for those we love.