Zhang Yimou’s film To Live (1994) portrays what typical life in China during the Chinese
Revolutionary years may have been like as folks adapted to sweeping policy changes. Yimou’s primary audience are English-speaking intellectuals who are looking for a larger exposure to modern Chinese culture. In adapting his film from the book, Yimou emphasized relatable aspects which ensured that an average viewer may more easily engage with the types of struggles that the Chinese people had been dealing with during the periods covered in the film. The film covers the time from the formation of the CCP until the middle of the Cultural Revolution. The film serves as an effective historical narrative due to its adherence to historical accuracy regarding events that took place that portray the effects of Chinese government policymaking on its constituents. It was on this historical narrative that Yimou directed the dramatic storytelling of the fictional, but relatable, Xu family.
While recovering from his past life as a gambling addict, Xu Fugui was conscripted into the Nationalist (Guomindang) counter-revolution. This policy of conscription lead to splitting families apart and in doing so he was abruptly separated from his mother, wife and children. This was discussed when he says, “But who will look after my wife, my kids, my old mother?” (To Live 29:00 – 29:05).
There was no solution for this known to him at the time, and the policy exposed individuals to the loss of their family support systems which left them vulnerable. During his conscription he was captured by the Communist forces and then once again conscripted, but this time as an entertainer where he would put on his shadow puppet shows for the army. He was eventually released and returned home. This policy of conscripting counter-revolutionary forces by the CCP, rather than killing them, was a direct result of Mao’s beliefs about thought reform. Dr. Grasso discusses the approach to this ideology in Modernization and Revolution in China by writing that, “The CCP learned that it was more efficacious to have the damned serve socialism through compulsory labor than as fertilizer. Those who were at least ready to work should be spared, said Mao…”. (Grasso 96). The realization of this idea lead to folks such as Xu Fugui staying alive after having been captured. It also enabled him to return home to his family. This policy was reflected in the film when Lao Quan says, “Better to wait and become a POW. The Reds send POWs home.” (To Live 33:40 – 33:45). The more humane approach toward human life garnered high levels of appeal in Mao’s constituents.
Xu Fugui’s return home revealed many political changes, which he quickly adapted to. One policy of the CCP that was immediately revealed to him was how his family was taken care of in his absence. In a conversation with him, his wife Jiazhen says, “The new government paid for mother’s burial, and gave me this job delivering water.” (To Live 44:45 – 44:52). The centrally planned structure that the CCP was following at the time mirrored the Soviet style which structured work by having bureaucrats dictate what kinds of jobs people would receive from the government. Centralized policies such as this wouldn’t be rejected until the Great Leap Forward (Grasso 117). This policy offered little
room for career mobility, but in exchange offered a more secure life for many people. The entire family, including the children and then later her husband, were assigned the job in the movie. Jiazhen stressed that the work had impacted the children’s lives leading to them not getting enough rest.
Another policy that affected the Xu family was the classifying of people into different classes such as working class or landowners. With Xu Fugui’s past as a wealthy landowner, the Xu family had to conceal, dismiss or denounce their history a few times in the film. This was shown in the scene where Xu Fugui witnessed that Long’er, whom Fugui had lost his home to through a gambling debt, had been shot five times due to resisting having his home taken away. The moment revealed to Xu Fugui that by losing his home, he was spared from being labeled as a landlord in the revolution. He describes the importance of this when he says, “If I hadn’t lost my house to him, that’d have been me.” (To Live 49:40 – 49:50). These classifications, and the organizations such as Red Guards and Peasant Organizations which enforced the policy, served to break down traditional life through societal upheaval that Mao Zedong had kept under control by rewarding folks through a process of land reallocation after the landowners were killed by CCP officials.
During the Great Leap Forward (GLF) scenes, the use of communal kitchens were included in the film. CCP policy leveraged communal kitchens in place of personal kitchens in an attempt to more efficiently feed people. The CCP also benefited from metal cookware donated by families, which was smelted for war efforts. This donation was a source of pride in the local community as per the scene where they all woke up from partying the night before to a lump of smelted metal being paraded through the street on its way to a foundry for processing (To Live 1:06:55 – 1:08:10). This smelting was often performed using child labor, where Fugui’s son was a worker at one of the factories.
During a work shift, his son was killed in an accident after having fallen asleep for having worked so many days in a row that he was too exhausted to stay awake. This policy was part of the Great Leap Forward, where the CCP had encouraged people to work extreme hours. This was summarized by Dr. Grasso who writes that, “The frantic pace of the work on these furnaces was matched in regular factories, where machines ran night and day as some workers vacated their homes and simply moved into the plants so they could labor around the clock.” (Grasso 118). The film scene served to show the impact that many
families had to endure, which often included injury and exhaustion in order to fulfill GLF expectations.
In conclusion, Zhang Yimou’s film portrays what typical life in China during the Chinese
Revolutionary years may have been like. Yimou accomplished this by emphasizing relatable aspects of normal life, a few of which were discussed in this essay. The story told was built on a historically accurate narrative in which many of the effects of policymaking by the Chinese government could be seen and understood. It stressed the effects which impacted every single person in China at the time.
Works Cited
Grasso, June M., et al. Modernization and Revolution in China. 6th ed., Routledge, 2024.
To Live [China: Huozhe, 1994]. Dir. Zhang Yimou. Wr. Yu Hua and Lu Wei. [Based on the novel Huozhe by Yu Hua.]. Perf. Ge You [Fugui] and Gong Li [Jiazhen]. Golden Frog Srls., 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HorOrml6hKg. Accessed 07Oct2025.